guard

Guard — Main-Side Verification Checks

Automatic verification layer running in the main session (System 1). No agent spawn.

Guard covers verification checks that main can reliably do on itself: sensitive files, test execution, discipline conformance, and detection of novel traps during work. Guard is pure verify-and-flag — it detects, it warns, it blocks. It does not record, accumulate, or persist findings; those belong to scribe (post-work persistence). It also does not verify whether the artifact matches the user's intent; that check is structurally unreliable when done inside the agent that produced the artifact, and is delegated to witness.

Scope boundaries:

Check kind	Owner	Why
Test execution, sensitive file blocking, discipline conformance, novel-trap detection	guard	Real-time verification during work; synchronous check-and-block at decision points
Scope match (is this within what was asked?), content match (does it do what was asked?), framing-derived scope	witness	Intent-artifact comparison — requires protocol isolation from main's reasoning (see witness.md §Isolation stack for what "isolation" means on current Claude Code)
Recording novel traps, writing project rules to CLAUDE.md, journaling verdicts, bridge notes, progress tracking	scribe	Post-work persistence — what the session learned that should outlive it

Guard detects and flags. Scribe persists what was flagged. Witness checks intent-artifact match in isolation. Three different axes on the same work.

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1. Pre-Commit Verification

Before any commit, check in order:

Test pass confirmation

• If tests exist, run them before commit. Fail → block commit.
• "No tests, so just commit" is not allowed.

Claims backed by execution

• "It works" must be backed by actual output (logs, test results). Not by speculation.

Sensitive file blocking

• .env, credentials.*, secrets.*, *.pem, *.key in staging → immediate block.
• Also check .gitignore coverage.

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2. Discipline Violation

Check against core.md + hints.md

• Compare current actions against the active discipline (core verification principles + domain hints).
• On violation: stop, warn, suggest the correct action.
• User can explicitly override.

Note: Discipline conformance is a main-side check because discipline is a shared rule set, not a user-specific intent. Witness is deliberately excluded from discipline injection (see witness.md §Operating principles) — it is a comparator, not a rule-follower.

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3. Novel Trap Detection

When a verification failure is discovered that is NOT covered by existing hints or memory, guard flags it as a novel trap — a class of failure that existing discipline and memory did not anticipate. Guard's job stops at detection and flagging; recording, abstracting, and persisting the trap belong to scribe.

What guard does

1. Detect: a verification failure occurs, and the failure pattern does not match any existing hint or memory entry.
2. Flag it in the output as Novel trap with a 1-2 line description: what happened, why existing discipline didn't catch it.
3. Dispatch to scribe at the end of the current task with the trap payload (pattern, context, what-would-have-caught-it). See skills/scribe/SKILL.md §Novel Trap Recording.
4. Not optional: guard must dispatch. If a novel trap is detected and not dispatched, the verification layer is not complete.

Guard does not write memory files itself, does not propose formats to the user, and does not manage the sonmat memory directory. All of that is scribe's territory — guard's role is to notice that something new happened and hand the raw signal off.

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4. Severity

Severity	Symbol	Target	Action
Warning	⚠️	Discipline violation, novel trap detected	Warn + dispatch to scribe for persistence (traps). Proceed if user allows.
Block	🚨	Sensitive files, security risk, failing tests	Immediate stop. Re-confirm even after user allows.

Same-category warnings repeated 3+ times in a session → collapse to one-line summary.

Scope creep is not listed here — that category moved to witness's intent-scope mismatch check. Guard does not judge scope against user intent; witness does, with protocol isolation.

Project rule discovery is not listed here — that category moved to scribe. Guard detects and verifies; observing the user's patterns to propose project rules is accumulation work, and accumulation is scribe's axis.

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5. Operation Mode

This guardrail operates at System 1 level:

• No agent spawn.
• Runs in main session, immediately.
• Always on unless user explicitly disables.
• When triggered, state what was detected concisely.

For the protocol-isolated verification layer (intent-artifact match, commit-gate BLOCK), see witness. Guard and witness are complementary Swiss-cheese layers, not substitutes — guard catches operational slips, witness catches intent drift that main's self-check structurally cannot.