Methodology: enforce semantic acceptance and anti-stagnation gates

[Harold-Finchwxx]

Summary

A recent multi-round development loop exposed general workflow improvements. The independent analysis found that review quality was strong, but review findings were not consistently converted into non-reducible execution constraints.

Suggestions

1. Generate a machine-readable next-round must-do checklist with priority, verification commands, expected results, and dependencies. Prevent silent removal or downgrading of mandatory items.
2. Replace surface checks with semantic acceptance: verify provenance, key mapping, input/output correspondence, recovery behavior, and tamper resistance.
3. Require a failure reproduction, fix, and regression test before marking an item complete.
4. Automatically reconcile completion claims with reproducible evidence; reject placeholders and unsupported completion claims.
5. Add an independent high-priority data-integrity gate with source fingerprints, mapping rules, and round-trip checks.
6. Keep reviewer output concise: current verdict, blockers, and commands first; retain historical requirements in one authoritative checklist.
7. Enter recovery mode after two rounds without improvement or with repeated evidence/summary mismatches.
8. Use one complete vertical slice per round, covering input, processing, output, recovery, gates, and tests.
9. Bind task status transitions to verified acceptance results rather than manual claims.
10. Preserve independent re-execution and promote high-value reviewer repro cases into regression tests.

Expected impact

These changes should reduce repeated partial fixes, improve evidence integrity, and make stagnation recovery earlier and more reliable.

This report is intentionally sanitized and contains no project-specific identifiers.