feat(canonicalization): production-grade default + correct agent routing principle

## Summary

**Canonicalize the "Production-Grade Default with Correct Agent Routing" principle across all factory agents, skills, templates, rules, hooks, and workflows.** Today, multiple factory agents normalize MVP-driven deferrals, advisory-tagging-instead-of-fixing, and "Pending architect review" defer-patterns inside spec artifacts. This issue proposes a coordinated set of edits to make the principle binding for every project that uses vsdd-factory.

This issue is fully self-contained — a new session with no prior context can implement it from this issue alone. Every file, line number, and proposed change is included below.

---

## Part 1 — The Canonical Principle (full text)

This is the binding statement. It must appear verbatim (or via include) in `FACTORY.md`, `VSDD.md`, `docs/AGENT-SOUL.md`, and every agent prompt where it is referenced.

### CANONICAL PRINCIPLE — Production-Grade Default

This principle binds every AI agent operating in the factory. It overrides any default behavior in agent prompts, skills, or templates that conflicts with it.

#### Statement

**Default behavior is enterprise/production-grade correctness. Speed lives in feature *ordering*, not feature *completeness*.**

#### Six rules

1. **No MVP-driven deferrals.** Phrases like "for now," "good enough," "we can fix later," "minimum viable," and "ship fast and iterate" are RATIONALIZATIONS, not engineering decisions. Treat them as defect-pattern smells. If a thing is worth doing in v1, it is worth doing correctly in v1.

2. **Feature order is the only acceptable speed lever.** It is acceptable to defer an entire feature to a later wave. It is NOT acceptable to ship the v1 features partially or with shortcuts that need later cleanup. Each shipped feature must be production-grade, enterprise-ready, on the cycle it ships.

3. **Tech debt register is for HUMAN-DIRECTED deferrals ONLY.** AI agents must NOT add entries to it as a default catchment for issues found during review. If an agent discovers a defect, the default action is to FIX it in-scope. Adding to the register requires:
- Explicit human direction to defer, AND
- A concrete future dependency that makes the deferral necessary, AND
- Attachment to the specific future story or wave where it will be resolved (so it cannot get lost).

4. **AI-built defects are the AI's responsibility to fix.** Every artifact in a factory-managed project is written by AI (with human approval). When an AI agent finds an issue in another AI agent's output, the default is to fix it in the current scope — even if that means expanding scope. Surfacing the issue as a question, an "advisory," a "TODO for architect," or a "pending architect review" is the WRONG default. The correct default is to fix (via the correct agent — see Part 2).

5. **`Suggest` is acceptable. `Default to cheap path` is not.** Agents may propose cheaper alternatives to the human, but the agent's DEFAULT action must be the correct path. Skipping a step without surfacing the option is not.

6. **"Pending architect review" / "TODO for architect" / "Placeholder for architect" in spec artifacts is forbidden when the question is answerable in current scope.** If the question requires architect adjudication only because the answer needs cross-component reasoning that hasn't happened yet, that's legitimate. If the question is mechanical (path migration, version pin selection, conventional clippy lint configuration), the AI handling the spec must answer it now.

#### What this means in practice

| Anti-pattern | Production-grade replacement |
|--------------|------------------------------|
| "MVP: ship without test coverage on edge case X" | Write the edge case test. Cover it now. |
| "For now we'll hardcode this value; refactor later" | Read the value from config now. Write the config schema. |
| "We can add error handling in v2" | Add error handling now. Define the error taxonomy in scope. |
| "Architect TODO: confirm patch-version pinning policy" | Pick the production-grade default (caret pin for libs, exact pin for binary deps with explicit security justification) and write the rationale inline. |
| "Pending architect review: should we support 6 hook endpoints?" | Read the gene-source canonical 5-endpoint matrix, decide based on existing parity argument, document the decision. |
| "Phase 5 deferred: add this to tech-debt-register" | First ask: did the human direct this deferral? If no, fix it now. |
| "Good enough for v1" | "Production-grade for v1." If you can't say production-grade, you're not done. |

#### Self-Audit Checklist (every agent, before declaring work done)

Run this checklist as the last act of every task. If any answer is "yes" or "I'm not sure," stop and remediate before declaring done.

