ADD 1.17.0 — method-ergonomics + persona domain-fit + dynamic teacher-grade personas + self-improving loop

[1.17.0] — 2026-07-06

Four milestones plus 12 loose tasks: method ergonomics, persona domain-fit,
dynamic teacher-grade personas, and the self-improving observe loop.

Added (method-ergonomics — engine-presented forms replace recalled ceremony)

• Gate ceremony (PLAN/APPROVE banners, SHAPE blocks, decision prompts) is now
  engine-presented at the moment it's needed instead of relying on the AI
  to recall and re-render it from memory — closing the gap where gates were
  silently skipped under load.

Added (persona domain-fit — nudge once a real persona exists)

• The domain-fit nudge now fires once a real project persona already
  exists, instead of repeatedly prompting to seed one; Glossary deltas fold
  into GLOSSARY.md via add.py fold.

Added (dynamic teacher-grade personas — routed by flow)

• Personas are now routed by flow across three agent trees (including
  _bundled/agents), selecting the best-fit existing persona or drafting a
  new one when none fits, with load-performance validated for the schema.

Added (the self-improving loop — observe across 5 domains)

• The OBSERVE phase now folds lessons back into the method across all 5
  domains (Anti-patterns · Abilities · status/compaction cues ·
  self-improve.md map · release notes), so the method keeps improving itself
  from real usage instead of drifting stale.

Fixed

• Ported the reclaim-lock heartbeat fix to the npm/JS twin (parity with the
  Python engine).
• Normalized grep -cl output across BSD/GNU flavors, excluded BSD grep's
  zero-count match line, and protected inline backtick-quoted literal
  comments from being mistaken for stale content during parsing.
• Captured wrapped multi-line ADR harvest fields correctly.

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Published to npm (@pilotspace/add) and PyPI (pilotspace-add); this
release backfills the missing GitHub Release entry for the v1.17.0 tag.