Close

Retire one SpecScore artifact when its work is done. close is a thin driver over the specscore <kind> change-status CLI verbs: it resolves the artifact's kind, confirms the terminal status with the user, captures a reason when one is required, and performs exactly one change-status call. That single call does the status rewrite, writes any ## Resolution note (--note), relocates a seed to archived/, and syncs the index — atomically, with rollback on failure.

Load-bearing invariant: close NEVER hand-edits status. Every transition goes through the CLI verb — not as a primary path, and not as a fallback on failure. A hand-edit anywhere is a contract violation.

Implements the Close Skill Feature.

When to Use

• A single Idea, Feature, or sidekick seed has reached end-of-life (shipped, superseded, rejected, or parked) and the user wants to retire it.
• The user types /close <artifact> or asks to retire/close/reject an artifact.

Refuse and redirect when:

• The invocation does not resolve to exactly one existing artifact, or resolves ambiguously to more than one kind → stop and ask the user which artifact; write nothing. (AC: resolves-kind-and-verb)
• The transition would be illegal for the resolved artifact (the CLI returns exit 4) → surface the current status and the legal source set; do not retry, do not hand-edit. (AC: surfaces-illegal-transition)

Kind → verb → terminal statuses

close resolves the artifact's kind by location, which selects the verb and the candidate terminal statuses:

Archival is orthogonal to status — it is not a terminal status. An artifact is closed to one of the terminals above and retains that status when filed away; filing it out of active view is a separate archive action, never a change-status --to=Archived call.

(Resolving the kind is a filesystem check — not a CLI call. close does not query the CLI and then call it again.)

The close flow

1. Resolve the artifact and kind (REQ resolve-artifact-kind). Take the slug / feature-id / path argument and resolve it by location to exactly one of the three kinds above. If it resolves to nothing, or ambiguously to more than one kind, STOP and ask the user — never guess.
2. Present the candidate terminals and confirm (REQ confirm-terminal-before-close). Closing is terminal, so present the candidate terminal status(es) for the resolved kind and obtain an explicit user choice. Never auto-select a terminal status.
3. Capture the reason (REQ reason-for-negative-transitions).
   • For a negative transition (an Idea or seed Rejected), a reason is mandatory. Collect it up front and pass it via --note. Do not invoke the verb without it — the CLI also enforces this with exit 2, but collecting it first avoids a wasted round-trip.
   • For a passive-decay transition (an Idea or seed Stale — nobody decided against it, it simply was never carried forward), OFFER to record an optional --note (e.g. why it lost relevance).
   • For a positive/neutral transition (Implemented / Deprecated), OFFER to record an optional --note (the rationale or where the work shipped).
   • When close is invoked by another skill (non-interactive), the reason MUST be supplied by the caller as an explicit argument. close MUST NOT fabricate or auto-generate a reason for a reason-required transition; if the caller passed none, refuse and surface the requirement. (AC: ai-caller-must-pass-reason)

4. Drive the verb — one call (REQ cli-only-transition). Invoke exactly one specscore <kind> change-status <id> --to=<status> [--note <markdown>]. That single call atomically performs the status rewrite, the ## Resolution note write, any seed relocation + type: tag, and the spec lint --fix index sync, with rollback on any failure. Do not issue a second mutating call, a follow-up edit, or a manual index fix-up.

   Single-call guardrail. If a future need ever makes one call insufficient to close atomically (multi-artifact, cross-repo, or a transition the CLI can't express as one verb), that is the signal to add a dedicated specscore close command in the CLI — not to multi-call from this skill.

5. Branch on the exit code (REQ branch-on-cli-exit) — and NEVER fall back to a hand-edit on any non-zero:

   Exit	Meaning	Action
   0	success	Surface the verb's <id>: <from> → <to> line. Done. (AC: closes-via-cli-on-success)
   1	archive collision	Surface the conflict; stop.
   2	invalid args / missing required reason	Collect the reason and retry, or correct --to.
   3	artifact not found	Surface; stop.
   4	illegal transition	Surface the current status + legal source set; stop.
   10	rollback applied (lint/IO)	Surface the error; stop.
   127	CLI missing	/specscore:install, then retry.
   8	CLI too old	upgrade, then retry.

Kind availability (REQ seed-close-requires-verb)

Closing a seed depends on the cli/sidekick/change-status verb (shipped in specscore-cli ≥ v0.12.0). If the installed specscore lacks it (exit 127 / 8 on the sidekick change-status call), surface install/upgrade guidance — do NOT hand-edit the seed as a workaround. Idea and Feature closes are unaffected (their change-status verbs predate this).

Not Doing

• Bulk close. One artifact per invocation. Closing several in one call (e.g. a batch of seeds) is out of scope for the MVP — it is N invocations.
• Reopen / un-close. close only moves an artifact to a terminal status; reversing a close is not its job.
• Deploy, verify, recap, or plan side effects. close records a terminal status and nothing else.

Verification

• Resolved the argument to exactly one artifact + kind; ambiguity stopped and asked
• Presented candidate terminals and got an explicit user choice (no auto-select)
• Negative transition collected a reason; AI-caller closes required a passed-in reason (no fabrication)
• Performed exactly one specscore <kind> change-status call (no second mutating call, no hand-edit)
• Branched on the verb's exit code; never hand-edited on non-zero
• Seed close surfaced install/upgrade guidance when the verb was absent

Red Flags

• Editing the **Status:** line, frontmatter status:/type:, or an index row directly — ever, including as a fallback
• Issuing more than one mutating CLI call for a single close (see the single-call guardrail)
• Auto-selecting a terminal status instead of confirming with the user
• Invoking the verb for a reason-required transition without a reason
• Fabricating a reason for an AI-driven (non-interactive) close
• Retrying after exit 4 (illegal transition) instead of surfacing and stopping
• Hand-editing a seed as a workaround when the sidekick change-status verb is missing