Nothing You Notice Gets Lost

Press Release

abcd turns the steady drip of nitpicks, review findings, and "huh, that's odd" moments into a queryable ledger. A new /abcd:capture command writes structured iss-N entries in seconds; the entries live in a committed .abcd/work/issues/ ledger with stable IDs (iss-N) and folder-as-status (open/, resolved/, wontfix/). The Mandatory Issue Recording rule no longer depends on the agent remembering — there's a fast deliberate path with a structured destination, and the ledger is ready for the cross-corpus synthesist (/abcd:dredge, see itd-25) to mine once enough data has accumulated.

"I do thorough plan and implementation reviews and they always surface nitpicks the agent files away in the transport output but not on disk," said Maya, autonomous-development practitioner. "I'd write 'remember to log this' a dozen times a session and still lose half of them. With abcd, I just say 'capture: T7 cache_ttl_days dead-config alternative' and it's structured, IDed, and queryable. The synthesis layer (itd-25) depends on the ledger having enough volume to be worth synthesising — but the capture surface is there from day one."

Why This Matters

The ~/ABCDevelopment/.claude/CLAUDE.md Mandatory Issue Recording rule is correct in spirit but unreliable in practice. Reviews and manual testing surface nitpicks that vanish unless the persona explicitly tells the agent to log them. When they are logged, .abcd/.work.local/issues.md is gitignored, per-repo, free-form Markdown — there's no way to ask "what categories of finding recur across my repos and over time?".

Two distinct problems compound: capture is unreliable (during-work) and synthesis doesn't exist (over-time, cross-repo). They have very different value-timing: capture earns its keep on day one; synthesis only earns its keep once a meaningful ledger has accumulated. This intent ships capture only. The cross-corpus synthesist that uses the ledger as input is a separate intent (itd-25), deferred until the ledger has sufficient volume.

This split closes a separate loop on /abcd:capture as a command name. The maritime-metaphor review for /abcd:intent established that "capture" is too neutral for product-framing intent work — but it's exactly right for issues, where the verb genuinely shouldn't pre-commit to whether a finding is a bug, nitpick, or systemic pattern. The synthesist (itd-25) decides that later. So abcd lands /abcd:capture not as a rename of /abcd:intent but as its sibling. Two meta-development surfaces with distinct jobs: intent frames product, capture ingests signal. capture and intent are metaphor-exempt; dredge (itd-25) rejoins the maritime convention as the cross-corpus counterpart to lifeboat.

Brief-revision dependency: Promoting this intent invalidates several "5 commands" claims in the brief body. Brief revisions land in the accompanying brief rewrite, not at intent-plan time.

What's In Scope

• /abcd:capture command (6th plugin command) — single-entry ingest, with subverbs:
  • capture <text> — fast path; appends a structured iss-N entry to the ledger with auto-assigned iss-N, timestamp, and source provenance (which session / command / file the persona was in)
  • capture list [--open|--resolved|--wontfix|--all] — query the ledger
  • capture promote <iss-N> — promote an iss-N entry to an intent draft (calls /abcd:intent new with the entry body + bidirectional link)
  • capture resolve <iss-N> — move to resolved/ with optional resolution note
  • capture wontfix <iss-N> <reason> — move to wontfix/ with explicit decision
• iss-N ledger structure at .abcd/work/issues/:
  • open/iss-N-<slug>.md — captured, not yet acted on
  • resolved/iss-N-<slug>.md — fixed (with resolution notes)
  • wontfix/iss-N-<slug>.md — explicit non-action decision
  • Frontmatter schema: id, slug, severity, category, source (review / manual-test / drift / nitpick / observation), found_during, found_at (path), related_intents (list of itd-N), related_epics (list of spc-N), created, updated
  • Folder-as-status (mirrors intent and spec-roadmap conventions)
  • Stable iss-N IDs (unpadded; mirrors itd-N convention; lexical-vs-numeric sort handled at tool layer)
• Brief § 5 update (lands in the accompanying brief rewrite): exemption note for /abcd:intent + /abcd:capture; reserved-meta-command table covering /abcd:dredge (see itd-25), /abcd:audit (reserved, see itd-16 hash-chain-merkle-audit), /abcd:reflect (reserved, see itd-24).
• .abcd/.work.local/issues.md migration path: dev-sync promotes existing .abcd/.work.local/issues.md entries to the structured ledger on first run after install (or first /abcd:ahoy upgrade). Idempotent. Old .abcd/.work.local/issues.md becomes a staging buffer (still works for ad-hoc scribbles; promoted on next dev-sync or /abcd:capture promote).
• intent-fidelity-reviewer extension: when an intent ships that was promoted from an iss-N entry, the reviewer cross-references whether the related iss-N entry actually moved to resolved/. Mismatch = drift finding.