- [ ] Did I rationalize any decision with "MVP," "for now," "good enough," or "we can fix later"?
- [ ] Did I add a new tech-debt-register entry without explicit human direction AND a future story/wave anchor?
- [ ] Did I leave any "pending architect review," "TODO for architect," or "Placeholder for architect" in a spec artifact for a question I could have answered in scope?
- [ ] Did I find a bug or gap in another AI's output and surface it as a question/advisory instead of fixing it (via the correct agent) in scope?
- [ ] Did I default to the cheapest mechanism instead of the correct mechanism?
- [ ] If I added an ADVISORY-severity finding to a report, did I evaluate whether it should be a BLOCKER under the production-grade lens? (Most "advisories" become blockers.)
- [ ] Did I route the work to the correct specialist agent, or did I do work outside my own domain?

#### Boundaries — what the principle does NOT mean

- **It does not mean "do everything before shipping anything."** Phasing features is correct. Within a phase, every shipped feature must be production-grade.
- **It does not mean "no asks of the human."** Genuine human decisions — risk acceptance, business priorities, scope vs deadline tradeoffs, versioning policy — should be surfaced. The principle forbids deferring WORK; it does not forbid surfacing DECISIONS only the human can make.
- **It does not mean "infinite scope expansion."** If you find an issue, fix it via the correct agent. If the fix requires expanding into a new domain that needs new specs or new architecture decisions, surface it cleanly and request scope expansion.
- **It does not override security or correctness.** If a production-grade fix requires a security review, run the security review.

---

## Part 2 — The Companion Principle: Correct Agent Routing

The production-grade default ("fix in scope, don't defer") works ONLY when paired with correct agent routing. Otherwise it degrades into "every agent does everything," which destroys specialization and produces worse work than the defer-pattern it replaces.

### Statement

**"Fix in scope" means route the defect to the CORRECT SPECIALIST AGENT in scope of the current work cycle — not defer it, and not silently fix it with the wrong agent.**

### Rules

1. **Agents own their domain.** A spec-reviewer agent reviewing a PR does NOT silently rewrite the implementation code. An implementer does NOT silently rewrite the spec. Each specialist agent has a defined scope; work outside that scope is routed to the correct specialist.

2. **The orchestrator owns routing.** When a specialist agent discovers a defect outside its own domain, it surfaces the finding to the orchestrator with the proposed routing. The orchestrator then dispatches the correct specialist. This is NOT a defer-pattern — it is correct-agent-pattern. The fix still happens in scope of the same work cycle.

3. **"Surface" vs "defer" — the critical distinction:**
- **Surface (production-grade):** Agent A finds an issue → routes to orchestrator with "this needs specialist B" → orchestrator dispatches specialist B → specialist B fixes in scope → original work proceeds. **No human round-trip required for the routing.**
- **Defer (forbidden):** Agent A finds an issue → adds to tech-debt-register / advisory / "TODO for X" → original work declared done → issue persists across multiple cycles. **Requires human to discover and re-prioritize.**

4. **When in doubt about routing, ask the orchestrator** — not the human. The orchestrator has the routing table and can dispatch. Asking the human is for genuine human decisions, not routing decisions.

5. **The orchestrator NEVER does specialist work itself.** It coordinates, dispatches, and validates gates. If the orchestrator is tempted to write a file directly, that is a routing failure — find the correct specialist and dispatch them.

### Anti-patterns this principle blocks

- ❌ Adversary rewrites failing tests "to make them pass" (correct: route to test-writer or implementer).
- ❌ State-manager writes spec content (correct: route to product-owner or architect).
- ❌ Consistency-validator silently edits brief frontmatter (correct: route to product-owner).
- ❌ Implementer adds a new BC to fix a TDD red-gate (correct: route to product-owner).
- ❌ Orchestrator writes the artifact itself when a specialist's output is unsatisfactory (correct: re-dispatch the specialist or escalate to human).
- ❌ Any agent edits `.factory/STATE.md` directly (correct: state-manager owns STATE.md).

