trace-first-starter

REVIEW — TFW-24: Researcher Role & RES State Machine

Date: 2026-04-04 Author: Reviewer Verdict: ✅ APPROVE RF: RF__TFW-24 TS: TS__TFW-24


1. Review Checklist

# Check Status Notes
1 DoD met? (all TS acceptance criteria) 17/17 criteria met. All verified against actual files
2 Code quality (conventions, naming, type hints) All Role Lock labels, table formats, and naming follow established conventions
3 Test coverage (tests written and passing) Grep verified: 0 occurrences of “Coordinator (Research Mode)”. Word count verified: 600 words. Adapter diffs: all 3 identical
4 Philosophy aligned (matches HL design philosophy) P1 (one role, one artifact), P2 (filesystem = state machine), P3 (synthesis not aggregation), P4 (resume from anywhere) — all implemented
5 Tech debt (shortcuts documented?) 3 observations documented in RF §5
6 Security (no secrets exposed, guards in place) N/A Markdown-only project
7 Breaking changes (backward compat, migrations) Existing filled RES files in tasks/ unaffected. Workflows reference §numbers. New research subfolder convention is additive. No breaking changes
8 Style & standards (code style, conventions) English-only headings per D29. Stage file naming per D28/D5
9 Observations collected (executor reported findings) 3 observations: §10 numbering, glossary RESEARCH duplication, Step numbering/Synthesis naming

2. Verdict

✅ APPROVE

Clean execution. The core deliverables — Researcher role extraction, subfolder state machine, Resume Protocol, RES synthesis format, HL template updates (Vision/Impact/stakeholder Quote, “Why Not Just…?”) — are all implemented correctly.

The executor found a smart compression: merging Final Checkpoint into Synthesis (saving ~30 words). The step renumbering (0-6 instead of 1-7) is clean. OODA ACT updated from “Update RES” to “Update stage file” — correct logical consequence of subfolder architecture.

base.md at exactly 600 words = tight but within budget.

Notable quality:

3. Tech Debt Collected

# Source Severity File Description Action
TD-60 RF obs. #1 Low .tfw/conventions.md L129 §10.1, §10.2, §10 numbered out of order — inherited from previous tasks ⬜ Backlog
TD-61 RF obs. #2 Low .tfw/glossary.md L66 RESEARCH entry says “Optional — user can skip with confirmation” — duplicates plan.md Step 6 logic. Minor inconsistency ⬜ Backlog
TD-62 RF obs. #3 + review Med .tfw/conventions.md L292-303 Hard Stop Rule only covers Coordinator→Executor and Executor→Reviewer transitions. Missing: Researcher→Coordinator (“Research complete → /tfw-plan”). The base.md STOP instruction handles it, but conventions §15 Hard Stop Rule should list all 3 transitions for completeness ⬜ Backlog

4. Traces Updated

5. Fact Candidates

# Category Candidate Source Confidence
1 process TFW now has 4 roles: Coordinator, Researcher, Executor, Reviewer. Researcher was extracted from Coordinator following the same pattern as TFW-8 (Reviewer extraction). Role split triggered by crash recovery failures (TFW-23: 6/6 gates violated) and user confusion during TFW-24 planning HL-TFW-24, RF FC#1, session discussion High
2 convention Research uses filesystem-level state machine: research/ subfolder with briefing.md, gather.md, extract.md, challenge.md. File existence = stage completion. No parsing, no format compliance needed. External validation: “Artifact-Based Validation” pattern RES D1, RF FC#2, conventions.md §4 High
3 convention Final RES = synthesis document with different structure from stage files. Prevents copy-paste, forces integrated thinking. Term: “Synthesis” for the consolidation step (base.md Step 6) RES D2, RF FC#3 High
4 convention HL template §1 uses Amazon Working Backwards elements: Vision narrative (“write as if done”), Impact field, stakeholder perspective Quote (press release pattern). §10 has “Why Not Just…?” section (internal FAQ pattern) — forces alternatives consideration before research TS Step 5, session discussion High
5 process User insight: “дело не в формате, дело в структурности процесса” — structural enforcement (file existence) beats format enforcement (state tables, checkboxes). Applied to research subfolder design RES D1 user quote, session High

*REVIEW — TFW-24: Researcher Role & RES State Machine 2026-04-04*