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+# Operating Discipline — the rules every agent factory runs on
+
+> **What this is.** The general, substrate-neutral operating rules for running a fleet of
+> AI coding agents: admission control, independent validation, close discipline, and
+> multi-lane coordination. Distilled from the mt-olympus *triangulated kernel* (D1–D16,
+> three independent model distillations reconciled to consensus) and **folded into AgentOps
+> as the surviving factory** — because AgentOps is now the one self-contained factory and the
+> operating rules should live where the work runs.
+>
+> **Adapted, not blind-copied.** The load-bearing invariants (fail-closed, author≠reviewer,
+> evidence-bound, single-writer) are **already embodied** in the shipped ratchet pawl-gate —
+> each is cited below to the exact mechanism. The rules that were *about the cut cathedral*
+> (an OS-account privilege floor, peercred kernel identity, a daemon, a Rust gate spec) are
+> intentionally **dropped** — the ratchet pawl-gate ([`pawls.md`](../contracts/pawls.md))
+> embodies them in AgentOps terms, and re-importing the floor as live doctrine would resurrect
+> the cathedral. This is a reference doc, not a cathedral.
+
+## The doctrine in one line
+
+**Nothing ships on a lie while you're not looking**: nothing is real until it is admitted to
+the tracker; "done" is a claim until an independent, fresh-context reviewer verifies it against
+the live commit with real evidence; one writer closes; everything ambiguous fails toward a HOLD;
+destructive writes reconcile or refuse — and the whole machine exists to give the operator's
+attention back.
+
+## How the gate embodies the load-bearing rules
+
+The shipped ratchet is the enforcement surface. Read it as: **chaos between pawls, a fail-closed
+gate at each one-way door.**
+
+- **The pawls** ([`docs/contracts/pawls.md`](../contracts/pawls.md)) — the short static list of
+  irreversible actions (mutate-shared-trunk · delete · external-send · schema/contract change ·
+  credential change · spend). Everything *not* on the list is ungated chaos.
+- **The verdict** ([`scripts/pawl-verdict.sh`](../../scripts/pawl-verdict.sh),
+  schema [`schemas/pawl-verdict.v1.schema.json`](../../schemas/pawl-verdict.v1.schema.json)) — an
+  evidence-bound, commit-bound verdict that requires a real reviewer run: `disposition` ∈
+  {CONFIRMED, REFUTED, ESCALATE, HOLD}, an `author_context_id`, ≥1 refuter with a distinct
+  `context_id`, non-empty reviewer evidence, roster-validated families.
+- **The merge path** ([`scripts/reconcile-pr.sh`](../../scripts/reconcile-pr.sh)) — green CI is
+  necessary but **never sufficient**: a CONFIRMED verdict tied to this bead+PR with `head_sha` ==
+  the PR's live head must exist, or the merge is refused (`exit 5` HOLD). A new commit after review
+  → STALE → HOLD. Lookup failure → HOLD. Fail-closed throughout.
+
+## The kernel rules (D1–D16) and their disposition
+
+Each rule: one-line statement, then **disposition** — *embodied-in-gate* (with citation),
+*doctrine* (advisory; no single mechanism yet), or *dropped-as-cathedral* (floor-specific, not
+imported as live doctrine).
+
+### D1 — Admission first
+No work exists until it is admitted and persisted in the tracker. Chat can propose; it cannot
+admit. "Admit first, then work" — never "do work, then file."
+**Doctrine** (operating rule). Embodied operationally by the beads tracker (`br`/`bd`): a bead is
+the unit of admitted work; the pawl-verdict and merge path are keyed by `bead_id`, so an
+un-admitted change has nothing to close against.
+
+### D2 — Completion is a claim, not a state
+A worker's "done" is an event, not a transition; only an independent typed verdict produces a
+verified close. The gate is what makes "don't watch" safe.
