# ADR-0004: Question discipline is recursive and continuous, not a fixed one-shot gate

- **Date:** 2026-05-01
- **Status:** accepted
- **Reversibility:** medium (V1 framing can be restored if recursive discipline produces operator fatigue or weak landings; needs a deployment cycle of evidence)
- **Deciders:** practitioner@example.com (operator)
- **Scope:** kit (V1.1 question discipline)
- **Supersedes:** ADR-0003 (10 mandatory localization questions; defaults inform but never skip)

## Context

ADR-0003 locked the V1 question shape: 10 mandatory questions; defaults inform but never silently skip; honest unknowns first-class; hard gate refuses landing until all 10 captured.

Operator feedback after V1 ship (2026-05-01): the "10 questions" framing was figurative, not literal. The intended behavior was always extensive recursive questioning that orients the kit on fundamentals quickly and provides meaningful value as it matures, not a fixed gate run once.

The V1 implementation encoded the right discipline (refuse silent skips; demand concrete answers; surface honest unknowns) at the wrong altitude. Treating landing as a one-shot gate produced two failure modes:

1. **Operator fatigue at landing.** 10-20 minutes of fixed questioning at a moment when the operator may not yet know which questions matter most for their specific function.
2. **Static-once-landed.** Once the gate passed, the kit did not return to questions; subsequent context that should have invalidated prior answers stayed silently. This contradicts the deeper philosophy that "learning is the process."

The corrected framing: the kit asks extensively at first scaffold, asks recursively (follow-ups freely), and continues asking through operating-mode and rescaffold-mode cycles. The base orientation set is around ten questions but no longer a hard gate of exactly ten.

## Decision

The kit operates by recursive question discipline, not a fixed one-shot gate. The first-scaffold orientation base set is approximately ten questions covering the eight layers + governance shape + function-mode adaptation. The discovery skill spawns follow-up questions freely as gaps surface. Operating-mode sessions absorb opportunistic follow-ups. Rescaffold-mode sessions revisit affected scope with targeted question subsets.

Defaults still inform but never silently skip. Honest unknowns are still first-class but now produce rescaffold triggers in addition to surfacing in audits. The discipline carries forward from V1; the altitude moves from "gate" to "ongoing conversation."

## Options considered

### Option A: Recursive question discipline [CHOSEN]

- **Summary:** First-scaffold orientation base set + free follow-ups + operating-mode opportunistic asks + rescaffold-mode targeted asks. Discipline (no silent skips, concrete answers, honest unknowns) preserved.
- **Pros:** Matches the deeper philosophy ("learning is the process"); allows the kit to ask the right question at the right moment rather than all questions at one moment; honest unknowns at first scaffold can be revisited at rescaffold; lower operator fatigue per session because questioning distributes across the deployment lifecycle.
- **Cons:** Less binary success criterion at landing time; operator may feel "is this done?" ambiguity; the discovery skill must be more capable than V1's deploy-skill gate (must judge when to spawn a follow-up).

### Option B: Keep V1 fixed-10 gate

- **Summary:** Land with the gate; operate; never return to questions.
- **Pros:** Binary landing criterion; simpler to implement; predictable runtime.
- **Cons:** Encodes the failure modes the operator named (lax post-landing operation; rigid base set; no rescaffold awareness); contradicts the third cardinal insight (learning is the process).

### Option C: Hybrid (V1 gate + V1.1 follow-ups bolted on)

- **Summary:** Keep the fixed-10 gate at landing; allow follow-ups in operating mode but treat them as optional.
- **Pros:** Backward-compatible with V1 deployments; operator can choose how aggressive to be.
- **Cons:** Doubles the cognitive surface (two question patterns); the optional follow-ups will be skipped under operator pressure (which recreates V1's static-once-landed failure mode); no clean teaching narrative.

## Rationale

Option C reintroduces the V1 failure mode as soon as operators feel time pressure. Option B is the V1 status quo and the operator has explicitly named it inadequate. Option A matches the third cardinal insight (added to BOOTSTRAP-BRIEF Section I as part of this V1.1 revision) and operationalizes it.

The tradeoff explicitly accepted: less binary landing criterion. Mitigation: the first-scaffold test (BOOTSTRAP-BRIEF Section XVI, also revised V1.1) still has five binary steps; what changed is step 3 ("produce a populated mature instance") becoming "produce an initial scaffold with all eight layers classified, some `mature`, many `partial` or `stubbed`, honest unknowns named explicitly." The first scaffold's success is still binary; the criterion just acknowledges that maturity is achieved over rescaffolds, not at landing.

## Consequences

### Positive

- The kit asks the right questions at the right moment in the deployment lifecycle
- Honest unknowns at first scaffold are no longer dead-ends; they become rescaffold triggers
- Operator fatigue at landing decreases because the gate is lighter; the kit picks up the slack across operating mode
- Matches the third cardinal insight; coherent teaching narrative
- The discovery skill becomes a real first-class behavior, not just a wrapper around the deploy gate

### Negative

- The discovery skill must be more capable than V1's gate; quality of deployments depends on discovery's question-spawning judgment
- Less binary landing criterion may create operator anxiety on first deployments ("is this enough?")
- Rescaffold protocol must be encoded explicitly (BOOTSTRAP-BRIEF Section XVII, added in V1.1) or the kit drifts back to V1 static behavior
- Existing V1 deployments (none yet) would need migration to V1.1 question discipline; not a concern at zero-deployment-count but tracked

### Followups

- New skill: `architect-discovery` drives Mode A (first-scaffold) and Mode C (rescaffold-mode) recursive question-asking
- New skill: `architect-rescaffold` drives the rescaffold cycle that operating-mode asks feed into
- `skills/deploy/SKILL.md` updated to multi-phase orchestrator (bootstrap, discovery, scaffold, operate, rescaffold) rather than one-shot landing
- BOOTSTRAP-BRIEF Section V "Behavior triggers" updated to include "When asked a question whose answer you do not yet have" and "When you encounter context that may invalidate the current scaffold"
- BOOTSTRAP-BRIEF Section XVI (first-scaffold test) softened from "all 10 answered + populated mature instance" to "engage recursive question gate + initial scaffold + rescaffold trigger queue"
- BOOTSTRAP-BRIEF Section XVII (rescaffold protocol) added new
- ADR-0005 (continuous-rescaffolding architecture) and ADR-0006 (function-adaptation + organizationally-aware skill population) accompany this ADR; together they define V1.1's behavioral shift

## Cross-references

- ADR-0001 (polymorphic single kit) - V1.1 does not change V1's polymorphic-single-kit posture; the recursion happens within a single kit's lifecycle, not across kits
- ADR-0003 (10 mandatory localization questions) - SUPERSEDED BY THIS ADR
- ADR-0005 (continuous-rescaffolding) - the operating model this ADR's discipline operates within
- ADR-0006 (function-adaptation) - extends Q1 from a function-type question to a function-type + function-mode question
- BOOTSTRAP-BRIEF Section I (cardinal concepts; insight 3 added)
- BOOTSTRAP-BRIEF Section V (behavior triggers; new triggers added)
- BOOTSTRAP-BRIEF Section XVI (first-scaffold test; softened)
- BOOTSTRAP-BRIEF Section XVII (rescaffold protocol; new)
- QUESTIONS.md (rewritten as base set + recursive)
- PHILOSOPHY.md (continuous-adaptation section added; "Why questions are recursive, not fixed" replaces "Why mandatory localization questions")