### Reference routing table

The orchestrator AGENT.md already has a routing table; that table is the authoritative source. Every agent prompt must defer to it. See `plugins/vsdd-factory/agents/orchestrator/orchestrator.md` §"Agent Routing Table" — this canonicalization must verify that table is complete (32+ specialist agent IDs) and that every agent prompt references it.

---

## Part 3 — Why this matters: motivating exemplar

This issue was filed after a real factory run on the `monocle` project surfaced consistent defer-patterns that procedurally passed every gate but substantively failed the production-grade standard.

**Concrete examples from monocle pre-Phase-1 (May 2026):**

1. `dependencies.md` was extracted from the brief during bloat remediation. It shipped with `§"Phase 2/3/4 Additions" — Placeholder for architect` (textbook forbidden defer-pattern) and `§"Architect TODO"` with 6 items, 4 of which were answerable in-scope by selecting the conventional production answer (caret pinning vs exact pinning policy, cargo audit cadence, dependency-graph diagram).

2. `conventions.md` similarly shipped with `§"Test-Time Enforcement" — Placeholder for architect` and `§"Architect TODO"` with 5 items, all of which were codifiable in-scope from the anti-patterns table in the same file.

3. The brief's OQ-M1 and OQ-M3 entries were both tagged `Resolution: pending architect review (market intel)` when both have in-scope production-grade resolutions (OQ-M3 closes via the existing JC-2 parity rationale; OQ-M1 closes via the cited Anthropic agent-view docs).

4. `tech-debt-register.md` TD-001 (nucleo dormant) was AI-introduced from OQ research narrative, not human-directed. Per the principle, this is forbidden.

5. The consistency-validator flagged 6 ADVISORY findings; under the production-grade lens 4 of those 6 should have been blockers. The adversary re-audit found the propagation chain: validate-brief v2 tagged items as ADVISORY → v3 carried them forward as VALID without re-evaluation → consistency-audit accepted the carry-forward → orchestrator presented "GAPS_FOUND non-blocking" to the human.

6. The orchestrator presented 5 questions to the human at the Phase 1 gate. The adversary re-audit found 3 of 5 were "my-defer" (work the AI should have done): the AI was asking the human to make routing decisions that belonged to the AI.

Net effect: the spec package was procedurally VALID but substantively carried defer-patterns the canonical principle rejects. Remediation burst required after the principle was articulated.

The full re-audit is preserved at `.factory/plans/production-grade-reaudit.md` in the monocle repo (commit `0bd4ba9`); MULTIPLE_DEFER_PATTERNS verdict, 14 violations (5 CRITICAL, 6 IMPORTANT, 3 ADVISORY).

---

## Part 4 — File-by-file change proposals

Severity levels:
- **MUST**: file currently endorses or normalizes the anti-principle and will cause agents to do the wrong thing if unchanged.
- **SHOULD**: file is silent or weakly worded; adding the principle would prevent edge cases.
- **COULD**: optional clarification.

All file paths are relative to `plugins/vsdd-factory/` unless otherwise stated.

### A. Top-level operating docs

| File | Section | Line (approx) | Current text | Proposed change | Severity |
|------|---------|------|---|---|---|
| `docs/FACTORY.md` | Mis-anchoring rule | ~103 | "Mis-anchoring is NEVER an 'Observation' or 'deferred post-v1'" | Strengthen and add explicit principle: insert the full canonical principle (Part 1 above) plus a statement: *"Deferral of correctness issues is permitted ONLY when explicitly directed by the human with concrete future story/wave attachment. Default action is to fix in-scope via the correct specialist agent."* | MUST |
| `docs/VSDD.md` | Phase 1 Spec Review | ~95+ | Spec review methodology | Add principle reference: *"When the adversary discovers a spec ambiguity or missing requirement, the default is to clarify IN SPEC via product-owner re-dispatch, not defer for Phase 3 interpretation. 'Pending architect clarification' inside spec artifacts is forbidden."* Include link to FACTORY.md canonical principle. | SHOULD |
| `docs/AGENT-SOUL.md` | Principle 8: Pragmatism | ~95-123 | Current footnote on "Principled pragmatism vs rationalization" | Strengthen: Add explicit statement that the default optimization lever is feature ORDER (reprioritization), not feature CUT. Add: *"Invoking 'pragmatism' to skip tech-debt entry or defer an issue found during review is rationalization, not pragmatism. The correct response is to dispatch the right specialist agent to fix the issue in scope. If routing is unclear, escalate to orchestrator; only the orchestrator escalates to human."* | SHOULD |
| `README.md` | Principles section | (search "principle") | (varies) | Add a top-level principle bullet referencing the canonical principle and pointing readers to `docs/FACTORY.md` and `docs/AGENT-SOUL.md`. | COULD |

