Godpowers 5.17.0: judge the design blind against a shipped bar

Godpowers 5.17.0 Release

Status: Publishing via tag-triggered provenance workflow
Date: 2026-08-06

• [DECISION] Godpowers 5.17.0 gives the design loop an external bar. DESIGN.md can name a shipped product as its reference anchor, the runtime audit judges the app against it through sealed blind A/B pairs, design reviews and divergence passes gained the same blind protocol, and the new /god-polish command climbs toward the bar inside hard bounds.
• [DECISION] The public surface contains 124 slash commands, 41 specialist agents, 13 workflows, and 45 recipes. One command was added: /god-polish (build family, tier 3). No command, agent, workflow, or recipe was removed or renamed.
• [DECISION] The core package contains 108 runtime library modules and keeps zero production dependencies. One runtime module was added: lib/blind-compare.js.
• [DECISION] The @godpowers/mcp companion remains read-only and shares version 5.17.0.

Changes

• [DECISION] DESIGN.md gained an optional reference anchor. A reference: frontmatter block (name, url, focus) names a shipped external product as the audit-time quality bar. lib/design-spec.js validates the block (D-REFERENCE-SHAPE, D-REFERENCE-NAME, D-REFERENCE-URL), lib/runtime-audit.js captures the reference beside the app during design audits, and god-browser-tester judges the pair blind. The anchor is a verification anchor only: it never supplies tokens, god-designer records one only when the user names it, and anchor changes gate through god-design-reviewer like any other DESIGN.md change.
• [DECISION] Blind judgment is mechanical, not procedural trust. lib/blind-compare.js copies two role-named artifacts into neutral a/b slots, seals the role assignment in a sidecar, and enforces ordering in code: unseal refuses until a verdict exists, a recorded verdict is immutable, an unsealed pair refuses new verdicts, and a judged pair cannot be rebuilt. The protocol (references/design/BLIND-COMPARISON.md) states the honest limit plainly: the sidecar sits on disk during judging, so the blindness is a seatbelt against accidental peeking and after-the-fact edits, not cryptography.
• [DECISION] The reference verdict is advisory by design. A lost comparison files a warning-severity reference-comparison finding into REVIEW-REQUIRED.md; an unreachable reference degrades to a reference-unreachable warning. Neither trips the critical-finding gate, and god-browser-tester's have-nots now make escalating one a named failure. Losing to Linear is information, not a broken build.
• [DECISION] Reviews and divergence judge pixels, not labels. god-design-reviewer stage 1 judges rendered current-vs-proposed pairs blind when a design change renders, and the divergence pass judges rendered candidate pairs blind before convergence. Both skip honestly when nothing renders or the artifacts are identifiable at a glance, and both record the skip.
• [DECISION] /god-polish is a bounded climb, not a gauntlet. Each round runs the design audit (including the blind reference comparison when anchored), turns findings into one design-scoped fix slice, applies it under unchanged TDD and two-stage review rules, and re-audits as proof. The loop stops on the first of: the polish-rounds-limit loop parameter (new, default 3, hard max 10, tuned via /god-budget --loop), a human stop, a dry round with no measurable improvement, or a critical finding. State lives in .godpowers/polish/POLISH.mdx ledger entries with polish.round and polish.closed events; the loop refuses to run on a red build.
• [DECISION] The influence is acknowledged once, in the canonical place. INSPIRATION.md credits the gauntlet-loop skill (Matt Shumer's aim prompt, packaged by duolahypercho, MIT) for the reference-bar, blind-judgment, and climb-loop framings, and names what godpowers inverted: sealed mechanical ordering over trusted procedure, advisory severity over an unreachable "utterly wowed" bar, and a rounds cap plus dry-round detector over "the human is the only brake". No code or prose is vendored and there is no runtime dependency.

Validation

• [DECISION] One new test suite rides npm test: scripts/test-blind-compare.js (102 test script files total). scripts/test-runtime-audit.js and scripts/test-design-foundation.js grew reference-anchor and capture coverage; lib/blind-compare.js lands at 100% line coverage and the lib aggregate stays above the 90/75 floors.
• [DECISION] The full suite passes, and the complete release gate is green end to end: standards, coverage, per-file coverage, audit, self-project truth, evidence drift, and both package-content checks.
• [DECISION] Every changed file was checked for em dashes, en dashes, and decorative emoji, per the repository style policy.

Upgrade

• [DECISION] Install with npm install -g godpowers@5.17.0 or npx godpowers@5.17.0.
• [DECISION] Nothing to migrate. No state format, artifact schema, command name, or gate behavior changed. Both new surfaces are opt-in: a DESIGN.md without a reference: block audits exactly as before, and /god-polish runs only when invoked and refuses pre-green projects.
• [DECISION] Existing projects gain the blind reference comparison on their next design audit after declaring an anchor; polish-rounds-limit uses its built-in default until a project overrides it.

Publication Evidence

• [DECISION] Tag v5.17.0 resolves to main commit c94844f6e0c460f4a33d749240ab29780185f537.
• [DECISION] Provenance workflow 31082286088 verified the release identity, ran the release and pre-publication gates, and published godpowers@5.17.0 and @godpowers/mcp@5.17.0 under the latest tag with npm provenance.
• [DECISION] The root registry integrity is sha512-BvpACgoQumsrWn1Oi2U0FS7vFV/pGc0S/DWPDOaf9lFy7emgD7yjR4Ppd5rf7j2iodBdTslE/P14tPWA5Pkt1g== (shasum 60ed785b1b5f71aebcf87d623fe4f5dc91a072cd).
• [DECISION] The MCP registry integrity is sha512-SmQ1/thyJKeX0ZvCzqF2oLrjzqMqLQekEQhhzgbI5ZCAk5gJOfiOKzz1bBOfbdklDSuMOEhXPURb+s4WnThCHA== (shasum 9f307a3cf47efa57e925f554d2da3026c3ba987c).
• [DECISION] Isolated exact-version verification (scripts/verify-published-install.js godpowers@5.17.0) passes against the registry artifact: Quick Proof, read-only project inspection, dashboard, next route, Claude install surface, and Codex install surface.
• [DECISION] GitHub Release v5.17.0 was created by hand from this file after the workflow went green, notes only, no tarball assets.