Development record
a size classification for specs and tasks is parked as a note and owes a design and filing decision in a future session
issueopenminoriss-2608301856299268
a size classification for specs and tasks is parked as a note and owes a design and filing decision in a future session
Parked on the maintainer's instruction and armed here so it is revisited, on the same reasoning as iss-2608301744251874: a note carrying a trigger line is read only by whoever happens to open it.
The proposal and its evidence are in
.abcd/development/research/notes/2026-08-30-spec-size-classification-gap.md.
The gap: nothing lets a spec or task be called S, M, L, XL or XXL before it is
built, so nothing can be budgeted or compared against what it became. itd-29
assumes the gap away with a flat per-task constant, and cycle 1's measurements
say no such constant exists -- the same corpus holds a five-commit intent and a
fifty-commit one.
The finding that should shape the scheme, and the reason this is a design task rather than a table: depth does not track volume. itd-177 touched 97 files and converged in three review rounds; itd-188 touched 16 and took four; itd-181 and itd-182 took none at all. What the deep intents share is the number of ways they can be quietly wrong, not their size.
Two constraints bind any answer. The roadmap forbids time estimates, so the classes cannot be denominated in days. And the scheme must be checkable against actuals or it becomes another unfalsifiable constant -- which makes it a pair with iss-2608301744251874, the token metering park: one predicts, the other measures, and neither is worth much alone.
Trigger: a future session, ideally the one that takes the metering park. Two legal closes, and record which:
- designed and filed, closing this with the minted record id;
- rejected, becoming a wontfix carrying the grounds, so a later reader finds the decision rather than the silence.
Closing it by concluding the note is enough is not one of them.
Frontmatter
| id | iss-2608301856299268 |
|---|---|
| type | issue |
| lifecycle | open |
| severity | minor |
.abcd/work/issues/open/iss-2608301856299268-a-size-classification-for-specs-and.md
open on GitHub ↗ · commit history ↗
References1
- itd-2609292107351737A development session's token cost is measured, and set against the size class its spec predictedrelated
mentions8
- dcn-26092900000000112026-09-29 — The product thinker answered the twenty-six Group J rulings (plan or close), J1 to J26 (recorded by lane recGroupJ of autonomous run A, for orchestrator abcd-fc). The answers are kept verbatim in the local-tier file `.abcd/.work.local/scratch/reports/rulings-answered-2609-29.md`, section "Group J", dated 2026-09-29, and are restated here because that file is not committed. PLAN: the installer script becomes a minimal starter with an ownership-checked hand-over, planned as a new intent with its planning interview owed (J2, iss-377, draft itd-2609292106557115); token metering and size classes are planned as one intent (J3, iss-2608301744251874 and iss-2608301856299268), and session token accounting in the history store joins that metering intent (J4, iss-2608220150157508; all three in draft itd-2609292107351737); the sources tooling moves into abcd's core with ingest and consult as abcd verbs (J5, iss-27, whose corpus half itd-76 already delivered), and the backfill of the placeholder source entries is part of that intent (J6, iss-55; both in draft itd-2609292108089653); the grill hands off to an installed external interview skill and falls back to its own (J11, iss-165, draft itd-2609292108373494); an opt-in local-model prompt sanitiser is planned (J14, iss-2608261543489261, draft itd-2609292109005937); decision-to-transcript links are planned, with the anchor kind and the link's home settled in the planning interview owed for draft itd-171 (J16, iss-2608290819228175); the dredge synthesis, its write-ups as their own memory source class, is planned together with draft itd-25, whose planning interview is owed (J19, iss-2609211905340006); one provenance register across ingest and vendoring is planned together with draft itd-26, whose planning interview is owed (J20, iss-2609211905346507); release retention, keeping the newest release per version line, is automated by planning draft itd-70 (J21, iss-282); a rules-backend seam with an opt-in CARL adapter is planned, the native loader staying the default (J22, iss-64, draft itd-2609292109214516); core-owned managed pre-commit gates are planned with draft itd-62 (J23, iss-84); a behavioural end-to-end scenario suite per verb family is planned (J24, iss-48, draft itd-2609292109475690). Every draft stays in drafts/ until a person plans it, and each source issue links its draft and names that planning interview in its deferral. BUILD: the teaching plane, the rules-loader safety domain generated from the hazard registry, is built as a lane, the registry being the single source (J10, iss-151 and itd-103; a code lane owns it). RULED DETAILS: `source_kind` carries both, as two separate labels, one for the tool and one for the route (J13, iss-2608230752354928); the prompt router's removal signal is the full list of active domains every time, a domain's absence meaning it has stopped (J15, iss-2608261550580260); setup offers an outside AI service (for example OpenRouter) at install, skippable, once the API adapter ships (J18, iss-2609081951416843, which waits on the API adapter); the salvage-hook timeout is 120 seconds, the wait must show a counter or a message while it runs and never stall silently, and every per-event timeout is pinned in a test (J25, iss-323). J13, J15 and J25 are carried by code lanes. CLOSE: the quick-tunnel preview protocol is closed unless the need recurs (J26, iss-2608230617385431, wontfix with that reason). PARKED ON A TRIGGER: agent payment protocols are kept under watch, not now, revisited as the protocols mature (J8, iss-138); the findings-only skill waits for the skill format to be versioned and stewarded (J9, iss-139); the disposition worksheet as an intent and a site page waits until after the first study (J17, iss-2609021815529020). DECIDE LATER: the Homebrew tap stays parked (J1, iss-380); pluggable search back ends (J7, iss-26); forge-backed record numbering (J12, iss-2608210737264758).