### B. Agents (per-agent prompts)

Path prefix: `agents/`

| File | Issue | Line(s) | Current text | Proposed change | Severity |
|------|-------|---------|---|---|---|
| `adversary.md` | Deferred-findings pattern over-broad | 46-54 | "Any finding that requires knowledge outside the three scope sources MUST be tagged as a deferred finding... Deferred findings do NOT block per-story convergence" | Tighten scope: *"This deferral mechanism applies ONLY to findings that are genuinely out-of-scope per BC-5.39.002 (cross-story, integration, system-level, architectural). Content defects WITHIN the current scope (missing edge cases, logic errors, contradictions) are NOT eligible for deferral; they block convergence and must be fixed in-scope by re-dispatching the correct specialist (test-writer/product-owner/architect/implementer per finding category)."* | MUST |
| `adversary.md` | Mis-anchoring principle weak | ~180 | "Mis-anchoring is NEVER an 'Observation' or 'deferred post-v1.'" | Strengthen: *"Mis-anchoring is NEVER observable or deferred. It blocks convergence and must be fixed before story closure. Any finding categorized as 'deferred' MUST have an explicit human-directed target story/wave attachment in the deferral record (not just routing to a future phase gate). Findings without explicit story-ID attachment fail validation."* | MUST |
| `visual-reviewer.md` | Advisory-only framing | ~17+ | "Your findings are advisory — they inform human review but do not block the pipeline" | Rephrase: *"Your findings are advisory to the human review process (the human owns final visual-quality decisions), but correctness issues you find within your domain (visual regression, missing UI states, broken responsive breakpoints) MUST be fixed before merge. 'Advisory' means the human makes the final call on borderline aesthetic decisions, not that defects silently persist."* | SHOULD |
| `security-reviewer.md` | "Advisory" terminal classification | ~22+ | "Advisory check: [CLEAN | advisory description]" | Eliminate advisory-as-terminal: *"All security findings must be classified BLOCKING (immediate fix required, route to implementer via fix-pr-delivery skill) or NOTED (human-directed deferral with concrete story attachment). Remove 'advisory' as a terminal classification; security issues do not quietly defer."* | MUST |
| `product-owner.md` | P2 priority weakly defined | ~61+ | "P2: Nice-to-have. Can defer." | Tighten: *"P2: Lower-priority feature for current cycle. May DEFER only with explicit human approval and concrete future story/wave attachment. Default is inclusion in current scope unless explicitly cut by human."* | SHOULD |
| `business-analyst.md` | P2 deferral language | (search "P2.*defer") | "P2: Nice-to-have. Can defer." | Same change as product-owner: require human-approval and explicit story attachment. | SHOULD |
| `pr-manager.md` | Escalation framing | ~189 | "After 10 cycles with blocking findings: escalate to human with BLOCKED status." | Clarify escalation intent: *"Escalation after 10 cycles is a PAUSE for HUMAN DECISION, not agent-driven deferral. Before escalating, the agent must have exhausted fix attempts via correct-agent routing. The human decides: continue fixing, cut the story, or document a justified deferral with explicit future story attachment."* | SHOULD |
| `orchestrator/orchestrator.md` | Quality-gate / cycle-closure language | ~400 | "Open follow-up stories or record deferrals before declaring CONVERGED." | Strengthen: *"Deferrals MUST be recorded WITH story/wave attachment. A deferred finding without a story ID is a BLOCKED state, not a CONVERGED state. The orchestrator MUST verify every deferred item has a corresponding story before allowing cycle closure."* Add reference to canonical principle. | MUST |
| `orchestrator/greenfield-sequence.md` | Improvement proposals defer | ~207 | "PP-04. HUMAN reviews improvement proposals (72h, approve/defer/reject)" | Tighten the 'defer' branch: *"When human selects 'defer', the orchestrator MUST record the deferred proposal in STATE.md Improvement Backlog with a target release/wave AND a story ID. Deferral without future tracking is not a valid gate outcome."* | SHOULD |
| `orchestrator/greenfield-sequence.md` | Architecture-feasibility loop | ~62-66 | "If issues found → spawn product-owner: 'Revise PRD based on architect feedback'" | Tighten: *"The default action is REVISE via product-owner. If product-owner claims a flaw is unfixable in v1, they must provide: (a) concrete technical reason, (b) human approval for deferral, (c) explicit story/wave attachment. No silent deferral to 'later.'"* | SHOULD |
| `orchestrator/per-story-delivery.md` | Escalation gate | ~68 | "After 10 cycles: escalate to human." | Same clarification as pr-manager: distinguish escalation (human decision pause) from agent-driven deferral. | SHOULD |

