AREX-Skill exact-run integration audit

Disposition

hold — resolve a consequential public assessment mismatch before integration. The synthesis leaves both causal directions of reflection unestablished, while its own supporting records and the frozen library manager establish a narrow installed-library-state path. This is not a demand to retain an old verdict: the finding below is independently grounded in the frozen implementation and the prepared method's criterion. An audit-only qualification cannot correct the public assessment. No publication or state was changed.

Auditor and authority

• Actual auditor: Pi, provider openai, model gpt-6.1-sol, reasoning medium; session 01a144d7-ef74-7733-bfe5-5646b9044a36 (runtime PI_*).
• Fresh bounded discrepancy-led audit, not a new analysis or an exhaustive all-worker compliance review. No delegation, target execution, acquisition, recovery, integration or Git writes. Batch 18 is excluded. Existing holds are not released by this report.
• Read AGENTS.md, kb/work/COLLECTION.md, workshop README.md, audit-integration-current.md and all of audit-a-rerun.md. Only the exact matching intake row supplied run identity, paths and initial evidence pins.

Identity and byte checks

Path abbreviations below are literal locator prefixes:

• W = /media/zby/2b5e98b6-baf0-4e97-90d2-03321ea23372/outputs/commonplace-worktrees/batch-17-arex-skill
• R = W/kb/agentic-system-analyses/state/AAS-2026-10-15-arex-skill-1871063034b5-01
• P = W/kb/agentic-system-analyses/retained/arex-skill
• S = W/related-systems/VectorSpaceLab--AREX-Skill
• L = /media/zby/2b5e98b6-baf0-4e97-90d2-03321ea23372/outputs/batch-17/arex-skill.output

Exact run: AAS-2026-10-15-arex-skill-1871063034b5-01. Intake category: later-unaudited; no incumbent or prior audit in this row. Preparation W.preparation.json is ready, token 1871063034b5, prepared 2026-10-15T12:26:29.763084+00:00. Recorded excluded origin dirt is not input content. Prepared method and current worktree HEAD both equal a320038ed1a423b051eedbcec593172f8c2032f4; tracked worktree diff was empty. Command prefix: W/.venv/bin.

Frozen source identity: https://github.com/VectorSpaceLab/AREX-Skill. Source HEAD equals ac3fe1afa80fb9a09775ecfb2b6cc3ba850a2db6; source git status --short was empty. Source register SRC-1, cutoff 2026-10-15, code-grounded, enclosing runtime, complete artifact / partial loop. These checks establish local revision and cleanliness, not deployed state or execution.

Recomputed hashes match the intake:

Evidence	SHA-256
W.preparation.json	b792c28a4337abf353da53f3b4fa722eba3f6083cb7dbc83ef0d9014a2f8322c
R/run.json	ba7a6a34f11a8ff67c283d67af3ac9a31adb352ad0f810b5fd8c8557d564759f
R/effects/publish.json	2fe08e2257e57d4b04158fabf7a9acbf8fe3c9bee5e3e16c4c9c4c46e51cc287
R/state/attempts/000033-publish.json	58fcaf9e1b4f6bfb5a144dcbab0f5023c05fa20076faafa1dc4504b78faec94a

Completed publish effect names this exact destination, run and source; its new map equals both intake maps. The publication contains exactly these 13 files, all recomputed equal to that map, with no extra member:

Member	SHA-256
ARTIFACT.yaml	650596ab4865595da7ddecc9714286582c0672df96146dc1d8ebc541fbcc6252
boundary.md	a45ea291ad7cea15b7d654ab9c96f2ef927da5889b23382bbb1b7483089246d7
epistemic.md	a03ee65899e55ff535dbfaaeb74f019c6c644e1fc3d870d91504849f141af29e
memory-profile.md	d2b12819495ca6ae6d279ea67b2ae53bfd14a20a059ea6a137f7a1fd20a1eb86
memory.md	e3a07a03c24d61eee86e03cd04ce564a4f045739a7c33a3529ca21fd597ca4e5
overview.md	c5e7e2207e75a1548381a25f50f711bb1a1970f397572f5c10944e7ef05e6391
profile-verification.md	9364230df58a754926b3b0db5542cff688ea2ec44d91839eafa128481d04c3fe
reconciliation.md	d720e1777b7b76e04955c5f03d057ea54131d8388b1d5fcc953487e4b58c2346
report-verification.md	723c9f818d94009e031cd973ad667524185c7996aba1088312a4816a8d97bb5e
runtime.md	2e470dc6d6606bb8fd43d9ee3a35e66320b06d9a5c0a3977c45caf7e3dd0aa38
synthesis-verification.md	55cb98459ba788519ca65f8604c0b7e7e0fb3245c771d58c3e67f249e0d7c0b3
synthesis.md	a6f7c590677b7024740c4c877209ed12b6cc09f8077d518918119462510b2080
workflow.md	1e8253d6898826f491f46053b1f427252b7ffcf688cd43b9a46d0982e1bff41b

Historical comparison boundary

kb/work/agentic-system-reruns/systems.md:64 identifies the exact source, previous provider-overload run and archived review. The provider failure is not a semantic judgment on this new run. Read the archived review kb/agentic-systems/reviews-archive/arex-skill.md completely, then searched its linked kb/agentic-systems/reports/retained-archive/AAS-2026-09-25-arex-skill-01/result.md for the relevant environment, maintenance and reflection leads, including its bounded synthesis around lines 826–834.

The older review uses the same source commit, but a narrower repository-skill construction/deployment subsystem and a different method/date. It excludes conversation memory, arbitrary extensions and paper-specific construction. The new enclosing-runtime account legitimately adds compaction, branch summaries, journal replay and paper recovery; it need not reproduce the old profile or all its construction details. Specialized importer/exporter and private environment-handoff coverage are explicitly partial rather than claimed absent. Historical findings supplied questions only, not accepted facts.

Findings

H1 — installed-state reflection is left unestablished despite a supported local path

Consequence: the public assessment loses a supported architectural capability and risks conflating reflection with theory criticism or observed improvement. This is narrower than a claim that the whole system is reflectively complete.

P/synthesis.md, “Assessment at the supported horizon”, says: “Reflection's two causal directions ... are also unestablished”. P/synthesis-verification.md, “Retention and assessment”, endorses that unresolved assessment. No installed-state exception accompanies the public claim. The generic partial-inventory limitations do not resolve this specific contradiction with the inspected path.

Independent frozen-source checks, all under S/cli/packages/coding-agent/src/core/repo-skills-library-manager.ts:

• Lines 1435–1460 read retained previousState, compute live skills, pass both to detectConflicts, and block an unforced conflicting update.
• Lines 1214–1248 compare current managed-tree digests with previous-state digests, distinguishing locally modified or missing managed content. This is an operative representation consumer, not passive documentation.
• Lines 1517–1547 compute staged live digests, derive nextState from inventory and the prior state, write it, and install it with the staged collection.
• Lines 1347–1378 swap collection, router and state into live locations, with caught-error restoration afterward. The path is not a crash-atomic guarantee.

The represented aspect is the installed managed library inside the declared DisCo-plus-guidance boundary. Managed changes can update its symbolic inventory and digest representation; later representation-mediated conflict/noop/update operations affect retained guidance available to later sessions. This supplies the two causal directions for this selected aspect without demonstrating improvement or requiring a model's explanatory self-theory.

This is also already present in accepted records: P/memory.md#mem-obj-library-state says the manager derives state from inventory and installed bytes and names update/conflict/status consumers; P/runtime.md#rt-rte-library-update identifies persisted digests used for later conflict detection and stages/swaps collection/router/state. The prepared method's kb/agentic-system-analyses/instructions/agentic-analysis-records.md:336 requires selected aspects, self-representation and both causal directions, not an observed successful improvement. The linked kb/notes/definitions/reflective-system.md likewise defines an architectural, aspect-relative capacity. The historical verdict was not needed to establish this mismatch.

Unblock: parent obtains a supported disposition of this exact path against the prepared definition. A corrected public result should either distinguish this narrow wired installed-state capability from unestablished model/theory reflection, or explain a concrete missing causal link or justified boundary exclusion that defeats the witness. Any correction must use an authorized new-run/recovery route, not patches to accepted bytes. Re-audit the resulting public assessment and exact byte map. This audit does not choose that route.

