RF — TFW-52 / Phase B: Assisted¶

Date: 2026-08-13 Author: Codex (Executor) Status: 🟢 RF — Complete Owner disposition: SUCCESS WITH KNOWN LIMITATION Parent HL: HL-TFW-52 TS: TS Phase B

1. What Was Done¶

New Files¶

File	Description
`editions/02-assisted/README.md`	Standalone Russian Assisted guide: initialization, working cycle, manual fallback and honest boundaries.
`editions/02-assisted/AGENTS.md`	Agent contract for project initialization, critical TFW mode, task discovery, traces, memory, risk and migration.
`editions/02-assisted/PROJECT.md`	Uninitialized standalone project card for goals, user, audience, success criteria, values, participants and constraints.
`editions/02-assisted/MIGRATION.md`	Preserving Light → Assisted migration procedure with duplicate-contract stop.
`editions/02-assisted/.codex/hooks.json`	Project lifecycle definitions for `SessionStart`, `PreCompact` and `Stop`.
`editions/02-assisted/.codex/hooks/tfw-hook.ps1`	Windows handler for root, actor, state, checkpoints, consistency and deterministic secret checks.
`editions/02-assisted/.codex/hooks/tfw-hook.sh`	POSIX counterpart of the handler.
`editions/02-assisted/people/README.md`	Separate human/automation profile and declared-attribution contract.
`editions/02-assisted/knowledge/INDEX.md`	Candidate/record navigation with explicit non-automatic semantics.
`phase-b/evidence/EV__phase-b__assisted.md`	Structured evidence ledger, lifecycle blocker and owner disposition.
`phase-b/RF__phase-b__assisted.md`	This execution result.

Modified Files¶

File	Changes
`editions/README.md`	Marks Assisted as available and links the standalone starter.
`README.md`	Adds Assisted to the editions entry and transitions Phase B to RF.
`phase-b/ONB__phase-b__assisted.md`	Records approved onboarding and expected evidence dispatch plan.

Implementation commits: 8557a32 (initial Assisted starter), ac4c3a4 (owner-directed standalone initialization and active task intake). ONB commit: 5f4f308. No push was performed.

Scope accounting: 14 touched repository files in Phase B, 12 new including ONB/EV/RF, 2 modified, 844 product LOC; within 30 files / 15 new / 3000 LOC / 30 modified.

2. Key Decisions¶

Assisted is a standalone edition. It no longer assumes Light context or a pre-filled generic goal. PROJECT.md starts uninitialized and the first-run dialogue captures the actual project, user, audience, goal, desired effect, success criteria, values and constraints.
The user’s preferred professional role and mental model belong in the active agent contract. Initialization fills the two designated values in AGENTS.md, then requires a new session so the changed contract is loaded.
TFW’s critical mode is explicit. The agent must be useful rather than agreeable: no flattery, evidence-backed disagreement, facts separated from conclusions, unknowns named, Working Backwards before action and no placeholders.
Creating a task is not useful progress by itself. Vague problems trigger up to three high-value discovery questions. After creating a trace, the agent must immediately take the next useful step or ask a concrete blocking question.
Hooks remain delivered but not claimed as working lifecycle evidence. Deterministic handlers passed local fixtures; trusted Codex Desktop did not durably dispatch them in the tested runtimes. The manual fallback is therefore a real operating mode, not hidden degradation.
Owner acceptance governs product closure, not evidence history. The owner directed successful closure after basic use. EV preserves AC-2 BLOCKED and unexecuted lanes as DEFERRED; success does not rewrite observations.

3. Acceptance Criteria¶

[x] AC-1 — Assisted opens as a standalone project. The nine-file starter copies to a clean root, explains limits and initialization, contains no user-facing JSON/code requirement, and respects the 700/1100 word limits.
[ ] AC-2 — Hooks installed, trusted and executed. BLOCKED. Definitions and handlers exist and pass deterministic fixtures, but supported Codex Desktop did not produce durable lifecycle dispatch evidence.
[ ] AC-3 — Durable action does not start without a trace. DEFERRED live gate. The final contract requires orientation and trace-before-result; real Stop mismatch evidence was not completed.
[ ] AC-4 — Ordinary conversation creates nothing. DEFERRED full lane. Contract and an incomplete safe no-write run support the behavior; the complete three-question and active_task=none lifecycle proof was not collected.
[x] AC-5 — Root is resolved without Git. Root/nested/missing/competing-marker fixtures passed and the final uninitialized project marker remains discoverable.
[ ] AC-6 — Memory is prepared but not presented as automatic. DEFERRED live candidate gate. Structure and wording pass inspection; AC-8 candidate artifacts were not collected.
[ ] AC-7 — Risk gate precedes shared writing. DEFERRED full lane. Deterministic secret fixture and semantic hold contract exist; the two full live runs and Stop publication check were not completed.
[ ] AC-8 — Light/Assisted comparison. DEFERRED. The frozen scenario was not run; no measured-difference claim is made.
[ ] AC-9 — Light migration preserves the project. DEFERRED. The preservation procedure exists; live migration and byte comparison were not run.
[ ] AC-10 — Two participants share a non-Git root. DEFERRED. Ownership/profile design exists; parallel live evidence was not run.
[x] AC-11 — Visible manual mode. Exact fallback wording and manual order are documented and were observed in the incomplete interactive run; this does not verify lifecycle hooks.

