Mode cards: autodev authored, autoresearch re-pointed, spine parity, deployment script

[aarontrowbridge]

Important

Problem — There is no autodev mode card, the autoresearch card predates the director core (its spine is card-local prose), and deployed card copies (staging, global config) have no verified relationship to repo sources.
Approach — Author the autodev card, re-point autoresearch at the director core, embed the shared spine (with the ledger discovery rule quoted verbatim from the canonical skill) between literal markers, and ship the deployment script that copies cards to staging + global config with byte-verification and a source-digest receipt.
Scope — in: both mode cards, spine markers + content, the parity test (markers, byte-identity, content floor, containment), the deployment script + receipt format · out: the director-core skill content (slice 1), the dual-harness grep/boot suite, gate packs.

Acceptance Criteria

• autodev card: dev gate pack posture, director-core spine embedded, dispatch discipline (implementer per slice, worktree-bound, director merges green), dev-gate invariant (issue + PR for package work, never merge non-green), out-of-posture clause, step-exhaustion contract
• autoresearch card re-pointed: same spine block byte-identical to autodev's (literal DIRECTOR-SPINE v1 START/END markers, one pair per card), card-specific content references the director core, existing research clauses preserved
• Parity test: zero/multiple marker pairs fail; spines byte-identical; ≥ 200 bytes each; content floor (five loop verbs + four core-clause keywords, whole-word case-insensitive order-free, each in a sentence ≥ 8 words); the ledger discovery rule present and contained verbatim in the director-core skill
• Deployment script: copies both cards from repo sources to staging + global config, verifies destination byte-equality, emits a receipt recording source digests
• Zero blocklisted strings in both cards

Testing Decisions

The parity test is the spec's mode_card_spine_parity criterion — delivered here. The deployment receipt's re-verification lands in the dual-harness slice (needs the suite harness); this slice defines the receipt format.

Key Decisions

The spine quotes the director core's discovery-rule block verbatim — parity + containment, per the spec. The autodev card follows the autoresearch card's proven structure (posture honesty, failure modes, hard rules) — the two cards differ only in gate-pack binding and dispatch roles. Deployment is scripted, never hand-copied (the receipt is the audit trail).

Constraints & Invariants

One director, provably: the spine markers make the shared protocol byte-checkable. Card frontmatter carries description + mode per the boot check.

Prior Art

The live autoresearch card (the structure autodev follows); the implementer card (whose binding autodev dispatches); the spec's D1/D3/D5.

Source

Part of 497 · spec spec-20260822-063957-auto-rd-two-modes.md (D1, D5, Measurement Protocol) · Blocked by 61 (the director core is the spine's source).