policy-coherence-audit

name	policy-coherence-audit
description	Detect and remove contradictions across agent policies before execution.

Policy Coherence Audit Skill

Purpose

Detect and remove contradictions across agent policies before execution.

Use when

• Updating AGENTS.MD
• Merging new workflow rules
• Noticing behavioral ambiguity during execution

Checklist

• Language coherence: English-only wording.
• Interaction coherence: one question + 5-option model is consistently respected.
• Gate coherence: completion gates apply to both Non-Breaking and Breaking paths.
• Scope coherence: avoid wording that causes uncontrolled scope creep.
• Reference coherence: every mentioned skill path exists.
• Harness coherence: Canonical SSOT (SQLite) is never bypassed by manual tool/DB mutation.
• Memory coherence: mem0 writes must carry the 5 mandatory canonical scopes (workspace, project, campaign, task, run).
• Session coherence: harness_session(action: "begin") is the ONLY way to start/reconcile a task.

Short examples

• Fix mixed language term: "TASSATIVO" -> "MANDATORY".
• Fix model mismatch: "propose one option" -> explicit 5-option decision set.

Resolution Order

When two policies conflict, resolve them in this order:

1. safety and public-boundary validation
2. canonical HarnessOS lifecycle rules
3. explicit user choice for the current task
4. repo-local conventions and quality gates
5. stylistic or wording preferences

If two rules still conflict after this ordering, rewrite the policy so only one source of truth remains.

Typical Contradictions To Fix

Conflict	Fix
“Be autonomous” vs “ask after every completion”	make the ask happen at issue boundaries only, not mid-issue
“Keep versioning simple” vs “bump every internal contract major”	separate package version from schema/contract versions and document both
“Use HarnessOS only” vs ad-hoc SQLite/file mutation	route all canonical task state through the official Harness tools
“Use one question with five options” vs freeform open-ended prompts	keep option 4 as Freeform and move nuance into the option descriptions

Anti-patterns

• Leaving ambiguous precedence between structural and surgical strategies
• Contradictory clauses in different sections
• Referencing non-existent skill files
• Encoding public package version, schema version, and contract version as if they were the same thing