Godmode Continuity

Outcome

Produce a bounded context brief whose claims can be traced to current inspection or a validated local record, then preserve the next recovery point outside the working tree.

Reconstruct current reality

1. Resolve project, Git-common-directory, worktree, branch, HEAD, and hashed-remote identity before trusting prior state.
2. Run context status; add --scan when filesystem drift matters.
3. Run inventory diff to distinguish added, changed, and removed paths from the last baseline. Do not infer file content from hashes.
4. Run resume after a valid baseline or resume --refresh when evidence is stale.
5. Classify each brief item as observed fact, declared intent, assumption, conflict, invariant, decision, incident, open check, or obligation.

Treat identity drift, contradictory invariants, phantom file references, undocumented changes, unproven completion, and capacity overflow as findings—not as facts to hide.

Preserve continuity

Use the narrow record type:

• remember --kind decision|invariant|lesson|obligation for durable knowledge.
• remember --kind lesson --enforce 'kind=<kind>;predicate=<field op value>' (needs --guard).
• Enforce makes a guard executable: a matching write of that kind is refused, guard as remedy.
• Forbids refusal/action/checkpoint kinds as enforce targets; literals cap at 256 characters.
• matches allows at most one quantifier on an atom or class, never a group, at parse time.
• A matches field over 4096 characters refuses the write outright - never truncated or silent.
• A later lesson must reaffirm --enforce or set status superseded, retired, or candidate.
• checklist update for cumulative checks.
• checkpoint for a recoverable state, next actions, active hypothesis, and evidence; --owes "<restore>" for a temporary change left behind (a role bump, a throwaway spec) that the scope gate names until it is closed.
• branches --record, version, db, sprint, or docs for domain state.

Record relative paths, statuses, hashes, and evidence references. Never record raw prompts, conversations, tool transcripts, source bodies, secrets, or environment dumps. A lesson may describe a failure and generalized guard, but should not preserve sensitive failure payloads.

Completion gate

Before ending or compacting a session, record what changed, what was verified, what is still uncertain, and the next executable action. A complete, fixed, or done status requires fresh evidence. Run doctor after a material continuity change.

Godmode cannot guarantee perfect memory. If no valid baseline or adapter exists, say so and give the exact rebuild action.

Status truth lives in one writable store: status set|survey|remaining|render|handover (pending items are existence-checked; phantoms close with evidence). context why --about X answers with the recorded decisions, fixes, dependencies, and invariants touching a surface; slice reads bounded file ranges that declare their own truncation; absorb --path X proves a synced file is truly absorbed.

Read godmode-continuity-schema.md when choosing record types or interpreting detector output.

Verbs at the moment of demand

• Opening and closing: godmode session open states identity, dirty files, plan, obligations and the host's enforcement table; godmode session close refuses an unattested rule or an uncited claim; godmode brief prints the continuity brief on demand.
• Memory hygiene: godmode hygiene lists near-duplicate and contradicting lessons and decisions among the newest active records per kind; supersede the loser with remember --status superseded.
• Forgetting: godmode forget expires old episodes into a cold, still-chained segment (action and refusal after 30 days, attestation after 90), reports supersession chains and flags contradictions as review records that status and hygiene surface until they are acknowledged or dismissed (remember --kind review --review seq:<n> names which one a closure closes). A record cited by a live claim, a checkpoint, a law guard or a pin never expires; --now previews another clock and is accepted with --dry-run only; history --seq still reaches a cold record, re-hashing it before it serves it.
• What happened: godmode history walks the record, godmode actions lists tool actions the gate saw, godmode inventory snapshots the tree, godmode drift names what moved since, godmode report and godmode export render the record for a reader or another tool, godmode index rebuilds the lookup index.
• When the anchor is wrong: godmode reanchor re-binds the archive to the repository, godmode rewind returns to a recorded state, godmode replay re-reads a recorded run.
• Work in flight: godmode planmode check holds an edit to the approved plan, godmode build records a build outcome, godmode fleet lists the sessions on this machine, godmode examples and godmode guide show the recorded rules in use, godmode selftest proves the install itself, and godmode claim --stale names claims whose cited evidence moved.