Owner outcome: accepted as successful with the hook limitation and deferred evidence explicitly recorded.

4. Verification¶

Structural assertions: PASS — standalone wording, initialization prompt/state, project goals and values, agent role/mental model, critical mode, task intake and no-stop-after-trace checks all passed.
Word limits: PASS — README.md 531/700; AGENTS.md 1038/1100.
Handler fixtures: PASS — root/nested/missing/competing-root paths, trace consistency, checkpoint idempotence, one-shot Stop state and deterministic secret checks were exercised locally.
Fresh-root smoke after the final patch: PASS — final PROJECT.md was resolved from a nested directory in a non-Git root; SessionStart handler returned a valid summary and created neither work/ nor knowledge/inbox/.
Git diff checks: PASS — product commits contain only owned Phase B paths; no .tfw/, TFW-51, substantive Light, TFW-53 or TFW-54 product changes.
Codex lifecycle: BLOCKED — trusted interactive Codex sessions did not yield durable dispatch events, handler state or additional context. No synthetic call is promoted to lifecycle evidence.
Full downstream live suite: DEFERRED by owner closure — comparison, migration, two-participant and remaining risk lanes were not rerun after final owner corrections.

5. Evidence¶

See EV file for evidence details.

Evidence verdict: 3/11 VERIFIED, 7 DEFERRED, 1 BLOCKED, 0 N/A

Product disposition: SUCCESS WITH KNOWN LIMITATION by explicit owner direction on 2026-08-13.

6. Observations (out-of-scope, not modified)¶

#	File	Line(s)	Type	Description
1	Codex Desktop lifecycle runtime	N/A	missing-test	Project hooks were visible/trusted but not durably dispatched in tested Desktop runtimes. Upstream runtime correction is required before AC-2 can be reverified; global hooks, trust bypass and product redesign were intentionally not used.
2	External raw evidence roots	N/A	ux	The previously reported external run roots and rollout files were absent at RF closure on 2026-08-13. EV retains exact session IDs and outcomes, but raw reviewer-inspectable bundles are unavailable.

7. Fact Candidates¶

#	Category	Candidate	Source	Confidence
1	product	Assisted must be independently usable and must not assume Light is installed alongside it or was used as an upgrade source.	Owner feedback, 2026-08-09	High
2	process	At initialization, the method must capture the actual project, user, goal, desired effect, success criteria and values, plus the professional role and mental model expected from the AI.	Owner feedback, 2026-08-09	High
3	philosophy	The baseline TFW agent mode is a critically useful partner: it challenges weak assumptions with evidence, does not flatter or agree automatically, and remains honest about uncertainty.	Owner feedback, 2026-08-09	High
4	ux	A vague request must lead to problem discovery and useful follow-through; merely creating a task and waiting is an unacceptable assistant behavior.	Owner garden/gardener test, 2026-08-09	High
5	product	The owner accepts the current Assisted edition as successful for closure while treating broken lifecycle hooks as a known external limitation.	Owner closure direction, 2026-08-13	High

8. Strategic Insights (Execution)¶

#	Insight	Category	Source
S1	Structure can enforce trace hygiene yet still produce an inert assistant if discovery and forward motion are underspecified. Implication: every edition must preserve both halves of the method: durable traces and an active, critical problem-solving stance.	philosophy	Owner’s standalone and garden/gardener feedback
S2	Standalone initialization is product behavior, not setup documentation. Implication: a starter’s initial files must visibly represent “unknown project” and instruct the agent to construct project-specific context through dialogue instead of shipping a plausible generic goal.	product	Owner’s basic Assisted test
S3	Owner-level product acceptance and formal evidence completeness answer different questions. Implication: TFW can close a useful MVP successfully while retaining precise blocked/deferred evidence, provided no unverified mechanism is relabeled as working.	process	Owner closure direction after hook failure

9. Diagrams¶

flowchart LR
    U["First user message"] --> I{"Project initialized?"}
    I -- "No" --> Q["≤3 questions: project, goal/values, AI role/model"]
    Q --> P["PROJECT + profiles + AGENTS settings"]
    P --> N["New session"]
    I -- "Yes" --> D{"Request clear enough?"}
    N --> D
    D -- "No" --> C["≤3 high-value discovery questions"]
    D -- "Yes" --> T["TRACE before durable result"]
    C --> T
    T --> W["Next useful action or concrete blocker"]
    W --> R["Result + verification + knowledge decision"]
    H["Lifecycle hooks"] -. "known runtime blocker" .-> T
    M["Manual fallback"] --> T

RF — TFW-52 / Phase B: Assisted | 2026-08-13

fact-candidates: processed 2026-08-13