### C. Skills

Path prefix: `skills/`

| File | Issue | Line(s) | Current text | Proposed change | Severity |
|------|-------|---------|---|---|---|
| `track-debt/SKILL.md` | Default-use pattern (CRITICAL) | 79-85 | "When to Add Debt: Adversarial review finds a real issue but it's deferred / Known performance issues deferred to later wave / Test coverage gaps accepted for timeline" | **BREAKING CHANGE**: tech-debt is recorded ONLY when the human explicitly directs deferral. Replace section with: *"When to Add Debt: ONLY when the human explicitly directs deferral AND provides a concrete future story/wave attachment. Agent-discovered issues do NOT default to tech-debt entry; they block convergence and must be fixed in-scope by the correct specialist unless the human overrides. Examples — HUMAN says 'defer performance optimization to v1.1, create story S-NNN' → then track as TD-NNN linked to S-NNN. Agent finds issue → route to correct specialist for fix; do NOT auto-create tech-debt entry."* | MUST |
| `convergence-check/SKILL.md` | "Good enough" anti-pattern | ~2-3 | "'Six out of seven is good enough' is not convergence." | Strengthen: *"All seven dimensions must pass. There is no expedited convergence path. The human can defer a dimension ONLY with explicit documented rationale and future story attachment, but this is a rare override, not a routine gate. Production-grade default means all dimensions are PASS at gate."* | SHOULD |
| `create-brief/SKILL.md` | MVP framing | (search "MVP vs full vision") | "What's the MVP vs full vision?" | Reframe: *"What is the core first-release scope vs. post-v1 roadmap? Frame in terms of strategic feature SEQUENCING, not feature CUTS. If an MVP framing suggests 'we'll build it right later,' rephrase as: 'What must v1 do correctly so later versions can safely build on it?'"* | SHOULD |
| `guided-brief-creation/SKILL.md` | Advisory feedback framing | Step 05, adversarial review | "The human owns the brief; the adversary is advisory." | Clarify: *"The adversary surfaces blockers; the human owns the final brief content. Blockers (contradictions, unstated assumptions, missing risk mitigations) must be resolved IN SCOPE via product-owner re-dispatch. 'Advisory' means the human has authority to override, not that blockers silently disappear."* | SHOULD |

Note: `guided-brief-creation/SKILL.md` Step 03 contains "Why is that [competitor] not good enough?" — this is competitive analysis language, NOT deferral. NO CHANGE needed.