L1 — important partial-coverage qualifications are already public

Read the complete overview, synthesis and all three verification members. Their blocker lists are none; report verification retains the PassNet feedback-inventory limit, and profile verification retains omitted explicit saved-workflow/run-sidecar deletion coverage. Both appear in the synthesis limitations table with their comparison consequences. The frozen S/skills/task-oriented/PassNet/skills/passnet-feedback/SKILL.md:11–13 independently confirms the additional analyze/check/evaluate/parse/repair doctrine; this does not prove an exercised improvement loop.

The public synthesis also separates structural admission from semantic review, process exit success from backend attestation, paper-comparator acceptance from hard-mode validation, and artifact/report existence from accepted operation. No target execution, activated reliance or component-level benchmark causality is claimed. These are useful recorded limits, not reasons for a second hold. They do not fix H1.

Operational evidence and its limits

L is a retained parent JSON-event stream, not merely an output-exists signal. A full line-oriented parse located returned subagent messages: boundary at line 751, runtime 1147, the parallel analytical batch 2014, reconciliation 2398, report verification 2910, memory profile 3280, profile verification 3658, synthesis 4045 and synthesis verification 4422. Separate child-session files were not needed to recover the sampled worker's executed calls/results. This is trace availability, not blanket compliance certification.

The operational sample is L:2910, result.details.results[0].messages, report-verification worker. Calls and results below were paired by exact tool-call ID within that same worker:

• Messages 2/3: prompt read, call_jZuBsWGYGF7PloX0a8DsJfbF|fc_0fa2291248161401016ad0cbfffaf087d2945cd8656d41539f.
• Messages 48/49: identity and frozen-source HEAD/status check, call_zTajC68rjkteBBPRvvUsz5Kf|fc_0fa2291248161401016ad0cc5afae487d2a49895e54d5853b7; result reports openai, gpt-6.1-sol, medium and the correct source commit.
• Messages 91/92: PassNet omission probe read, call_ezXNcHG9BUL6XNU4jlw8wKKi|fc_0fa2291248161401016ad0cce3b0e487d2a235f0dfcdca4b27, returns the actual feedback procedure. This supports performed independent source inspection, not just the verifier's assertion of it.
• Messages 110/111: commonplace-run validate-output on that worker prompt, call_k7LvaFscfQuwTnkULm9zXlou|fc_0fa2291248161401016ad0cd73b93c87d2a2ad1ab0cac83141; result: “Member content check passes; invocation residue not checked. This is not job acceptance or claim support.”

The completed publication effect and byte checks prove the accepted artifact's identity, not fulfillment of every analytical obligation. The sampled worker performed source reads and a content check; this does not establish that every source range or all workers' mandated inputs were completely read. Not all nested workers were audited for read recovery, write scope, tool safety or absence of legacy access. Missing/uninspected traces remain uncertified. Handout 000022-report-verification is no longer present at its old filesystem path; its sampled invocation/read/result evidence survives in L, not in an invented current handout. No cleanup or recovery was attempted.

Validation and coverage boundary

From cwd W, with W/.venv/bin prepended to PATH, invoked bare commonplace-validate against absolute P:

VALIDATION SUCCESS
Files analysed: 1
Text files: 0
Diagnostics: 0 failures across 0 subjects; 0 warnings across 0 subjects

This is the directory-artifact check, not a count of Markdown member reads or semantic clearance. The same prepared environment also validated the absolute owned report path with VALIDATION SUCCESS: 1 file analysed, 1 text file, 0 failures and 0 warnings.

Audit coverage: complete public overview/synthesis, complete verification members and boundary, scoped supporting records, same-revision historical leads, focused frozen-source investigation of the installed-state contradiction and PassNet qualification, one worker's executed operational evidence, and all publication/effect hashes. No full source rereview, population-wide skill correctness check, target tests, provider/deployment assessment or all-worker compliance audit. Stop at H1 rather than undertaking substantial reanalysis. The parent owns review, supported correction decisions and integration; all existing unrelated holds and active work remain untouched.