What's Out of Scope

• /abcd:dredge cross-corpus synthesist — a separate intent (itd-25). Capture's value is immediate (every captured iss-N entry is useful from day one); dredge's value depends on having an accumulated ledger to synthesise. Shipping dredge without a meaningful ledger produces a synthesist with nothing to synthesise.
• issue-synthesist agent — belongs to itd-25 (/abcd:dredge).
• Auto-capture hooks (the "B" tier of the design exploration). Stop-hook / PostToolUse heuristic extraction of iss-N-shaped statements from session output. Brittle on output-style drift; risks false-positive fatigue. Defer until the ledger has accumulated real usage data showing whether the manual path's volume is sufficient.
• Cross-repo iss-N copying. Entries stay in the repo where they were captured. No "promote to a global ledger" behaviour.
• Severity-based prioritisation UI. This intent surfaces severity as frontmatter; no dashboard, no SLA, no triage workflow.
• Renaming /abcd:intent to /abcd:capture. Explicitly considered and rejected.
• Real-time iss-N tracking integration (Linear / GitHub Issues sync). The existing issue-scout agent already covers GitHub upstream annotation; sync in the other direction is a separate intent.

Scope Conditions

None stated.

Acceptance Criteria

BDD format, per itd-1-acceptance-gates. These gates are checked by intent-fidelity-reviewer when this intent moves to shipped/.

• Given an abcd-installed repo, when the persona runs /abcd:capture "review nitpick: T7 cache_ttl_days dead-config alternative", then a new file .abcd/work/issues/open/iss-N-<slug>.md exists with frontmatter populated (id, severity, category, source, found_during) and the captured text in the body.
• Given an existing iss-N entry at .abcd/work/issues/open/iss-3-foo.md, when the persona runs /abcd:capture resolve iss-3 "fixed in spc-7 task 4", then the file moves to .abcd/work/issues/resolved/iss-3-foo.md with the resolution note appended to the body.
• Given an existing iss-N entry, when the persona runs /abcd:capture promote iss-N, then /abcd:intent new is invoked with the entry's content as the seed; the resulting intent's frontmatter has related_issues: [iss-N]; the iss-N entry's frontmatter has related_intents: [itd-M] (the new intent's ID). Drift detection enforced by spc-23 (predecessor store; intent-fidelity-reviewer --issue-drift).
• Given a fresh /abcd:ahoy upgrade with an existing .abcd/.work.local/issues.md, when dev-sync runs, then every entry in .abcd/.work.local/issues.md is promoted to a corresponding .abcd/work/issues/open/iss-N-<slug>.md with provenance noting "migrated from .abcd/.work.local/issues.md".
• Given the persona runs /abcd:capture list --open, when there are 5 open iss-N entries, then the output lists all 5 with id, slug, severity, and one-line summary.

Open Questions

• Manual-only capture vs hook-assisted. This intent defers auto-capture (B) to a future intent. Should a minimal hook ship (e.g., a Stop-hook that simply prompts "Any captures from this session?" rather than auto-extracting), or wait for ledger-volume data first?
• iss-N ID space — per repo, or global across the corpus? Per-repo is simpler and matches itd-N (which is per-plugin-repo). Global would require a registry. Default: per-repo.
• Promotion from iss-N → intent: 1:1 only. N:1 (multiple iss-N entries fold into a single intent) pairs naturally with itd-25 (dredge) and is deferred to that intent. This intent supports 1:1 only.
• Migration semantics for existing .abcd/.work.local/issues.md. The current file has rich free-form structure (categories in [brackets], "Found while", "Location", "Details", "Suggested fix"). The structured ledger should preserve all of this. Do we auto-migrate (risk: lossy) or interactive-migrate (cost: tedious for ~20 existing entries)?