### D. Templates

Path prefix: `templates/`

| File | Issue | Context | Current text | Proposed change | Severity |
|------|-------|---------|---|---|---|
| `tech-debt-register-template.md` | Deferral categories accept agent-driven entries | ~1-3 | "Phase 5 deferred" / "Phase 6 deferred" entries as a normal source type | Replace source-types section with: *"Every debt entry must include: (a) HUMAN-DIRECTED flag (TRUE/FALSE — TRUE required for new entries), (b) REASON FOR DEFERRAL (concrete technical or business rationale), (c) TARGET STORY/WAVE (story ID required, e.g., 'S-2.05' or 'v1.1-wave-3'), (d) TRACKING (hyperlink to story). Entries with HUMAN-DIRECTED=FALSE are invalid and must be re-routed to the correct specialist for in-scope fix."* | MUST |
| `adversarial-finding-template.md` | Finding status enum | (search "deferred") | Status includes "deferred" | Clarify: *"'deferred' status is ONLY for out-of-scope findings routed to a future perimeter (wave-gate, phase-5) with explicit target story ID. Within-scope findings cannot be marked 'deferred'; they must be 'resolved' (with fix-commit SHA) or 'escalated' (with reason)."* | SHOULD |
| `review-findings-template.md` | Finding disposition | Convergence Summary section | Finding categories: blocking, suggestion, nit | Add: *"For each finding resolved via 'deferred to future story' pattern, the resolution MUST include the story ID / wave number in parentheses. Example: 'deferred (S-2.05)'. Deferrals without story attachment are invalid and must be re-escalated."* | SHOULD |
| `wave-state-template.yaml` | Gate deferral rationale | (search "gate_status: deferred") | "deferred" status accepts a rationale string | Strengthen: *"Rationale for deferred gate MUST be a structured object: { reason: , target_story: , target_wave: , blocker_resolution: }. Plain-string rationales fail validation."* | SHOULD |

### E. Workflows

Already covered under orchestrator sequences (Section B). No additional workflow files require changes.

### F. Rules

Path prefix: `rules/`

| File | Issue | Line(s) | Current text | Proposed change | Severity |
|------|-------|---------|---|---|---|
| `lessons-codification.md` | Deferral protocol weak | ~41-45 | "record a deferred item in the Drift Items table of STATE.md with an explicit justification for deferral" | Strengthen: *"Deferral justification MUST include: (1) REASON (technical constraint, resource limit, discovered dependency), (2) TARGET STORY/WAVE with story ID, (3) OWNER (who will fix it), (4) HUMAN-DIRECTED flag with linking commit SHA. Entries missing any field fail validation and block cycle closure."* | MUST |

### G. Hooks (new files)

Path: `hooks/`

Two new enforcement hooks are required. These are the canonical enforcement points for the principle and currently do not exist.

#### Hook 1: `validate-tech-debt-deferral.sh`

**Purpose:** On any commit that modifies `.factory/tech-debt-register.md`, verify every new entry has a `human_directed: true` flag AND a `target_story` field AND the target story exists in `.factory/stories/STORY-INDEX.md`. Reject commits that add tech-debt without explicit story attachment or with `human_directed: false`.

**Trigger:** PostToolUse on Edit/Write to `**/tech-debt-register.md`; PreCommit on staged changes including that file.

**Behavior:**
1. Parse the diff. For each new row added to the Debt Items table, extract: `ID`, `Human Directed`, `Target Story`, `Tracking`.
2. If `Human Directed` is missing or `false`, exit with error: `"TD-NNN added without human_directed=true. Default action is to FIX via correct specialist. See FACTORY.md canonical principle."`
3. If `Target Story` is missing, exit with error: `"TD-NNN added without target_story field. Deferrals require concrete future story attachment."`
4. If `Target Story` value does not exist in `.factory/stories/STORY-INDEX.md`, exit with error: `"TD-NNN target story not found in STORY-INDEX.md."`
5. Otherwise exit 0.

**Acceptance:** Add a test under `tests/fixtures/` that includes a malformed tech-debt row and confirms the hook rejects it.

#### Hook 2: `validate-deferred-findings.sh`

**Purpose:** On any commit that modifies an adversary convergence state file or a wave-state file, verify every `deferred_findings` entry with `target: wave-gate` or `target: phase-5` has a matching story in `STORY-INDEX.md`.

**Trigger:** PostToolUse on Edit/Write to `**/cycles/**/adversarial-review/convergence-state.yaml` and `**/wave-state.yaml`.

**Behavior:**
1. Parse the YAML file. For each entry in `deferred_findings`, extract `id`, `target`, `target_story`.
2. If `target` is `wave-gate` or `phase-5`, require `target_story` field present and matching `STORY-INDEX.md`.
3. If missing, exit with error: `"Deferred finding routed to without target_story. Deferrals require explicit story attachment."`
4. Otherwise exit 0.