+**Embodied-in-gate.** `reconcile-pr.sh` refuses to close on a worker's say-so — it requires a
+CONFIRMED verdict from `pawl-verdict.sh check`; absent it, exit 5 (HOLD).
+
+### D3 — Author ≠ judge, by context identity
+The context that produced the work never validates it; a close needs ≥1 distinct non-author
+reviewer context, blind to authorship. Self-grade exclusion is by **context identity**, not model
+family (cross-family is a strengthening mode, not the floor).
+**Embodied-in-gate.** `pawl-verdict.sh` default `fresh-context` mode requires ≥1 refuter whose
+`context_id` != `author_context_id` (model-agnostic). `multi-model` mode (≥2 roster-validated
+families) is the opt-in strengthener for the highest-irreversibility doors — exactly the
+context-vs-family resolution the kernel's DISPUTED-1 settled.
+
+### D4 — Single writer
+One decision, one binding artifact, one writer. Workers propose and never close; reviewers verify
+and never close; only the orchestrator writes the close, and only on verified PASS.
+**Embodied-in-gate.** The merge/close is performed solely by `reconcile-pr.sh` (the
+orchestrator-only reconcile step); the implementer subagents never merge. Competing writers are an
+integrity failure, not a race.
+
+### D5 — Evidence or it didn't happen
+Every close cites a proof surface; every verdict carries the commands it ran. A verdict with no
+cited evidence is rejected as unverified.
+**Embodied-in-gate.** `pawl-verdict.sh check` requires real, **non-empty** per-refuter evidence;
+an empty or missing evidence file fails the verdict (HOLD). Green CI is recorded but is not the
+proof — the reviewer evidence is.
+
+### D6 — Fail closed
+Genuine uncertainty defaults to FAIL. Ties, thin councils, missing minimums → HOLD/escalate; the
+resolver never synthesizes a winner; a quorum of one is a self-grade.
+**Embodied-in-gate.** Every non-CONFIRMED disposition (REFUTED/ESCALATE/HOLD), a STALE head, an
+unresolvable head, a missing verdict, or an unmet diversity floor all exit 5 (HOLD: no merge, no
+close) in `reconcile-pr.sh`. Non-convergence never auto-lands.
+
+### D7 — Identity is attested, not asserted
+**Dropped-as-cathedral** (mostly). The kernel's D7 was anchored to the OS privilege floor —
+kernel peercred, a separate OS account, `provision-accounts.sh`. That floor is the cut cathedral;
+do **not** import it as live doctrine. The *surviving* grain: a reviewer's `context_id`/`family`
+in the pawl verdict is validated against a known roster (off-roster families are rejected so
+"≥2 distinct families" can't be gamed) — but the threat model is explicitly a *sloppy* agent that
+self-stamps, **not** a cryptographic forger (single-operator trusted loop; see the pawls.md scope
+note). No peercred, no signatures, no OS writer-separation.
+
+### D8 — No self-greening
+A gate and the thing it checks are adversaries; a pass derives from observed behavior, never a
+self-declared status; tightening/loosening a gate is its own reviewed change, never bundled with
+the work.
+**Embodied-in-gate.** The pawl gate cannot be satisfied by the author — it requires an external
+fresh-context refuter and live `head_sha` binding. **Doctrine** rider: gate changes (editing the
+pawl list, the verdict schema, or `reconcile-pr.sh`) ship as their own reviewed change — never in
+the same PR as work they would have caught.
+
+### D9 — One source of truth
+Every declared capability has exactly one mechanical source of truth; "done" means the mechanical
+check is green, not that a doc says so.
+**Embodied-in-gate** + **doctrine.** AgentOps' `make regen-check` is this rule for derived
+artifacts: the registry/codex/context-map are generated, never hand-asserted, and drift fails the
+gate. This doc is itself an instance: it is "done" because regen-check is green, not because this
+sentence claims it.
+
+### D10 — Typed state transitions, not narrative persuasion
+Components publish and consume contract surfaces (tracker, reservations, evidence/verdict files)
+and act; a decision is real only when it appears as the required state transition.