Implementing specs

itd-4 was implemented across multiple specs of the superseded pre-Go record system; those ids are preserved below as history. The native spec store reuses each number for another spec, so each carries the predecessor-store qualifier. The frontmatter spec_id records the native spec, spc-6, the record catch-up that verifies the shipped engine against the Acceptance Criteria and carries the open AC3 (promote) gap. Historical index:

• spc-20 (predecessor store; primary) — iss-N-ledger primitives (iss-N allocator, schema, capture/resolve/wontfix/update_field workflow, structure under .abcd/work/issues/).
• spc-21 (predecessor store) — /abcd:capture command surface (flow-text ingest into the ledger).
• spc-22 (predecessor store) — .abcd/.work.local/issues.md migration to the structured ledger (dev-sync work orchestrator, regex-extracted intent linkage on migrated issues).
• spc-23 (predecessor store) — intent-fidelity-reviewer --issue-drift mode (bidirectional cross-reference walk; reader half of the bidirectional contract).

Audit Notes

Fidelity review — receipt rcp-2662745d5344 (verifier intent-auditor claude-fable-5-1).

Provenance: intent-auditor@claude-fable-5-1 · rubric_hash sha256:effa65b3e9e88ff29433b443ec2be159522a8b0b71cf1434526514aa61edb13e · prompt_hash sha256:63bbd14cfb62139b464a3b8539b3fefb484da8342a9dfa91bc2373aa0f092da4 Input attestations: diff:e86d4f95..07b41ab5 (PR #689, tree read at 07b41ab5)@sha256:32bb9ea2da11af3bf3bf14944bdd3d23bdd28da6be56765809fae7d0d437d984;

Acceptance rollup: MET 1 · MET_WITH_CONCERNS 3 · NOT_MET 1 · INCONCLUSIVE 0

Per-criterion verdicts:

