development-governance

To prevent residual debt during multi-file development, enforce a closed-loop governance process that requires audited planning, single-source-of-truth alignment, and verified completion with evidence before a task exits. This ensures code, tests, and documentation are fully synchronized.

Closed-loop task planning for feature delivery works by breaking non-trivial tasks into auditable sub-tasks, implementing and verifying each one sequentially, performing code review, and closing tasks only when documentation sync and cleanup records confirm zero residual debt.

Yes, you need SPEC.md and AGENTS.md files to start development governance. The process requires reading these files to confirm the single source of truth and completion definitions before generating per-scope development records in the docs/development directory.

The best way to sync documentation for new cross-file interfaces is to write development records directly to a fixed docs/development directory, structuring them with goals, non-goals, fact sources, task splits, validation results, and cleanup records for a fully auditable trail.

Your code review process misses incomplete tasks because it lacks an entry and exit gate. Enforcing governance requires checking implementation, validation, documentation sync, and cleanup evidence before allowing a task to close, eliminating half-finished states.

This governance workflow targets non-trivial development tasks like feature delivery, new interfaces, and cross-file implementations where explicit verification is mandatory. Simple single-file script updates without strict acceptance criteria do not require this level of audited planning.