Grouping issue, filed as part of a catalog pass over the 2026-08-28 to 2026-08-31 resync and MTP conversion campaign. This issue records the shared cause and adopts the affected issues as sub-issues. It proposes no fix.
The shared cause
A rule can be retired here without being retired anywhere else. The hub edits its own canonical text, and a downstream repository that predates the AGENTS.md and GOVERNANCE.md router split still carries the old rule inline, in its own words, in a file no fidelity check compares against anything. An agent reading that repository finds a rule, follows it, and is correct by every source available to it.
The version-cadence rule is the measured case, and both children are the same rule seen from opposite ends.
#1124 records what the rule did. NxWitness's version.json floor moved five times across #425, #436, #437, #451 and #461, every one of them agent co-authored, none a maintainer's own edit. #425 states its reason as maintaining a develop-leads-main invariant. operational-vs-release-workflow/SKILL.md:98-102 now says the opposite in as many words, that the floor is edited by the maintainer for functional changes only and never on a fixed cadence. The guard against this was prose, and prose did not hold.
#1116 records where the rule still lives. Running the carried-instruction-file-guard distinctive-phrase probe over NxWitness's AGENTS.md against six hub canonical files found the develop-leads-by-a-minor cadence, the maintenance-promotion version hold and the one-time floor bump carve-out absent from all six, and reading as fleet-wide rather than repo-specific. The issue itself flags the probe's reach as a caveat, since much hub rule text has moved into .agents/skills/*/SKILL.md and the probe covered only the six Markdown files.
Read together, they answer each other: the rule the agents followed is the rule still sitting in that repository's own instruction file.
Children
| Issue |
End of the same rule |
| #1124 |
The retired rule being followed, four floor bumps under it |
| #1116 |
The retired rule still asserted downstream, plus other promotion candidates from the same probe |
What a fix at this level would have to address
First the decision #1116 is asking for, which of those candidates is fleet law and which is retired. Then the reconcile, which #1124 shows cannot be prose. A repository whose instruction file predates the router split holds an unbounded amount of text nothing compares against, and this is one rule out of that set.
Grouping issue, filed as part of a catalog pass over the 2026-08-28 to 2026-08-31 resync and MTP conversion campaign. This issue records the shared cause and adopts the affected issues as sub-issues. It proposes no fix.
The shared cause
A rule can be retired here without being retired anywhere else. The hub edits its own canonical text, and a downstream repository that predates the
AGENTS.mdandGOVERNANCE.mdrouter split still carries the old rule inline, in its own words, in a file no fidelity check compares against anything. An agent reading that repository finds a rule, follows it, and is correct by every source available to it.The version-cadence rule is the measured case, and both children are the same rule seen from opposite ends.
#1124 records what the rule did. NxWitness's
version.jsonfloor moved five times across #425, #436, #437, #451 and #461, every one of them agent co-authored, none a maintainer's own edit. #425 states its reason as maintaining a develop-leads-main invariant.operational-vs-release-workflow/SKILL.md:98-102now says the opposite in as many words, that the floor is edited by the maintainer for functional changes only and never on a fixed cadence. The guard against this was prose, and prose did not hold.#1116 records where the rule still lives. Running the
carried-instruction-file-guarddistinctive-phrase probe over NxWitness'sAGENTS.mdagainst six hub canonical files found the develop-leads-by-a-minor cadence, the maintenance-promotion version hold and the one-time floor bump carve-out absent from all six, and reading as fleet-wide rather than repo-specific. The issue itself flags the probe's reach as a caveat, since much hub rule text has moved into.agents/skills/*/SKILL.mdand the probe covered only the six Markdown files.Read together, they answer each other: the rule the agents followed is the rule still sitting in that repository's own instruction file.
Children
What a fix at this level would have to address
First the decision #1116 is asking for, which of those candidates is fleet law and which is retired. Then the reconcile, which #1124 shows cannot be prose. A repository whose instruction file predates the router split holds an unbounded amount of text nothing compares against, and this is one rule out of that set.