Phase Record

Record only a phase explicitly declared by the human engineer. A recorded phase is project context, not evidence of verification, approval, or release.

Accepted phases

• DRAFT: schematic capture in progress; PCB work not started.
• PRELIMINARY: schematic nearly complete; PCB work started.
• CHECK: schematic and PCB mostly final; the human runs ERC and DRC on a saved baseline.
• RELEASE: an approved CHECK baseline is published.

If the project has rules/hardware-workflow.md, it holds the full phase definitions.

Record

1. Accept a phase only when the human explicitly states one of the accepted values (case-insensitive; write it in upper case).
2. Treat wording such as "record it in README.md" or "update the README" as explicit persistence. Otherwise acknowledge the declaration in conversation only and make no file changes. A phase that is a step back (for example CHECK to DRAFT) is recorded as declared.
3. If the human explicitly requests persistence in README.md, locate exactly one existing Current Phase record. Recognize either **Current Phase:** or - Current Phase:.
4. Replace only that phase value with the human-declared phase. Preserve all other README content, including phase descriptions, status notes, and established formatting. The one other permitted edit is the Mermaid workflow diagram, updated as described in "Diagram sync".
5. If the record already holds the declared phase, report that and change nothing.
6. If the Current Phase record is missing, duplicated, or ambiguous, report the problem and do not modify the file.

Diagram sync

When persistence is requested (this includes creating a new README with a declared phase) and the README has the Mermaid workflow diagram (nodes A-D for DRAFT, PRELIMINARY, CHECK, RELEASE, matched by order and label), update only its class assignment lines to match the declared phase:

• Phases before the declared one: done.
• The declared phase: review.
• Phases after it: inactive.
• RELEASE declared: all four nodes done.

Do not change nodes, edges, labels or classDef lines. If the diagram is missing or its class lines are ambiguous, update the Current Phase value only and report that the diagram was not updated. Never add a diagram that is not already there.

Boundaries

• Never infer, validate, advance, or reject a phase from project files, ERC, DRC, document presence, Git state, or a GitHub release.
• Do not create PHASE.md, JSON state, a database, or other phase records.
• RELEASE never authorizes a commit, tag, push, pull request, or GitHub release.
• Do not generate, open, read, parse, or assess PDF documents.
• Keep KiCad files and libraries read-only.
• Editing README.md is a content edit; staging or committing it needs separate approval. Follow rules/git-workflow.md if present.

Output

• State the declared phase and whether it was acknowledged only or recorded in README.md, and whether the diagram was updated.
• If persistence could not be completed, state whether the Current Phase record was missing, duplicated, or ambiguous. Do not create a replacement section.