Intent v2.11.13

[2.11.13] - 2026-06-14

Patch shipping ST0044: acceptance.md becomes the fifth default steel-thread document, and with it an Acceptance-Criteria / Acceptance-Test process that makes "done" an externally-verified event rather than a self-asserted checkbox. It ships as a patch on opt-in-by-presence grounds -- the close-gate and the acceptance.md contract are inert for any thread that does not adopt them, so behaviour is unchanged for non-adopting projects (the basis on which ST0040's whiteboard also shipped as a patch). The one non-additive change is intent st edit, which now prints a path rather than launching an editor. The thread was dogfooded on itself: ST0044's own build ran through the five-step with an independent verifier, and the thread closed through the very gate it introduced.

Added

• acceptance.md as a default steel-thread document. intent st new stamps it alongside info / design / impl / tasks, via the existing lib/templates/prj/st/ST####/*.md glob -- no seam, default on. The template carries the acceptance contract: the AC section (ST-level + per-WP) and the AT section, with example lines indented under guidance so a freshly stamped thread carries no live column-0 entries and cannot self-gate-block. info.md and WP/info.md reference it and restate no ACs (one home, Highlander); intent st show learns the acceptance type (named and in all).

• intent ac and intent at -- the acceptance contract CLI. An AC (Acceptance Criterion) is a ratified completeness boundary; an AT (Acceptance Test) is a small red-to-green test that proves a slice of it. ac list / ac status / ac satisfy / ac gate; at list / at red / at green / at na, with done / notdone aliasing green / red. The AT state machine is to-write -> red -> green (+ n/a), and green is reachable only from red -- a test cannot claim proof without first having failed. A test-backed AC is satisfied by computation (iff a covering AT is green), never by hand; a non-test AC carries inline evidence and is signed off by the verifier. The grammar is column-0 and bash-3.2-greppable; all reads and writes target acceptance.md alone.

• The acceptance close-gate. intent ac gate <stid>[/NN] is the single authority on whether a thread or work package may close. intent st done and intent wp done consult it and refuse on BLOCKED, with the verdict computed from the coverage map rather than read from a hand-ticked box. It is opt-in and legacy-safe: a thread with no directory, no acceptance.md, or zero in-scope ACs exits 0, so existing threads close exactly as before.

• The five-step process, documented. intent/docs/working-with-llms.md D11 is the canon home: the AC / AT axes, the five-step (verifier ratifies ACs -> builder writes red-first ATs -> verifier witnesses RED -> builder builds to green -> repeat), the open-gate and close-gate, and the lifecycle mapping. Light pointers reference it from /in-plan (open-gate), /in-verify (red-first + witness RED), and /in-finish (close-gate), each referencing D11 and none restating it.

Changed

• intent st edit <id> [type] prints a path instead of launching an editor. It now validates the file type and echoes the file's absolute path for every doc type (info / design / impl / tasks / acceptance), replacing the macOS open / $EDITOR launch. This is the one non-additive change in the release: scripting intent st edit to open a file must now pipe the path to an editor explicitly.