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
aa36b3b36b