Session Handoff — 2026-05-05

Session Goal

Sync ICN project truth (docs/STATE.md, docs/PHASE_PROGRESS.md, registry, latest handoff) with the May-5 institutional-process-substrate sequence, then prepare the next pre-RFC architecture move (Democratic Authority Primitives) for a separate session.

Decisive Test

Can a new organizer enter the system mid-cycle, switch into the right scope, see the summit's current phase, understand what was decided, know what is blocked, receive their obligations, trace why they exist, and continue the work without private oral history?

Unchanged from the 2026-04-15 handoff. Every move is judged against whether it makes that more answerable.

Final State (Verified)

main HEAD

f3b3f20f docs(ideas): add read-model dogfood slice for Institutional Process Substrate (idea-0019) (#1749)

Open PRs

Open coordination/control issues (not implementation)

Branches

• docs/sync-may5-process-substrate-state — local + remote, head 74031f5d at sync write-time (PR #1750 head); this handoff lives on it. Subsequent review-fix commit may advance the head; check gh pr view 1750 --json headRefOid before resuming.
• main — origin/main at f3b3f20f (post-#1749) at sync write-time.

Validators

• python3 ops/ideas/validate_ideas.py — ok (19 idea(s)).
• python3 .github/scripts/compliance_linter.py — no compliance violations across 107 files.
• python3 docs/scripts/doc_control_check.py --repo . --registry docs/registry.toml --strict — passes; reports 774 Markdown files under docs/ after this handoff is included (was 773 on main before this PR); the regenerated docs/DOCUMENT_REGISTRY.md human summary in this PR matches that count. 36 enforcement warnings are pre-existing yaml-mismatch / classification-debt noise on unrelated files (docs/ai/*, docs/architecture/INSTITUTION_PACKAGE_BOUNDARY.md, docs/design/*, docs/development/testing/governance-proof-layers.md, docs/plans/*); none implicate STATE.md, PHASE_PROGRESS.md, registry.toml, DOCUMENT_REGISTRY.md, or this handoff file.

What Changed

1. Confirmed #1748 hygiene already correct

#1748 (milestone(process): define Institutional Process Substrate) already carries epic:arch-invariants + type:spec (no type:impl regression) and the body acceptance criteria already check off [x] #1747 is merged. and [x] A smallest safe read-model dogfood slice is separately scoped before promotion to RFC — landed in #1749. No edits required. The existing comment thread already records that #1749 landed the read-model fixture-walk variant.

2. STATE.md truth-sync (docs/STATE.md)

• Bumped Last Reviewed: 2026-05-05.
• Added a 2026-05-05 sync-edit comment block at the top documenting the seven landings (#1734, #1739, #1741, #1743, #1745, #1747, #1749) and the open #1748 milestone, with explicit non-claims.
• Updated the "Current status" snapshot date to 2026-05-05 and rewrote the active-execution paragraph to record the May-5 doc/control-plane sequence and to flag Democratic Authority Primitives as the next pre-RFC move (not started here).
• Added the seven post-2026-05-02 PRs to the "Recently merged (since 2026-04-15)" table.
• Replaced the empty "Open PRs" section with a Dependabot list and a coordination/control issues list (#1748, #1746, #1744).
• Inserted a new "Institutional Process Substrate framing and read-model dogfood" bullet block at the top of "What landed since Phase 1 (Charter Engine)".
• Extended the References block with the new artifacts and pointed the latest-handoff reference at this file.

3. PHASE_PROGRESS.md truth-sync (docs/PHASE_PROGRESS.md)

• Bumped Last Updated: 2026-05-05.
• Added a 2026-05-05 sync-edit comment block summarizing the seven landings and the standing promotion-gate conditions for idea-0019.
• Extended the Phase 2 deliverables list with seven [x] entries for the May-5 landings and four explicit [ ] entries for the unmet promotion gates (runtime dogfood, visibility/privacy boundary run, accessibility-gate ProcessGateResult, framing-brief Q1/Q3/Q4 triage).
• Added a 2026-05-05 entry to "Decisions Made" recording the framing/dogfood landings, the read-model variant convention, and Democratic Authority Primitives as the next pre-RFC move.

4. Registry refresh (docs/registry.toml and docs/DOCUMENT_REGISTRY.md)

• Updated [docs."docs/STATE.md"] last_updated and last_reviewed to 2026-05-05.
• No new explicit [docs."..."] rows were added in this PR. docs/PHASE_PROGRESS.md, files under docs/dev/ (including this handoff), and the May-5 doc/contracts/idea-refinery artifacts continue to participate in the merged registry/doc-control scan via the existing [[doc_path_defaults]] rules in docs/registry.toml — so they are covered by the registry, just without per-file overlay rows. None of those files needs a new explicit row to land cleanly under the current control plane.
• Regenerated docs/DOCUMENT_REGISTRY.md (human summary companion to registry.toml) via python3 docs/scripts/doc_control_check.py --repo . --registry docs/registry.toml --write-document-registry docs/DOCUMENT_REGISTRY.md to reflect the corpus delta after adding this handoff: Markdown files under docs/ advances 773 → 774, descriptive count advances 435 → 436, Files scanned advances 773 → 774. No truth-class reassignments.