**Acceptance:** Add a test under `tests/fixtures/` covering malformed deferred-finding entries.

#### Hook 3: `validate-no-pending-architect.sh` (recommended)

**Purpose:** Scan all `.factory/specs/**/*.md` files for forbidden defer-patterns inside spec artifacts.

**Trigger:** PostToolUse on Edit/Write to `**/.factory/specs/**/*.md`; PreCommit on staged changes.

**Behavior:**
1. Grep changed files for patterns: `TODO.*architect`, `pending.*architect`, `for architect review`, `architect.*TODO`, `Placeholder for architect`, `awaiting architect`.
2. For each hit, exit with error: `": — forbidden defer-pattern ''. The AI handling this spec must answer the question in scope or route to the correct specialist via orchestrator."`
3. Exit 0 if no matches.

**Acceptance:** Add a test that creates a spec file with one of the forbidden phrases and confirms the hook rejects the commit.

**Severity for hook 3:** SHOULD (not MUST) — some legitimate uses might exist (e.g., a brief explicitly noting that an architect's input is required for a forward-looking research item). The hook can be relaxed via a comment marker like `# arch-input-required: ` on the same line.

### H. Orchestrator-specific changes

Already covered in Section B (orchestrator/orchestrator.md, orchestrator/greenfield-sequence.md, orchestrator/per-story-delivery.md). One additional change:

| File | Issue | Line(s) | Current text | Proposed change | Severity |
|------|-------|---------|---|---|---|
| `agents/orchestrator/orchestrator.md` | Agent routing table completeness | "Agent Routing Table" section | Existing table | Verify the table includes all 32+ specialist agent IDs and add a header note: *"This table is the authoritative source of routing decisions. Every specialist agent prompt must defer to it. Updates to this table propagate to all projects."* Add reference to the canonical principle. | MUST |
| `agents/orchestrator/orchestrator.md` | "I never write files" wording | (search "never write") | Existing "you NEVER write ANY files" constraint | Strengthen with companion principle: *"You NEVER write specialist content. When you find yourself wanting to write a file, that is a routing failure — find the correct specialist and dispatch them. The only exception is genuinely-orchestrator-scoped content like STATE.md (route to state-manager, not orchestrator-self-write)."* | SHOULD |

---

## Part 5 — Implementation plan for a cold-start session

A new Claude session opening this issue should follow this sequence. **Each step has acceptance criteria; do not advance until they pass.**

### Step 1: Read and verify scope

1. Read `plugins/vsdd-factory/docs/FACTORY.md`, `plugins/vsdd-factory/VSDD.md`, `plugins/vsdd-factory/docs/AGENT-SOUL.md`.
2. Read `plugins/vsdd-factory/agents/orchestrator/orchestrator.md` (especially the Agent Routing Table).
3. Confirm the canonical principle (Part 1 above) is NOT yet in FACTORY.md.
4. Acceptance: list every file in the proposed-change tables above and confirm they exist. If any path is wrong, surface it and re-route to issue-author for clarification BEFORE making any edits.

### Step 2: Apply MUST changes (priority 1)

MUST changes are gating — the principle is not canonical until these land. There are 8 MUST changes total:

1. `docs/FACTORY.md` — insert canonical principle and companion routing principle
2. `agents/adversary.md` — tighten deferred-findings scope (line ~46-54)
3. `agents/adversary.md` — strengthen mis-anchoring (line ~180)
4. `agents/security-reviewer.md` — eliminate "advisory" as terminal classification (line ~22+)
5. `agents/orchestrator/orchestrator.md` — strengthen cycle-closure deferral verification (~line 400)
6. `agents/orchestrator/orchestrator.md` — verify routing table completeness and add authoritative-source note
7. `skills/track-debt/SKILL.md` — BREAKING change to "When to Add Debt" section (lines 79-85)
8. `templates/tech-debt-register-template.md` — replace source-types section with HUMAN-DIRECTED+story-attachment requirements
9. `rules/lessons-codification.md` — strengthen deferral protocol (lines ~41-45)
10. `hooks/validate-tech-debt-deferral.sh` — new file
11. `hooks/validate-deferred-findings.sh` — new file

Order: do top-level docs first (FACTORY.md sets the principle that everything else references), then agents, then templates/skills/rules, then hooks. Each change is its own commit on a feature branch.

