Improve Existing Website

Improve what is weak without sanding away identity. Existing work contains signal and drift; evidence decides which is which.

1. Inspect the product people actually use

Open the rendered priority path before prescribing. Trace entry, decision, action, and recovery at wide/narrow widths. Inspect hierarchy, tokens, repeated components, content, supplied analytics/user evidence, and business cues.

Label what you can point to EVIDENCE and interpretations INFERRED. “The primary action changes label across three screens” is direct; “the brand values warmth” is inferred unless brief/product evidence says so.

Done when: priority path, recurring choices, and highest-cost failures are observable.

2. Separate identity from drift

Record signals worth preserving: distinctive type, color relationships, interaction patterns, voice, layout logic, or recognizable assets. Classify each change:

Use references/signal-vs-drift.md when repetition, age, or inconsistency could be intentional. Age alone is not drift evidence.

Done when: every proposed change names what survives and why it is authorized.

3. Form the smallest coherent direction

Complete assets/INFERRED-SYSTEM.template.md across audience, territory, type, color, layout, components, voice, and accessibility. Score readiness with references/inspection-state-machine.md. Ask only questions that change the safe direction; otherwise state inference and evidence.

Do not solve a system problem with isolated polish. Choose a narrow vertical slice proving the direction across a real path (navigation, content section, form/state, narrow layout) before propagating it.

Done when: the direction can be approved, rejected, or resumed without reconstructing the investigation.

4. Approve, repair, and verify

For each repair, record observed failure, preserved signal, smallest coherent edit, owner/ approval source, and proof. After approval, use references/repair-handoffs.md for specialist passes. Verify the same path/viewports; comparison must show defect changed and signal survived.

If work pauses, save current state, unresolved question, evidence, and exact next decision using references/inspection-state-machine.md. Resume from that checkpoint, not a fresh opinion.

Done when: report distinguishes repaired drift, preserved identity, browser/static proof, and deliberately deferred ambiguity.

Reference files

• references/audit-procedure.md — extraction order.
• references/signal-vs-drift.md — identity versus accident.
• references/decision-records.md — scope ADR rules.
• references/inspection-state-machine.md — readiness/approval.
• assets/improve-checklist.md — completion ledger.
• references/repair-handoffs.md — routing/skip rules.
• references/interview-contract.generated.md — canonical authority.

Self-check

assets/improve-checklist.md is completion authority for inspection, labels, approval, handoffs, and evidence.

Contract (generated)

Canonical detail: contract.json.

• Route: An existing site or codebase needs improvement while preserving its intended identity (+1 in contract.json); avoid: A greenfield project needs direction before anything exists to inspect (+1 in contract.json)
• Exclude: Do not prescribe or edit before inspecting evidence (+1 in contract.json)
• Stop / handoff: Pause when evidence is insufficient for a safe inference (+2 in contract.json); receives [none] -> sends [a11y-pass, art-direction, cognitive-a11y, color-system, component-states, data-viz, deslop-ui, empty-states, humanize-copy, i18n-ready, responsive-layout, spacing-system, tasteroll, theming, web-typography]
• Output: An evidence-labelled inferred system, readiness decision, and scoped repair plan or implementation report
• Evidence: table_with_evidence with status, reason, remediation, evidence, provenance.