5. New session handoff

• This file (docs/dev/handoff-2026-05-05.md) replaces docs/dev/handoff-2026-04-15.md as the latest handoff. The 2026-04-15 file is preserved verbatim as a historical artifact.

What's Open

• Democratic Authority Primitives pre-RFC framing brief — next session. Branch target: feat/democratic-authority-primitives-framing. Files: update ops/ideas/ideas.yaml with idea-0020 (or next available id), add ops/ideas/framing/democratic-authority-primitives.md. Pre-RFC framing only; no schema, no contract URN, no implementation issue, no runtime dogfood.
• Runtime dogfood slice for idea-0019 (separate session, separate PR) — required for receipt-backed promotion to RFC.
• Visibility/privacy-boundary run with redaction in evidence export for idea-0019 (separate session).
• Accessibility-gate ProcessGateResult produced through the gate checklist on a real surface (separate session).
• At least one of framing-brief Q1 (ProcessTargetRef polymorphism), Q3 (DeliberationEntry kind taxonomy), or Q4 (HumanDecisionSet vs proposal/vote) resolved or explicitly deferred in writing (separate session, against #1748 acceptance criteria).
• NYCN steward-facing communication-groups directory tool (NYCN #33) — verify status before reading; not in this repo.

Unsafe Assumptions

• This sync trusts that the merged contract artifacts (urn:icn:contract:preview-review:v1, urn:icn:contract:rehearsal-evidence-export:v1) and the design docs landed in #1739/#1741/#1743 are themselves internally consistent; their content was not re-audited line-by-line during this sync.
• The "Open PRs" section trusts gh pr list --state open --limit 20 at the time of this sync. Dependabot may open additional dev-dependency bumps before the next session.
• docs/strategy/NYCN_PHASE_2_PILOT_REHEARSAL_GATE.md is referenced as the canonical Phase 2 gate; its content was not re-read in this sync (only its name was).
• The four pre-existing docs/ai/* and docs/design/* doc-control-check warnings are treated as baseline noise; none of them were introduced or aggravated by this sync, but the underlying yaml-vs-registry drift is a separate cleanup.

Next Move

1. Open this sync PR — docs(state): sync process substrate landings and agent handoff against main from docs/sync-may5-process-substrate-state.
2. Address any AI/Copilot/Claude review findings as merge-gating per #1744 policy. Distinguish substantive findings from infra/quota terminal failures before merging.
3. Merge the sync PR. Pull main.
4. In a fresh session, branch feat/democratic-authority-primitives-framing from updated main. Add the Democratic Authority Primitives idea-card row and framing brief. Pre-RFC only. No schema, no contract URN, no implementation issue, no runtime dogfood. Run validators. Open PR.
5. Do not start runtime dogfood for idea-0019 in the same session as the Democratic Authority Primitives PR.

Architectural Decisions

No architectural decisions were ratified in this sync. The sync only records:

1. The seven May-5 landings happened and are doc/control-plane and idea-refinery only.
2. A read-model fixture walk does not satisfy receipt-backed promotion thresholds — formalized in ops/ideas/README.md § "Dogfood slice variants" (#1749) and re-stated here.
3. Democratic Authority Primitives is named as the next pre-RFC architecture move; no scope, no schema, no commitment.

Verification Commands

git status --short
git branch --show-current
git fetch origin main
git log --oneline -10 origin/main
gh pr list --state open --limit 20
gh issue view 1748 --json number,title,state,labels,body
python3 ops/ideas/validate_ideas.py
python3 .github/scripts/compliance_linter.py
python3 docs/scripts/doc_control_check.py --repo . --registry docs/registry.toml --strict

Truth-Plane Notes

• Declared project truth: STATE.md and PHASE_PROGRESS.md updated in this PR; both are now current as of 2026-05-05.
• Implementation truth: no kernel, runtime, gateway, ledger, governance, or SDK code was inspected or changed in this sync. The Rust workspace was confirmed compiling at cargo check --workspace during preflight.
• Execution truth: branch docs/sync-may5-process-substrate-state carries this sync; main HEAD f3b3f20f; open PR queue limited to Dependabot at sync time.
• Narrative truth: framing brief (ops/ideas/framing/institutional-process-substrate.md) and dogfood slice (ops/ideas/dogfood/institutional-process-substrate-mvp.md) were read and confirmed to match the doc-sync language in this PR. NYCN-side narrative was not re-loaded.
• Known conflicts: none introduced by this sync. Pre-existing yaml-vs-registry drift on docs/ai/*, docs/architecture/INSTITUTION_PACKAGE_BOUNDARY.md, docs/design/*, and docs/development/testing/governance-proof-layers.md remains; that cleanup is out of scope here.