### Step 3: Apply SHOULD changes (priority 2)

10 SHOULD changes — apply after all MUST changes verified clean.

### Step 4: Add the new hook (priority 3)

`hooks/validate-no-pending-architect.sh` with the comment-escape mechanism.

### Step 5: Write tests

Test fixtures must cover every new hook. See acceptance criteria under each hook in Section G.

Existing test command: `bash tests/run-all.sh` (or whatever the repo's test entry point is — confirm by reading `tests/`).

### Step 6: Update CHANGELOG

Add an entry to `CHANGELOG.md` describing the canonicalization. Reference this issue number.

### Step 7: Self-audit

Before opening the PR, run the canonical Self-Audit Checklist from Part 1 against your own work:

- [ ] No "MVP" or "for now" rationalizations in any of your edits.
- [ ] No new tech-debt-register entries added to vsdd-factory itself without human direction.
- [ ] No "pending architect review" left in any spec artifact you touched.
- [ ] You did not fix anything outside your domain — every fix went through correct specialist routing in the implementing session.
- [ ] You defaulted to the correct mechanism, not the cheapest mechanism.
- [ ] Any ADVISORY-severity findings in your work have been re-evaluated as BLOCKER if the production-grade lens demands it.
- [ ] Every fix you made was routed through the correct factory specialist (or you yourself are operating under the appropriate role).

### Step 8: Open PR

Title: `feat(canonicalization): production-grade default + correct agent routing principle`

Body: link this issue, list every file changed with one-line rationale per file, include the test results.

### Acceptance criteria (PR-level)

1. FACTORY.md contains the verbatim canonical principle (Part 1) and the companion routing principle (Part 2).
2. AGENT-SOUL.md references the canonical principle from its existing Principle 8 footnote.
3. Every MUST file in the table above has been edited per the proposed change.
4. Every SHOULD file has been edited or has an explicit `[NO-CHANGE-RATIONALE]` comment in the PR body explaining why it wasn't.
5. The two new MUST hooks (`validate-tech-debt-deferral.sh`, `validate-deferred-findings.sh`) exist and have passing tests.
6. The optional `validate-no-pending-architect.sh` hook exists (or has an explicit deferral rationale in the PR body — note the meta-irony: the user must direct this deferral with a story attachment for tracking it post-merge).
7. CHANGELOG.md has an entry.
8. All existing tests pass.
9. The PR body includes a verification trace: for each MUST item, the file:line of the change.

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## Part 6 — Migration / backwards compatibility

These changes do not break any existing factory project's `.factory/` artifacts. The principle is additive — it tightens defaults, not data formats.

The one behavioral change that may surface existing-project issues: the new `validate-tech-debt-deferral.sh` hook will reject commits that add tech-debt entries without `human_directed: true` and a target story. Existing tech-debt entries in projects' `.factory/tech-debt-register.md` files will NOT be retroactively invalidated; the hook only validates new entries on a per-commit diff basis.

Recommendation for adoption: each project that pulls in the canonicalized vsdd-factory should run a one-time audit of their `tech-debt-register.md` to identify AI-introduced entries that should be either resolved-in-scope or migrated to explicit human-directed deferrals with story attachment. This audit is a project-owner activity, not gated by the new hook.

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## Part 7 — Cross-references

- monocle project CLAUDE.md with the principle (project-local exemplar): https://github.com//monocle/blob/main/CLAUDE.md (commit `3366d58` adds the Correct Agent Routing companion principle)
- monocle adversary re-audit identifying the patterns: `.factory/plans/production-grade-reaudit.md` on factory-artifacts branch (commit `0bd4ba9`)
- monocle Phase-1 consistency-audit that initially classified items as ADVISORY: `.factory/plans/consistency-audit-pre-phase-1.md` (commit `b891b78`)

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## Why we are filing this

The factory pipeline is a force multiplier. When it normalizes defer-patterns by default, those patterns propagate to every project that uses it. Canonicalizing the production-grade default + correct agent routing makes the right thing the easy thing for every future project.

The monocle exemplar shows the pattern at small scale (a single pre-Phase-1 cycle); we expect the same pattern at larger scale across longer pipelines. Filing this early is the lowest-cost intervention.