Railspike v0.4.0

This stable release follows v0.1.0 and collects the work from the v0.2.0–v0.4.0 betas. It adds recovery checks for named users, optional effort estimates, one-shot mode for bounded tasks, one-prompt uninstallation, and a clearer welcome after installation.

Product revision: ea1ad5b524c2b447d3e61b15ccd3cd412ce6ecef. This is the same commit as v0.4.0-beta.3, now on main.

What changed since v0.1.0

Recovery and honest verification

• When a request names a user or environment, Step 2 states that user's ordinary entry point and recovery condition. Step 3 then replays each reported failure as acceptance evidence. Evidence from a different platform doesn't count.
• Step 4 reports each check as passed, failed, blocked, pending, or inapplicable. A focused pass is never presented as a full-suite or user-outcome result, and the handoff opens with anything unverified.

One-shot mode

• For a bounded task you explicitly authorize, the agent keeps one evolving record instead of separate step files, with no intermediate approvals. The record holds the request, authorization, scope, approach, changes, verification and outcome.
• Questions and plan references never grant authority. A request that grows needs renewed authorization or a move to staged planning. An interrupted one-shot resumes from its record.

Effort estimates (optional)

• A project can enroll its cycles in a relative effort study. Estimates are recorded at each planning checkpoint and as a retrospective at closeout, measured against bundled reference examples (R1).
• For enrolled cycles, every Step 1 option and every Step 3 stage gets an estimate, shown as a bold line under its heading. Originals, revisions and retrospectives are kept separately. Estimates are relative judgments, not hours or forecasts.
• Agents sign their plan contributions with their name and date, adding model and settings only when verified. A Step 3 plan written in one pass gets a single footer.

Installing and removing

• A new Uninstall section gives a one-prompt removal for copied and submodule installations. It keeps your docs/plans/ and stops when anything is unclear.
• After installation, the welcome asks whether to add Railspike guidance to AGENTS.md as a question on its own. Your first task is asked for afterwards. The agent reports the outcome: added, declined, or not answered.
• The README describes agent-led upgrades and legacy migration, including preserving local edits.

Compatibility and migration

• The planning steps, Approved Step N gates, feature branches, and planning and stage commits still work as they did in v0.1.0. The new Step 2–4 recovery and reporting requirements apply when a user or environment is named, and they shape what each step records.
• One-shot mode and effort estimates are opt-in.
• Existing installations are not changed until you upgrade them. Use the README's reviewed upgrade process and select v0.4.0. Local edits and the installation source record are preserved.
• The welcome runs only after a new installation, and the AGENTS.md guidance text is unchanged, so existing guidance sections remain valid.
• To roll back, select v0.1.0 (or an earlier beta) through the same process. Before you roll back, finish or pause any one-shot cycle, because older instructions don't know about one-shot mode.

Verification

These checks passed on a clean clone of main at the exact commit:

• Markdown links with all three checkers: 16 files.
• The README Git-workflow fixture.
• Whitespace against v0.1.0.
• The repository-separation fixture with legacy baseline b59f7df89842ba17f710ae1f2dc955bb361cc620. It covered remote clone, copied install, actual-history submodule migration, old-source rejection, local-edit preservation, rollback and host isolation, with 18 product files.

The maintainer also ran these live checks in real projects:

• A reinstall in which the welcome asked the AGENTS.md question on its own.
• An uninstall of a copied installation.
• An interrupted one-shot cycle resumed in a new session with OpenAI Codex v0.164.0 and the prompt "Please resume". The agent found the record and its authorization and kept the partial work and unrelated changes. It reran verification, recorded the resumption honestly, and committed without pushing.

Known limitations

• Uninstalling a submodule installation was tested only by following the documented steps in disposable repositories, not by a live agent.
• The live one-shot test used a project with no effort study enrolled, and the effort-study mechanics were not exercised live in this release:
  • an estimate revised mid-stage;
  • opt-outs;
  • recovery of older cycles.
• Railspike is a set of instructions, not technical enforcement. These checks show the instructions are consistent and that some agents follow them in practice; they do not guarantee every agent will.
• The tag is annotated and unsigned. It identifies the revision but does not authenticate a signer. A maintainer signing key has not been set up yet.