An intent that is not planned cannot be implemented: abcd gains a machine-checkable implement-readiness gate that refuses with a remedy and offers the planning interview

Frontmatter

.abcd/development/intents/shipped/itd-94-an-intent-that-is-not-planned-cannot-be.md
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References1

• itd-27Domain Experts Get Their Intents Grilled Before Anyone Codes Themsupersedes

Referenced by8

• adr-40Review, audit, lint, and gate are four buckets, separated by what each comparesrelated
• iss-2610262035127167itd-94 says autonomous drain runs are held by the intent readiness gate; the intent chapter says the drain verb's lanes are issuesrelated
• iss-2610262038051992itd-94 says autonomous drain runs inherit the implement-readiness gate, exit 1 a journaled SKIP; 35-drain's lanes are issue runs checked only by the drain rule and the peers checkrelated
• iss-2610262042222565itd-94 has the agent run `abcd intent plan` as the person's sign-off; the plan entry has the human run it and says it is never inferred from consent.related
• iss-2610262045139907itd-94 has autonomous drain runs implementing intents; itd-82 defines drain as working issues only and leaves picking intents to `abcd build next`related
• iss-2610262045201587itd-94 has the agent run `abcd intent ready itd-93` with no other argument and read its verdict; itd-179 makes `intent ready` refuse without a grounds argumentrelated
• itd-30Design Fictions As An Alternative Capture Format For Intentsblocks
• spc-9an-intent-that-is-not-planned-cannot-be-implemented-abcd-gaiimplemented by