• ac-1 — MET: capture writes open/iss-N-< slug>.md with id, severity, category, source and found_during in frontmatter and the text as body; the round-trip test asserts every field and the filename; the plugin page invokes the same verb evidence: internal/core/capture/workflow.go:132 — "{"severity", string(req.Severity)}, {"category", ...}, {"source", ...}, {"found_during", req.FoundDuring}" evidence: internal/core/capture/workflow_test.go:89 — "func TestCaptureAppendAndReadBack" evidence: internal/core/capture/workflow_test.go:165 — "filepath.Base(got.Path) != tc.want.ID+"-"+tc.want.Slug+".md"" evidence: commands/capture.md:4 — "argument-hint: "[text] | list --open|--resolved|--wontfix|--all | ..."
• ac-2 — MET_WITH_CONCERNS: resolve moves open/ to resolved/ and persists the note, but as the frontmatter scalar resolution: rather than appended to the body as the criterion says; the divergence is signed off (dcn-2607170000000002, adjudication 1) and the test asserts the scalar evidence: internal/core/capture/workflow.go:289 — "transition(req.RepoRoot, req.IssuesRoot, req.ID, "resolve", "resolution", req.Resolution," evidence: internal/core/capture/workflow_test.go:291 — "tr.FromStatus != StateOpen || tr.ToStatus != StateResolved" evidence: internal/core/capture/workflow_test.go:299 — "lr.Issues[0].Resolution !=" evidence: dcn-2607170000000002 — "AC2's resolve note lives as the structured frontmatter scalar resolution: ... not body-appended prose as the AC letter says"
• ac-3 — MET_WITH_CONCERNS: promote mints the draft with related_issues: [iss-N] and appends itd-M to the issue's related_intents, the drift walker checks the join and is enforced in preflight and CI; concerns: the seed is a by-id pointer, not the entry's content (spc-24 design), the mint goes through intent.CreateDraft rather than a /abcd:intent new invocation (that alias is deprecated), and the check is named abcd intent audit --issue-drift, not intent-fidelity-reviewer evidence: internal/core/capture/promote.go:222 — "RelatedIssue: req.ID," evidence: internal/core/intent/create.go:427 — "b.WriteString(RelatedIssuesKey + ": [" + opts.RelatedIssue + "]\n")" evidence: internal/core/capture/promote.go:266 — "setListField(content, "related_intents", appendUnique(related, itdID))" evidence: internal/core/intent/lifecycle.go:543 — "func AddRelatedIssue(repoRoot, intentID, source string) (Intent, error)" evidence: internal/core/capture/promote_test.go:114 — "draft frontmatter missing related_issues: [%s]" evidence: internal/core/capture/drift.go:75 — "func IssueDrift(req IssueDriftRequest) (IssueDriftResult, error)" evidence: internal/core/capture/drift_test.go:49 — "func TestIssueDriftReportsEveryBrokenJoinAndNothingElse" evidence: internal/surface/cli/cli.go:3609 — "promote < iss-N> [--grounds "< token>: < text>"] | promote < rdi-N>" evidence: internal/surface/cli/cli.go:2306 — "Use: "audit [< itd-N>] | audit --issue-drift [--strict]"" evidence: Makefile:172 — "issue-drift:" evidence: .github/workflows/ci.yml:346 — "- name: Issue-drift (promote-join gate)" evidence: commands/capture.md:406 — "and appends the minted itd-N to the issue's related_intents" evidence: commands/intent.md:534 — "intent audit --issue-drift # warnings on stderr, exit 0" evidence: internal/core/capture/promote.go:216 — "seed := "Graduated from " + req.ID + ": " + title +" evidence: .abcd/development/specs/closed/spc-24-an-issue-graduates-into-an-intent.md:50 — "a by-id pointer, never a copy of the issue body (SSOT)" evidence: internal/surface/cli/cli.go:1996 — "WARNING: abcd intent new is deprecated; use abcd intent "<text>""
• ac-4 — NOT_MET: promised: the plugin's sync step promotes every entry of the local-tier issues file into open/ with provenance 'migrated from' that file; delivered: no verb or sync step reads that file (its only mention is a package comment), no ledger record carries that provenance (grep over .abcd/work/issues/ finds none), and the source file is absent; the ruling of 2026-07-17 declares it satisfied-by-history, which records the omission rather than realising the outcome evidence: internal/core/capture/capture.go:2 — "a per-repo issue ledger that replaces the free-form" evidence: dcn-2607170000000002 — "AC4 migration recorded satisfied-by-history (source absent, ledger populated iss-1..iss-103); no dead migration code built" evidence: .abcd/work/issues/resolved/iss-1-launch-phase-ownership.md:9 — "found_during: "roadmap-consistency-review"" evidence: .abcd/development/specs/closed/spc-6-issue-capture.md:106 — "satisfied-by-history ... Record-only; no code."
• ac-5 — MET_WITH_CONCERNS: the pin test captures five issues and asserts capture list --open --json returns all five with id, slug, severity and the one-line body; concern: the human render prints id, status, severity and slug with no summary, so the criterion holds on the JSON surface only (captured as iss-2609240307549105) evidence: internal/surface/cli/capture_surface_test.go:182 — "func TestCaptureListOpenRendersIssueFields" evidence: internal/surface/cli/capture_surface_test.go:220 — "if iss.ID == "" || iss.Slug == "" || iss.Severity == "" || iss.Body == """ evidence: internal/surface/cli/cli.go:3447 — "fmt.Fprintf(w, "%s %s %s %s%s\n", iss.ID, iss.Status, iss.Severity, iss.Slug, blockedNote(iss))" evidence: .abcd/work/issues/open/iss-2609240307549105-itd-4-ac5-says-capture-list-open-lists.md:1 — "id: "iss-2609240307549105""

Gap audit:

