# The tick — the project's heartbeat

A **tick** is a single, bounded act of stewardship that every agent performs
at session start (and that autonomous sessions perform on a loop). Ticks are
how a constitution-driven project stays alive without a human driving every
step: we pump ticks at the system, and each tick either makes the
constitution more precise or surfaces the thing preventing that.

## Taking a tick

1. Read [DESIGN.md](../DESIGN.md) (the constitution) end to end, plus recent
   commits (`git log --oneline -15`) and any knowledge/ files near your area.
2. Find **one** thing — the highest-severity one you can see:
   - a **violation**: the code does not do what the constitution says;
   - a **contradiction**: the constitution disagrees with itself;
   - a **question**: the constitution is ambiguous or silent where the code
     needs it to speak;
   - a **bug**: the code disagrees with itself or with reality;
   - an **insecurity**: something unsafe in code, tooling, or process.
3. Act on it, per the table below. One finding per tick — bounded beats
   exhaustive, because ticks repeat.
4. Leave a trace: the commit(s), the issue, or the spec marker. A tick that
   changed nothing and recorded nothing did not happen.

## What each finding demands

| Finding | Action |
|---|---|
| **Violation** | Fix the code toward the constitution. If investigation shows the *code* is right, amend the constitution deliberately instead — with a defense (below). Never let them drift silently. |
| **Contradiction** | File a Tangled issue quoting both passages (`tang issue create`). Do not silently pick a side — contradictions are the human's to resolve unless one reading is obviously a typo. If it blocks work, add an `[OPEN]` marker in DESIGN.md referencing the issue. |
| **Question** | If it is small and answerable within the constitution's existing intent: answer it by making the spec more precise, with a defense. If it is directional or a matter of taste: file a Tangled issue and add an `[OPEN]` marker. |
| **Bug** | Fix it, add a regression test, commit with a defense. |
| **Insecurity** | Fix or remove it. Never ship the insecure path because it was convenient. Defense in the commit. |

## The defense rule

Every commit that changes behavior carries a **defense** in its commit
message: a short paragraph stating which part of the constitution justifies
the change — or, when the commit amends the constitution, why the amendment
is right. Format:

```
Defense: DESIGN.md "The shape of Misaligned" specifies per-observer
suspicion; the single global heat pool violated it. This implements the
observer split without changing raid pacing (constants unchanged).
```

No defense, no behavior change. The point is that the constitution becomes
much more precise over time: every change either cites the law or improves
it.

## Filing issues (Tangled CLI)

The CLI is `tang` (source at `~/code/tangled-cli`, Cameron's fork —
disconnected from the markbennett.ca upstream). The global binary is a
symlink to `~/code/tangled-cli/dist/index.js`.

```bash
tang context                          # verify repo resolution
tang issue list
tang issue create "Contradiction: X vs Y" --body "..."
tang issue view 1
```

- **Auth is one-time per machine and human-only**: `tang auth login` (browser
  OAuth). If commands fail with "Not authenticated", stop and ask the user to
  log in rather than working around it.
- Issue titles: prefix with the finding type — `Contradiction:`, `Question:`,
  `Violation:` — so the issue list reads as the project's open questions.

## Tick etiquette

- **Metered resources are not tick fuel.** Anything that spends a shared,
  capped resource (API generation quotas, paid credits) is session work to
  do with Cameron present, not autonomous-tick work — unless the remaining
  capacity is known and generous. An autonomous tick that drains a shared
  quota blocks the human's own use of it.
- **User-gated means quiet.** When every open item waits on an action only
  the human can take (account access, billing, a browser login), say so
  once, lengthen the loop interval, and retry only the cheap checks. Do not
  convert "blocked" into invented work.

- Highest severity first; insecurity and violations outrank questions.
- Do not hoard findings: one per tick, then end the tick. The next tick (or
  the next agent) takes the next one.
- If a tick finds genuinely nothing, say so in one line and stop — do not
  invent work. Three quiet ticks in a row means the constitution and code
  agree; that is success, not failure.
- Significant ticks get a line in DEVLOG.md; routine ones are traced by
  their commits/issues alone.