+**Embodied-in-gate.** The pawl verdict is a typed JSON artifact against
+`pawl-verdict.v1.schema.json`; the merge path reads *that file*, not a chat assertion. Agent
+coordination rides Agent Mail locks/reservations, not narrative.
+
+### D11 — Policy is executable; roles are structure
+Policy is versioned, testable, default-deny, hard-reject code that travels with the repo; roles
+carry duty contracts (reviewer read-only; worker write-scoped; orchestrator coordinates and never
+labors).
+**Embodied-in-gate** + **doctrine.** The pawl list + verdict schema + `reconcile-pr.sh` are
+executable, repo-resident admission policy. The role split (worker proposes / reviewer verifies /
+orchestrator closes) is the ship-beads/reconcile discipline; the orchestrator-doesn't-labor rule
+is advisory doctrine for swarm runs.
+
+### D12 — Inference mines and codifies; deterministic code reconciles forever
+The steady-state control loop is deterministic and cheap; inference lives in the learning loop
+(mine → codify into controllers), never inside the control loop it is meant to make reliable.
+**Doctrine** — and the core AgentOps shape: the knowledge flywheel (`/forge`, `/curate`, `ao
+lookup`) is the learning loop; the deterministic gates/scripts are the control loop. Keep models
+out of the reconcile path; let them propose new deterministic checks, not run inside the gate.
+
+### D13 — Atomic lease-bounded claims; idempotent ticks; precise state words
+Claiming work is an atomic lock with a visible TTL lease that expired-reaps a dead worker; every
+tick reads state first and does only the next undone increment; NO_READY ≠ CONVERGED.
+**Doctrine.** Operating rule for the loop/swarm substrate (beads claim + Agent Mail reservations
+approximate the lease; evolve/crank ticks are read-state-first). No daemon-level lease reaper is
+imported — that was floor machinery.
+
+### D14 — Destructive writes reconcile or refuse
+Any write that would replace existing state merges against current reality or fails closed; a
+close is not durable until merged to trunk.
+**Embodied-in-gate.** `reconcile-pr.sh` is the named reconcile step; the STALE-head check (a new
+commit after review invalidates the verdict) is exactly "reconcile against current reality or
+refuse." "Mutate shared trunk" is the first pawl. **Doctrine** rider: same root applies to
+tracker/notes/snapshot writes — merge, don't clobber.
+
+### D15 — The operator's attention is the constraint
+The scarcest resource is the human's attention; babysitting burns it because an unverified "done"
+must be personally checked. The system subordinates everything to that constraint and spends
+attention only where the human is irreplaceable (intent, acceptance, one-way doors).
+**Embodied-in-gate** (as escalation economy) + **doctrine.** The pawls.md circuit-breaker model is
+this rule operationalized: the gate runs model-to-model and auto-redoes on REFUTED *with no human*;
+a human is pulled in **only** when a tunable breaker trips (max-attempts, time, cost, oscillation,
+explicit-judgment-flag). The andon ("Hey! Listen!") is rare and earned, never the default.
+
+### D16 — Mechanisms stay general; policy lives in its bounded context; layers meet through ports
+A shared mechanism never has a context's law welded into it — the context configures it via a mode
+plus a pointer to its enforcing gate; the factory layer calls the worker layer only through
+external ports and never bypasses its local gates or rewrites its evidence.
+**Doctrine** — and the architectural reason this fold is legitimate: the operating rules are the
+*general mechanism*; the ratchet pawl-gate is AgentOps' *enforcing gate*. The per-pawl `mode`
+(fresh-context vs multi-model) is exactly "the context configures the mechanism via a mode." See
+[`architecture/ports-and-adapters.md`](../architecture/ports-and-adapters.md).
