characterize
Characterize
Capture a baseline before change; own behavior protection, not the subsequent implementation or delivery acceptance. Use directly for matching requests or inline through authorized handoffs. Read validation when changing or validating this package.
1. Establish the boundary and authority
Read target instructions, agreement/acceptance references, affected code/callers, existing checks and supplied evidence. Identify the risky change and relevant observable boundaries: inputs, outputs, failures, side effects and state transitions. Reuse current evidence; compare deciding source, dirty-file, test, configuration and environment identities, not only HEAD. Reassess only dependent gaps or changed inputs.
Record owned checks/probes, protected work, approved read/write/run effects, retention/data constraints and expected return. A standalone caller acts as its own bounded lead; ordinary context can supply the handoff facts without a form. Plan-only authority returns a capture plan, not writes. Characterization grants no production fix, broad refactor, install, service startup, disclosure, spending, delegation, tracker publication, merge or release permission.
Resolve conditional companions through the runtime catalog or an explicit approved location, not sibling paths. Read their complete entry and relevant references, record resolved source/revision or digest, and check semantic capability; ambiguity or incompatibility blocks that route, never triggers installation.
- Before Git writes, use compatible
implementation-preflightor inspect a current caller-supplied preflight for this scope/state. Outside Git, retain a before/after manifest. - Changed domain meanings or qualifying decisions use discovered
domain-modeling; reading existing definitions needs no invocation. - Delegation or correction of recorded acceptance findings uses discovered
work-on's execution/repair contract as a read-only library, without invoking delivery. Retain root ownership, ledger, bounds and finding lineage; workers request extra work from the root. Missing contract blocks that route, not direct baseline capture.
Complete when: scope, sources, ownership, authority and conditional dependencies are known, or affected blockers are recorded with protected work intact.