Exact-size ceilings turned every two-word wording fix into a gate
event. The policy amends to: a ceiling sits at least 5% above the
doc's current size (pre-rewrite) and keeps that margin when ratcheted
to target — routine edits pass, real growth still trips the gate.
Amended together in all four policy homes (docs/AGENTS.md § Budgets,
the doc-tiers RFC, the gate script's module comment, the skill's
ratchet rule) plus the manifest values, so prose and mechanics stay
consistent.
- The manifest now freezes each budgeted doc at its exact current wc -w
count, matching the documented policy (a ceiling starts at the doc's
current size); the headroom that contradicted the freeze claim is
gone. Post-rewrite ratchets may still land at new-size-plus-headroom,
per the skill's ratchet rule — that is a different moment than the
initial freeze.
- --list now renders MISS/BAD rows for missing files and malformed
ceilings instead of silently dropping them (gate mode already failed
correctly; the report mode no longer under-reports).
Standing docs accrete a paragraph per PR with nothing pushing back; the
root AGENTS.md reached 8,130 words in 50 commits with the same rule
stated two and three times. This encodes the counter-pressure:
- docs/AGENTS.md becomes the documentation standard: the tier taxonomy
(one home per fact), target word budgets, and the slop checklist.
- verify-doc-budgets joins doc-sync: word ceilings for the six
accretion-prone standing docs, manifest-driven, frozen at current
sizes and ratcheted down as each doc is brought to target.
- .agents/skills/dsh-doc-standards: the thin placement/audit/red-gate
workflow over the standard, mirroring the dsh-translate-docs split.
- RFC (implemented/process) records the decision, alternatives, and
the first audit cycle's deferred work list.
The gate's first catch was the standard itself (1,057 > 1,000); it
ships condensed to 984 words rather than with a raised ceiling.
Tianyi Cui