- dcn-26092900000000202026-09-29 — The product thinker answered the twenty-six Group J rulings (plan or close), J1 to J26 (recorded by lane recGroupJ of autonomous run A, for orchestrator abcd-fc). The answers are kept verbatim in the local-tier file `.abcd/.work.local/scratch/reports/rulings-answered-2609-29.md`, section "Group J", dated 2026-09-29, and are restated here because that file is not committed. PLAN: the installer script becomes a minimal starter with an ownership-checked hand-over, planned as a new intent with its planning interview owed (J2, iss-377, draft itd-2609292106557115); token metering and size classes are planned as one intent (J3, iss-2608301744251874 and iss-2608301856299268), and session token accounting in the history store joins that metering intent (J4, iss-2608220150157508; all three in draft itd-2609292107351737); the sources tooling moves into abcd's core with ingest and consult as abcd verbs (J5, iss-27, whose corpus half itd-76 already delivered), and the backfill of the placeholder source entries is part of that intent (J6, iss-55; both in draft itd-2609292108089653); the grill hands off to an installed external interview skill and falls back to its own (J11, iss-165, draft itd-2609292108373494); an opt-in local-model prompt sanitiser is planned (J14, iss-2608261543489261, draft itd-2609292109005937); decision-to-transcript links are planned, with the anchor kind and the link's home settled in the planning interview owed for draft itd-171 (J16, iss-2608290819228175); the dredge synthesis, its write-ups as their own memory source class, is planned together with draft itd-25, whose planning interview is owed (J19, iss-2609211905340006); one provenance register across ingest and vendoring is planned together with draft itd-26, whose planning interview is owed (J20, iss-2609211905346507); release retention, keeping the newest release per version line, is automated by planning draft itd-70 (J21, iss-282); a rules-backend seam with an opt-in CARL adapter is planned, the native loader staying the default (J22, iss-64, draft itd-2609292109214516); core-owned managed pre-commit gates are planned with draft itd-62 (J23, iss-84); a behavioural end-to-end scenario suite per verb family is planned (J24, iss-48, draft itd-2609292109475690). Every draft stays in drafts/ until a person plans it, and each source issue links its draft and names that planning interview in its deferral. BUILD: the teaching plane, the rules-loader safety domain generated from the hazard registry, is built as a lane, the registry being the single source (J10, iss-151 and itd-103; a code lane owns it). RULED DETAILS: `source_kind` carries both, as two separate labels, one for the tool and one for the route (J13, iss-2608230752354928); the prompt router's removal signal is the full list of active domains every time, a domain's absence meaning it has stopped (J15, iss-2608261550580260); setup offers an outside AI service (for example OpenRouter) at install, skippable, once the API adapter ships (J18, iss-2609081951416843, which waits on the API adapter); the salvage-hook timeout is 120 seconds, the wait must show a counter or a message while it runs and never stall silently, and every per-event timeout is pinned in a test (J25, iss-323). J13, J15 and J25 are carried by code lanes. CLOSE: the quick-tunnel preview protocol is closed unless the need recurs (J26, iss-2608230617385431, wontfix with that reason). PARKED ON A TRIGGER: agent payment protocols are kept under watch, not now, revisited as the protocols mature (J8, iss-138); the findings-only skill waits for the skill format to be versioned and stewarded (J9, iss-139); the disposition worksheet as an intent and a site page waits until after the first study (J17, iss-2609021815529020). DECIDE LATER: the Homebrew tap stays parked (J1, iss-380); pluggable search back ends (J7, iss-26); forge-backed record numbering (J12, iss-2608210737264758).
- iss-2608301744251874development token metering is parked as a note and owes a file or reject decision at the next phase planning
- itd-29Domain Experts Run A Spec Autonomously And Recover From Anything Without Touching Git
- itd-177An intent's claims are typed and its scope conditions keep their identity across edits — the readiness gate refuses an intent that leaves a context claim unrecorded
- itd-181A shipped intent's scope conditions are dispositioned by the fidelity verdict — what was assumed ex ante and what survived are recorded as different things
- itd-182The record's discipline failures are themselves recorded — a lapse is a capture category, timestamped at the lapse
- itd-188Machine assistance in maintaining the ledger, without any context that holds both ledger content and a reading