/plate

Plate completes local work before review. It finishes required artifacts, validates, commits safely, and selects the correct publication path.

Phase entry

Run python3 skills/plate/scripts/plate.pyz wheypoint-resolve --ref <slug>. authoritative uses the record; its working_context is the first batched tilth_read. not-found proceeds cold; legacy shows its source and slug, then proceeds. gated, ambiguous, and error stop and show the payload. Show advisory stale-commit and grounded-path-missing findings.

Plate resolves the slug and reads the result, but it does not commit a wheypoint revision or publish a wheypoint revision.

Routing guard

Check ownership before you select a mode. /plate owns staging, commits, pushes, ordinary pull request changes, and pull request stack changes.

• /plate never performs code-quality review. It never computes a review surface for its own sake. Review is /age.
• GitHub inspection, reviews, comments, CI, merges, issues, workflows, releases, search, and administration are outside /plate. Use the gh CLI directly when no local publication transaction is necessary. Use /affinage to act on pull request feedback or CI failures.
• A request that only reads or assesses GitHub or diff state leaves /plate before any mode is selected. Thus, routing it here is a plate-owned failure.
• Destructive deletion, history rewrites, unsafe force-pushes, and protected-branch changes require explicit user authorization.

Classify, then load one reference

Classify every invocation into exactly one mode. Load one reference at a time. Do not read the others.

Inspect a stack only as a step of a requested stack change. Route a stack inspection request without a requested change out of /plate to the gh CLI.

New-PR work loads its references in this sequence. Load each reference alone. Close it before you load the next one.

1. Load references/topology.md. Resolve the topology. Plate decides it and does not ask the user.
2. Load references/ordinary-pr.md for the single or orthogonal_flat shape. Load references/stacks.md for a stacked shape.
3. Load exactly one provider reference from references/stacks.md for a stacked shape. The provider references are gt.md, git-town.md, and gh-stack.md. When no provider is usable, references/stacks.md routes to setup.md.

When an existing pull request uses a stack, load references/stacks.md. Do not use a bare single-branch push.

Hard gate

Accept --hard to run /hard-cheese immediately before you first share the work for review. Give that gate one JSON context. Include the final artifact inventory, the completion rows, the tracked artifact diff digest, and the quality gate result. Do not give it an earlier implementation snapshot.

Read the gate status. Then apply this matrix:

Ask the ERROR question through the shared question transport. See ../cheese/references/ask-user-question.md.

Tool routing

• Run python3 skills/plate/scripts/plate.pyz stack-tools before you select a stack provider. The command detects Graphite, Git Town, and gh stack. It does not change repository state.
• Use Git and GitHub for repository, remote, and PR state. Use the selected provider CLI for stack state.
• Use the repository code-intelligence backend to edit tracked artifacts. Use the same backend to read them. Select the backend with code-intelligence-routing.md. Follow this sequence from references/durable-writes.md: fresh tagged read, one stale-safe write, diff read-back. Use named paths. Do not use shell redirects.
• Send durable wiki knowledge through /wiki-ingest. Do not edit the Hallouminate tree directly.
• Keep temporary completion and PR-body files under .cheese/. Do not stage them.
• Slash commands are host renderings, not the control model. Name the capability before you show a host example. See ../cheese/references/harness-portability.md.

Generic transaction

Commit-only work and ordinary PR work use this transaction. Stacked work uses the per-layer transaction in references/stacks.md.

1. Final writing gate — List every promised or required artifact. Write each artifact. Read each artifact back. Follow references/durable-writes.md. Stop if a required write is missing or unverified.
2. Validate — Run the repository's quality gate. Use just check in easy-cheese or any repository that defines it. Do not commit or publish when the quality gate fails.
3. Inspect — Read the status, complete diff, and recent log. Verify the intended file set.
4. Stage — Add only named files. Do not stage the full tree. Keep temporary .cheese/ reports unstaged. Include tracked wiki and documentation changes. If the repository has a Hallouminate wiki, inspect git status for uncommitted .hallouminate/wiki/ paths. Include writes from earlier in the session. Stage these writes unless Git ignores them. Publish wiki updates with this transaction. Do not publish them later.
5. Commit — Use a Conventional Commit message that explains the reason. Do not amend unless the user requests it. Do not bypass hooks.
6. Verify — Inspect the status and the committed file set.
7. Publish when requested — Follow references/ordinary-pr.md. Read the PR after publication. Verify it. Draw any PR diagram by diagrams.md from diagram-templates.md.

