Who is steering and which direction is the project going?

[BenNewman100]

So, I have been exploring this repo and reading some issues and PRs related to archive/sync or spec merge. (it seems even the naming is in question). it seems that there are two emerging philosophies by the maintainers.

1. Minimize non-deterministic workflow with agents.

2. Do skill-based workflows with agents driving.

Which is? because I am very confused.

For the record, I was searching for a solution to my problem here.

#678 (comment)

[clay-good]

Hey @BenNewman100, thanks for this question.

They're layers, not competing philosophies: deterministic CLI commands handle state and bookkeeping (status, instructions, archive) to keep agents on the rails, while skills drive the agent through the judgment work, and spec merging turned out to be judgment work, since a fully deterministic merge was tried (#1279/#1288) and proved too brittle in practice. That's why merging lives with the agent today, and it's also why your transient-context markup idea in #678 is appealing: the agent writes the final wording at authoring time when it has the context, leaving only a mechanical strip for sync.

[BenNewman100]

Thanks for the reply, that makes sense.

[clay-good]

Answered above by @clay-good and marked as the accepted answer — deterministic CLI commands for state and bookkeeping, skills for the judgment work, with spec merging on the skill side because the fully deterministic merge (#1279/#1288) proved too brittle in practice.

Closing as answered — reopen if the direction question comes back.