CAST v1.3.0

Full-system hardening pass: a four-track review of the adoption skill, agent roster, pipeline skills, and packaging produced 45 improvements, all landed here. Headlines: the installed CLAUDE.md's memory imports actually load now, defect routing is stated identically everywhere, the pipelines are resumable and their documented-but-never-invoked stages (Docs Writer, Validator, UX review) are wired in, /cast-init handles re-runs/monorepos/non-git projects, and releases are automated.

Added

• templates/MILESTONE_RETROSPECTIVE.md — milestone retrospectives were previously written into validator.md, violating both the artifacts split and the immutable-agent-file rule. They are now instances at artifacts/reviews/retrospective-milestone-{N}.md, written by Validator at the /agent-code milestone checkpoint.
• [CAST_VERSION] version stamp. /cast-init now stamps Adopted with CAST v<X.Y.Z> into the installed CLAUDE.md (sourced from its own metadata.version) and reads it back on re-runs — the documented upgrade path finally has something to compare against. Forced re-run semantics are defined.
• Adoption-skill coverage for previously undefined situations: monorepo/workspace detection (root-level install default, manifest ambiguity becomes a Phase 3 Ask), non-git projects (explicit confirmation, plain mv, no-rollback warning), same-named agent files with divergent roles (always an Ask, never silent update-in-place), archival of prior adoption records, an explicit execute-approved-Deletes step, a Phase 5 progress ledger with abort/recovery instructions, unattended-mode fallbacks for novel Asks and validation failures, and a documented ui opt-out for backend/CLI-only projects (UI templates skipped iff the agent is skipped; /agent-plan skips its UI stage when no ui agent is installed).
• Pipeline wiring for stages that previously had no invoker: both engineering skills drain the Docs Writer queue at task/milestone checkpoints; Validator is invoked at those checkpoints to record outcomes in artifacts/AGENT_STATE.md; the UX review runs once per UI-flagged milestone at /agent-code milestone completion; Release is explicitly user-invoked.
• Resumability: /agent-code writes task Status back to the milestone tasks file and skips Complete tasks on re-invocation; /agent-plan writes per-stage checkpoints to STANDUP, defines milestone numbering (max existing + 1), and caps the REVISION REQUIRED loop at 3 cycles before escalating.
• .github/workflows/release.yml — on push to main with an untagged plugin.json version: verifies the four synchronized version locations, creates the annotated tag, and publishes the GitHub Release from the top CHANGELOG section; a second job verifies integrity on v* tag pushes. Checklist steps 5–6 are now automated with the manual path as fallback.
• Six new CI checks in validate.yml: README placeholder-table tokens must exist in the payload; example/ must be token-free; docs/templates/artifacts path-split lint; offline relative-link check; example instances must carry their template's required headings; agent model pins must be identical. Manifests are validated with claude plugin validate instead of bare JSON.parse.

Changed

• Installed CLAUDE.md memory imports fixed. The template used @import docs/X.md, a syntax Claude Code does not support — every adopted project silently loaded no core context. Imports are now bare @docs/X.md lines; commented suggestions use inert code spans; /cast-init validation now checks the syntax and that imported paths exist.
• Defect routing stated identically everywhere. Canonical flow: Reviewer → Bug Gatherer (files report, status New) → Product triage (Fix Now → Debugger → Coder; Defer — allowed only when acceptance criteria are unaffected, task proceeds; Not a Bug — closed with rationale). reviewer.md, debugger.md, tester.md, bug-gatherer.md, and docs/PIPELINE_LOOP.md all previously contradicted this in different ways; Tester failures route to Coder only. "Clean version" = no open Fix Now defects.
• All 15 agent frontmatter descriptions rewritten trigger-first for Claude Code subagent auto-discovery (e.g. Tester: "Use PROACTIVELY after every Coder change"), and the roster table in references/roster.md synced verbatim (CI-enforced).
• Agent Model Configuration boilerplate compressed from ~8–10 duplicated lines per file to ~2, with every behavioral constraint kept in-file and the shared model-ladder rationale consolidated in docs/MODEL_OPTIMIZATION.md (~100+ lines removed across the roster).
• Cross-agent contract fixes: Architect/Product/UI Inputs tables now receive Security/Performance findings and CEO revision requests; Coder hands off to Tester (not Product); Release gates on "Critical or High" (the 4-level scale — "Major" existed nowhere); Security's Informational findings are review-document-only (never filed as bugs); docs/CHANGELOG.md has a single owner (Release; Docs Writer routes through it); CI/build infrastructure and dependency maintenance have assigned owners; Release's checklist gains the security pre-release gate.
• One STANDUP entry grammar (### YYYY-MM-DD — <skill> — <milestone/task> sections with - <agent> | <type> | <note> entries; types progress/loop/docs/decision/blocker) replaces the four incompatible formats previously implied by STANDUP.md, agent-task, PIPELINE_LOOP, and the roster README.
• CEO Approval Conditions are backfilled into the milestone tasks file by Product after the verdict; /agent-code Pre-Flight reads them from there. Product (not the orchestrator) writes completion and validation records.
• Naming/path corrections: artifact instance names unified to lower-hyphen (module-{slug}.md, screen-{slug}.md, new component-{slug}.md), STANDUP's related-documents links fixed, "Work Queue" renamed to AGENT_STATE's actual "Current Work — Ready to Start", validator.md's stale "Product's file" reference fixed, path-split wording bugs in security.md/docs-writer.md corrected.
• README placeholder table pruned of 22 dead tokens (also from references/execution.md/discovery.md substitution lists) and gains [CAST_VERSION] + [MAX_LOOP_COUNT]; the docs/ "never receives work" wording now carries the docs/CHANGELOG.md carve-out; the plugin-route asymmetry (full repo in the plugin cache) is documented; /artifacts/ is gitignored at the repo root.
• Example fixture synced to the 1.2.0 template contracts: milestone definition, tasks file, architecture doc, UI spec, and CEO review all restructured to their templates' required sections (CI-enforced from now on); stray [MILESTONE_NAME] token removed; example imports fixed to the working syntax and trimmed to files the fixture ships.
• /cast-init validation hardening: placeholder grep scoped to the installed file set with templates/* exempt; new ui-agent ⇔ UI-templates consistency check; import-syntax check; Phase 7 closing summary and report parameterized for staged/partial/failed outcomes.

Migration

• Existing installs: re-run /cast-init (after npx skills update). The memory-import fix alone is worth it — installs adopted from any earlier version load no docs/ context at session start. The re-run also delivers the corrected defect routing, the retrospective/UX-review/Docs-Writer wiring, and stamps the version for future upgrades.
• If you customized reviewer.md, debugger.md, tester.md, or docs/PIPELINE_LOOP.md, review the merge: the defect-routing and triage-outcome wording changed in all four.
• validator.md no longer accumulates retrospectives in place; move any existing ones to artifacts/reviews/retrospective-milestone-{N}.md.

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