• honoured:
  • /abcd:capture <text> writes a structured iss-N entry into the committed ledger with stable ids and folder-as-status evidence: internal/core/capture/workflow.go:132 — "{"severity", string(req.Severity)}" evidence: internal/core/capture/capture.go:9 — "status directories (open/, resolved/, wontfix/) whose folder membership IS"
  • resolve and wontfix move the record between status folders evidence: internal/core/capture/workflow_test.go:278 — "func TestResolveTransition" evidence: internal/core/capture/workflow_test.go:364 — "func TestWontfixTransition"
  • promote writes both halves of the issue-intent join, in mint mode and in link mode evidence: internal/core/capture/promote.go:266 — "setListField(content, "related_intents", appendUnique(related, itdID))" evidence: internal/core/capture/promote_related_test.go:17 — "func TestPromoteLinkModeWritesBothHalvesOnAnIssue"
  • the drift check reports a shipped intent whose promoted issue did not move to resolved/ (the intent-fidelity-reviewer extension the scope names) evidence: internal/core/capture/drift.go:121 — "if bucket == intent.BucketShipped && strings.HasPrefix(src, "iss-")" evidence: internal/core/capture/drift_test.go:62 — "DriftShippedUnresolved + " itd-5 iss-5""
  • drift detection is enforced: a make preflight prerequisite and a CI check step, both --strict, and the decision log corrects its own earlier 'not wired' statement evidence: Makefile:306 — "preflight: load-check lint-reviews lint-issues lint-decisions record-lint issue-drift" evidence: .github/workflows/ci.yml:348 — "run: go run ./cmd/abcd intent audit --issue-drift --strict" evidence: dcn-2609230000000017 — "Decision (5) says the drift check is not wired into preflight or CI. That contradicts the criterion it delivers"
  • every retired back-link in the tree was migrated to the two-sided join and the gate reports nothing at HEAD evidence: internal/core/capture/migrate_test.go:106 — "func TestMigrateRewritesEveryRetiredBackLinkIntoTheTwoSidedJoin" evidence: .abcd/work/issues/open/iss-327-managed-repo-pii-config-wrong-and-abcd-lint-missing-privacy-hygiene-error.md:10 — "related_intents: [itd-93]" evidence: internal/surface/cli/issue_drift_surface_test.go:67 — "func TestIntentAuditIssueDriftStrictCleanExitsZero"
  • both verbs are reachable from the plugin markdown surface evidence: commands/capture.md:399 — "capture promote < iss-N> --grounds "pursued: < conjecture>" --json" evidence: commands/intent.md:535 — "intent audit --issue-drift --strict # exit 1 on any finding (CI)"
• diverged:
  • resolve note appended to the body — delivered as the frontmatter scalar resolution: (signed off 2026-07-17) evidence: internal/core/capture/workflow.go:289 — ""resolve", "resolution", req.Resolution" evidence: dcn-2607170000000002 — "recorded as intentional design evolution, not a gap"
  • promote seeds the draft with the entry's content — delivered as a by-id pointer to the issue, never a copy (spc-24 SSOT design) evidence: internal/core/capture/promote.go:216 — "seed := "Graduated from " + req.ID + ": " + title +" evidence: .abcd/development/specs/closed/spc-24-an-issue-graduates-into-an-intent.md:50 — "a by-id pointer, never a copy of the issue body (SSOT)"
  • /abcd:intent new is invoked — delivered as a direct call of intent.CreateDraft, the primitive the quoted-text create shares; the intent new alias is deprecated evidence: internal/core/intent/create.go:303 — "created.RelatedIssues = []string{opts.RelatedIssue}" evidence: internal/surface/cli/cli.go:1996 — "abcd intent new is deprecated"
  • drift detection by intent-fidelity-reviewer --issue-drift (spc-23 of the retired record system) — delivered as abcd intent audit --issue-drift [--strict] evidence: internal/surface/cli/cli.go:2375 — "auditCmd.Flags().BoolVar(&issueDrift, "issue-drift", false,"
  • frontmatter field related_epics (list of spc-N) — delivered as related_specs (the glossary bans 'epic') evidence: internal/core/issueschema/issueschema.go:69 — ""related_specs": true, "related_issues": true," evidence: internal/core/capture/workflow_test.go:122 — "RelatedSpecs: []string{"spc-12"}"
  • capture list --open output carries a one-line summary — delivered on the --json surface only; the human render omits it (captured as iss-2609240307549105) evidence: internal/surface/cli/cli.go:3447 — "iss.ID, iss.Status, iss.Severity, iss.Slug, blockedNote(iss)" evidence: internal/surface/cli/capture_surface_test.go:199 — "runCLI(t, "capture", "list", "--open", "--json")"
• missing:
  • the plugin's sync-step migration of the local-tier issues file into the ledger with 'migrated from' provenance (ruled satisfied-by-history 2026-07-17; nothing in the tree performs or evidences it) evidence: dcn-2607170000000002 — "no dead migration code built" evidence: internal/core/capture/capture.go:2 — "a per-repo issue ledger that replaces the free-form"
  • brief § 5 reserved-meta-command table covering /abcd:dredge and /abcd:reflect — the brief reserves /abcd:audit alone evidence: .abcd/development/brief/04-surfaces/16-lint.md:16 — "/abcd:audit stays reserved for itd-16's hash-chain fidelity surface."