mentions27

• dcn-26071800000000022026-07-18 — Acceptance-criteria sign-off is implicit in a human running
• dcn-26072400000000052026-07-24 — Next-run queue reshaped by the grill: the small consequences
• dcn-26081600000000032026-08-16 — the assessment vocabulary settled at a maintainer grill and filed as adr-40 (proposed): **four buckets — lint / review / audit / gate — separated by what each compares**, not by determinism, not by trigger. The rule was already half-recorded (05-internals/01-agents.md rules the two verdict families disjoint: "reviews assess a change, criterion verdicts assess a promise vs reality") and three shipped surfaces contradict it — `intent review` emits family 2 so it is an audit, `abcd audit` is deterministic rule-checking so it is a lint (and it consumed the `/abcd:audit` name 02-constraints/04-naming.md reserves for itd-16), and `disembark oracle` emits family 1 while the brief calls its output an audit. Grill rulings: **one surface performs exactly one act** (multi-act surfaces split at design time — cheap, because every multi-act surface abcd has is unbuilt, so they are specified rather than refactored); the buckets are a **closed list extended by PR, not a criterion** (an autonomous run given a criterion interprets it; a table lookup matches or fails); `intent ready` survives as the fourth bucket **gate** because it names a decision rather than a comparison, preserving itd-94's exit-code contract; determinism is orthogonal (itd-16's hash-chain check is a deterministic *audit*; itd-85's conformance check is a *lint* however built); automatic-vs-manual never enters a verb name (the trigger is the facilitator's, per itd-97); the oracle is the model-access seam beneath review and audit, never a bucket. **Clean break, no aliases** — pre-1.0.0, `--impact breaking` drives version derivation (iss-171 precedent), users re-download; an alias would additionally collide with the documentation discipline's ban on change-narration, leaving an undocumented silent forward. The role mapping is the operational reason the split earns its cost: product thinker reads `audit` and essentially nothing else, which makes itd-99's "never hand a product thinker a technical decision" mechanically checkable. Same grill corrected a wrong finding: iss-246 was filed claiming abcd's record documents a surface far larger than the binary with no gate catching it; **false** — the `Status` column in 04-surfaces/README.md is machine-checked by `surface_coverage` (iss-35), the brief carries ~100 inline `design target` markers, and adr-5 makes the brief aspirational by design. The real defect is narrower: `surface_coverage` is blind *inside* a row, so six of twenty rows read `shipped` then qualify themselves in prose, and documents outside the registry cite those sub-verbs as live (all three citing **predecessor-store** spec ids spc-29/spc-30, whose prose survived the migration to the native store). Fix per adr-40 §6: sub-verb tables carrying two facts per verb — bucket and existence — with `surface_coverage` extended to registered cobra sub-commands, one table serving both disciplines. Also established: the twelve-step record walk completes at ten steps; step 2 (`capture promote`) has no verb and step 12 (`capture resolve`) cannot write `resolved_by`, so **walkability is sequenced before coherence** — renaming ~90 files across a process nobody can walk is polish before function. Plan at plans/2026-08-16-process-coherence-and-walkability.md; six intents to plan, none plannable unattended. Rejected: one polymorphic `review <id>` verb (merges the disjoint families, erases the role signal), classifying acts rather than surfaces (makes the bucket a statement of intent rather than a guarantee, and hands product thinkers lint findings), three buckets without `gate` (forces `intent ready` to become `intent lint`), and adding `verify`/`validate` (itd-109's verification suite is a packaging of lints and audits, not a fifth kind).
• iss-83The /abcd:run protocol has no precondition that the PLAN file itself exists: its fail-closed check covers a missing or malformed mandatory PLAN *field* (ROLE / RECOVER STATE) but not a wholly-absent PLAN *file*. In the drain #2 run the /loop fired against a PLAN_PATH that did not resolve on HEAD because the plan was being authored concurrently in another worktree and only merged mid-session (HEAD moved 54fef5f -> 137f8de under the running session). The runner correctly fail-closed but the gap invited synthesizing a substitute plan. Fix (protocol robustness): add an explicit step 0 — resolve PLAN_PATH on current HEAD; if the file does not exist, STOP and report without synthesizing a replacement plan (synthesis re-introduces the guess-the-gate risk fail-closed exists to prevent). Add an operational note: a plan-driven loop must only be launched after its PLAN is merged to the branch it reads. Secondary: at burst start git fetch + re-derive HEAD rather than trusting the session-start snapshot — here both the snapshot and NEXT.md were stale (NEXT.md described already-committed itd-81 work as uncommitted). Acceptance: the protocol names a missing-plan-file STOP distinct from missing-field, and forbids substitute-plan synthesis.
• iss-2609290448510918The predecessor-store qualifier sweep reaches past the six intents iss-2609261536147903 named: outside drafts/ and those six, 192 citation sites across about forty intents name a spc-N at or below spc-70 that is not the citing intent's own spec, with no '(predecessor store)' on the line. Some are live cross-references (the cold-reading family's intents cite each other's live specs), and some are the predecessor store's (itd-4, itd-6, itd-29, itd-47 and itd-49 describe pre-rebuild work in its terms), so each site needs the same reading against the live spec it collides with; the specs charter's Two spc-N Namespaces section is the rule. Found while sweeping the pattern of iss-2609261536147903 in lane drainDrift3; a census script over intents/{planned,shipped,disciplines} reproduces the count.
• iss-2610170309585684The glossary term .abcd/development/brief/glossary/core/intent.md gives /abcd:intent grill itd-27 as a working usage example (lines 37-38), but abcd intent --help lists no grill sub-verb, itd-27 was superseded by itd-94, and the glossary README now calls the grill a design target.
• iss-261025221421783305-intent.md:448-499 (§ 5), the grill row (:319) and the PRD-freeze block (:221-226) keep the predecessor's grill/PRD design: itd-27 is superseded by itd-94, which carries none of it, and no GL003/GL005/GR002 code exists. intents/README.md:177-185 and :239-251 keep the same fields in its template.
• iss-2610252215019685glossary/README.md:172-209 describes /abcd:intent grill as 'a design target (itd-27)', but itd-27 is superseded by itd-94 (intents/superseded/itd-27-grill-skill-and-glossary.md:3); interview/embark.md and interview/session.md define stable terms for the same superseded design, and only planned itd-50:91 still leans on it.
• iss-2610252215141901Four pages (press release, context, naming, mental model) still carry /abcd:intent grill (itd-27) as designed or staged and Role 3 intent shape as a third auditor role. itd-27 is superseded by itd-94 (01-build-sequence.md:99-102: 'There is no grill sub-verb'), and itd-48:19 moved the shape role to the kinds lint.
• iss-2610262030459678The press release lists intent grill as a designed companion per itd-27; the intent chapter says itd-27 is superseded by itd-94
• iss-2610262030467492The context page carries intent grill as designed-not-built per itd-27; the intent chapter says its intent is superseded
• iss-2610262030468053The naming register marks /abcd:intent grill staged under itd-27; the intent chapter says itd-27 is superseded
• iss-261026203115329204-naming registers /abcd:intent grill as a staged sub-verb under itd-27; the build sequence says itd-27's grilling is the planning interview under itd-94, which supersedes it.
• iss-261026203115927702-context lists grill and ship as remaining intent design targets; the build sequence says there is no intent ship and no grill sub-verb, shipping running through spec close and grilling through the planning interview.
• iss-2610262031280238The press release counts /abcd:run, the itd-29 operator surface, among the plumbing in scope; the build sequence says the run seam does not ship, no run verb is registered and itd-29 is superseded.
• iss-2610262033434648The out-of-scope page says itd-27 (the grill sub-verb) is scoped into the planned phases; the intent chapter says itd-27 is superseded by itd-94 and no grill sub-verb ships.
• iss-2610262034293679itd-55 says abcd already stress-tests acceptance criteria with the grill; the intent chapter says no grill sub-verb ships.
• iss-2610262035075414itd-42 is scoped as a capability of an existing /abcd:intent grill sub-verb; the intent chapter says no grill sub-verb ships
• iss-2610262038247394The surfaces register keeps grill as a live design target to become an `intent` sub-verb; the build sequence says itd-94's planning interview supersedes it.
• iss-2610262040249675The build sequence says itd-27's grilling is now the planning interview; the glossary README keeps /abcd:intent grill as a live itd-27 design target.
• iss-2610262040257210The internals index gives /abcd:grill a design target of promotion to /abcd:intent grill; the build sequence says the grill is superseded by itd-94's planning interview.
• iss-2610262041175899The foundations-auditor draft says abcd already stress-tests acceptance criteria with the grill; the build sequence says there is no grill sub-verb.
• itd-24Completed Releases Get A Retrospective
• itd-88Know What a Repo Can and Cannot Tell You — Before You Trust the Lifeboat
• itd-93abcd Scaffolds a Release Gate That Works on the First Try
• itd-97The Facilitator Is a Mode, Not a Person
• spc-3lifeboat-coverage-experiment