v1.13.0 — Gauntlet loop at CP5

engineer 0.22.0 · atdd 0.8.4

DAE's objective graders only cover behavior — acceptance tests answer does it work, CRAP and mutation score answer is it tested. Anything they can't assert (visual fidelity to a ready design, interaction feel, output quality) fell to the human, which is why implementation got babysat even when the specs and designs were ready first.

The gauntlet loop replaces the human grader with a critic agent and a concrete bar: builder builds → a fresh critic A/Bs the output against the reference and names the single largest gap → builder closes it → repeat until ties-or-wins. Rounds run without a pause in between; the human sees them afterwards.

Where it fires

	bar
CP5 exit, post-green	the declared reference (design export, screenshot, reference impl, golden output)
CP5 green loop	the failing acceptance tests — the no-human-between-rounds contract

Not at CP2/CP4 (nothing to A/B; the review panel already covers judgment there), not at CP7/CP8 (already numeric bars with loops around them).

Opt-in by construction

The bar is declared at CP4 in plan.md's Test strategy:

gauntlet:
  bar: [design/checkout-desktop.png]
  capture: npm run screenshot -- --route /checkout --viewport 1440x900
  max_rounds: 5

No gauntlet: block → no loop, silently. Not a flag, not a default. A bar must be inspectable — prose and the ACs themselves are explicitly not bars.

Bounded four ways

clear · max_rounds · two identical gaps (no-progress) · a green stream regressing. Non-clear stops hand off with human_action_needed and the open gap named. Critics are plain subagents, never forks.

Changes

• new engineer/references/gauntlet.md — the full contract
• plan step 5 — declare the bar when a real reference exists
• atdd-team Phase 4 — run rounds without asking; post-green gauntlet; gate
• parallelism.md — CP5-exit row (loop-until, tier 3)
• handoff-summary.md — gauntlet_rounds[] schema + required-when rule
• dae_release.py — could not find atdd at all (marketplace source ./); now falls back to the marketplace root

490 tests pass. Credit: the Gauntlet Loop, somethingbig.ai.