Commit-only mode stops after verification. It does not push or open a PR.

Commit contract

Before staging, inspect git status, the complete diff, and recent commits. Reject credentials, .env files, and unexplained large binaries. Stage every intended path explicitly. Use this format:

type(scope): short description

Optional body when the rationale needs it.

Write the subject first. Use a neutral tone. State the change first in the subject. Put only required reviewer facts in the optional body. Keep the body short. Omit narrative prose, tone, and slang.

Use these types: feat, fix, refactor, chore, docs, test, and style. If a hook fails, fix the failure. Re-run the writing and quality gates when artifacts change. Re-stage each named file. Create a new commit.

Use a single-quoted heredoc delimiter for multi-line commit messages. This delimiter protects backticks and dollar signs from shell interpolation. Use an optional Co-Authored-By: <name> <email> trailer when the project accepts the harness identity. Otherwise, omit the trailer. After staging, inspect the cached diff. An empty working diff can mean that all changes are staged. Read the cached diff to tell this state from no changes.

Create one commit for each review unit. Use one commit for a single PR and one commit for each stack layer. Do not shape a PR for commit-by-commit review. The system does not track approval for each commit. Quality gates usually run only on the branch tip. Feedback on one commit delays the other commits. Use multiple commits in one PR only for a short series of simple steps. Keep the combined change small.

Halting

Every halt names the mode, the failed step, and who owns the failure. Name the step with exactly one of: classify, topology, durable write, quality gate, stage/commit, publish, or terminal validation. Apply the shared voice rules from ../age/references/voice.md in halt and completion reports.

• Plate-owned — This skill selected an incorrect call shape or route. Examples include a malformed write, stale write, skipped read, or unnamed staging path. A full-tree staging path is also Plate-owned. A mismatch between the mode and reference is also Plate-owned. Review work for /age or GitHub work outside publication is a Plate-owned routing error. Use this recovery rule: Fix the call shape or the routing, then retry that step.
• Environment-owner — Authentication, permission, hooks, network, provider enablement, or a shared backend caused the failure. Name the owning system in the report. Never retry it as if the call shape were wrong. Also, never weaken a gate, stage unnamed paths, or skip read-back to bypass the failure.

A failed quality gate proves that the work is not shippable. Therefore, halt at quality gate. Then fix the work.

Completion

Write the terminal evidence to a temporary JSON file. Run python3 skills/plate/scripts/plate.pyz validate-publication <state.json>. Report completion only when the command returns normalized evidence with valid: true.

{
  "mode": "new-pr",
  "topology": "single",
  "provider": "ordinary",
  "artifacts": [
    {"target": "docs/adr/example.md", "backend": "tilth", "verified": true}
  ],
  "gate": {"command": "just check", "result": "pass"},
  "commits": ["0123456789abcdef0123456789abcdef01234567"],
  "pr_plan": {
    "contract_version": {
      "schema_uri": "https://schemas.easy-cheese.dev/pr-plan",
      "major": "1",
      "minor": "0"
    },
    "shape": "single",
    "target_branch": "main",
    "groups": [
      {
        "branch": "feature",
        "title": "docs: example ADR",
        "base": "main",
        "commits": ["0123456789abcdef0123456789abcdef01234567"],
        "depends_on": []
      }
    ]
  },
  "prs": [
    {
      "url": "https://github.com/example/repo/pull/42",
      "base": "main",
      "head": "feature",
      "verified": true
    }
  ],
  "risk": "none"
}

Use empty commits or prs lists when the selected mode does not create them. Topology preflight stops before the publication transaction and quality gate. Therefore, use gate: {"command": "n/a", "result": "n/a"} for topology preflight.

See the generated bundle command inventory in references/commands.md.