+
+## What was dropped (and why)
+
+These were real in mt-olympus but are **floor/cathedral-specific** — not imported as live AgentOps
+doctrine:
+
+- **The OS privilege floor** — separate OS account, kernel peercred identity,
+  `provision-accounts.sh --check`, the `olympusd` daemon as sole writer. The ratchet pawl-gate is
+  the AgentOps embodiment of "single writer / attested reviewer"; the OS floor is the cut cathedral.
+- **The 55-case Rust gate spec / typestate `Accepted`** — a specific implementation of "the gate
+  is the only door," not a substrate-neutral rule. AgentOps' door is `reconcile-pr.sh` + the pawl
+  verdict.
+- **Host-policy instances** (e.g. the `claude -p` LAW 0 ban) — real, mechanically enforced, but a
+  *host-policy instance* of D11 (forbidden-pattern admission), not a method invariant. (LAW 0 still
+  holds operationally; it just isn't kernel doctrine.)
+- **3-family quorum / Gemini-benched specifics** — operational policy-mode detail of a particular
+  fleet, superseded here by the per-pawl `mode` and the context-identity floor.
+
+## Provenance
+
+- Source kernel: `mt-olympus/docs/doctrine/fleet-operating-discipline/corpus/specs/triangulated_kernel.md`
+  (D1–D16, three-model triangulation, evidence anchors `Q-<SRC>-<n>`).
+- Enforcement surface in this repo: [`docs/contracts/pawls.md`](../contracts/pawls.md),
+  [`scripts/pawl-verdict.sh`](../../scripts/pawl-verdict.sh),
+  [`scripts/reconcile-pr.sh`](../../scripts/reconcile-pr.sh),
+  [`schemas/pawl-verdict.v1.schema.json`](../../schemas/pawl-verdict.v1.schema.json).
+- The structural-corpus validators (`validate-corpus.py`, `check-doctrine-drift.py`) were
+  **not ported** — see the note at the bottom of this fold's task record; they validate the
+  mt-olympus marker-bounded corpus (anchors, distillations, vendor-drift), which this single
+  adapted reference doc does not carry.
diff --git a/docs/documentation-index.md b/docs/documentation-index.md
index 09cd875a7..22e2a7ff1 100644
--- a/docs/documentation-index.md
+++ b/docs/documentation-index.md
@@ -280,6 +280,7 @@ Bridge / framing docs:
 - [AO Command Customization Matrix](architecture/ao-command-customization-matrix.md) — External command dependencies and customization policy tiers
 - [Contracts Index](contracts/index.md) — Landing page for all inter-component contracts
 - [Pawls — the one-way doors](contracts/pawls.md) — The ratchet's static map: the short list of irreversible actions (mutate-shared-trunk · delete · external-send/shared-state-mutation · schema/contract change · credential/authority change · spend) where the cross-family gate fires; everything else runs as ungated chaos
+- [Operating Discipline (D1–D16)](doctrine/operating-discipline.md) — The general, substrate-neutral fleet-operating rules (admission-first · author≠judge · fail-closed · evidence-bound · single-writer · typed transitions) folded from the mt-olympus triangulated kernel; each rule marked embodied-in-gate (cited to pawls.md / pawl-verdict.sh / reconcile-pr.sh), advisory doctrine, or dropped-as-cathedral
 - [Lesson Format](contracts/lesson-format.md) — Schema for `.agents/learnings/` entries with frontmatter (id/severity/trigger/verifiable/rule/falsified_by/practice/related) and graduation path (unassigned → proposed → accepted → encoded)
 - [bd remember Migration Manifest](contracts/bd-remember-migration-manifest.md) — Lineage-preserving manifest contract for classifying `bd remember` notes into bead-scoped, pull-learning, or discard dispositions before migration
 - [Bounded Contexts (yaml)](contracts/bounded-contexts.yaml) — Canonical BC1-BC5 definitions (id/name/responsibility/ports/center-of-gravity); registry doc prose must match this yaml (drift-checked by `scripts/check-bounded-contexts-drift.sh`, soc-zxia.2)