/vcsdd-contract-review

What

Runs the sprint contract review gate. The adversary reviews the current sprint contract, the authoritative specs, and the current test/source artifact set to verify that the contract criteria are concrete, binary-evaluable, and aligned with what Phase 3 will judge.

When

Run after /vcsdd-impl completes Phase 2c and after the builder updates contracts/sprint-N.md. Requires the active feature to still be at phase 2c. Required in strict mode before /vcsdd-adversary. Optional in lean mode when a sprint contract is still being used.

How

1. Resolve sprint number from state.json.sprintCount
2. Validate contract exists at contracts/sprint-N.md
   • must parse against vcsdd-contract.schema.json
   • should normally be in draft or under-review while negotiating
   • must contain at least one CRIT-XXX
3. Write review manifest to reviews/contracts/sprint-N/input/manifest.json:
   • compute contractDigest from the reviewed contract snapshot with line endings normalized and the status: frontmatter line ignored

   {
     "reviewType": "contract",
     "featureName": "...",
     "sprintNumber": 1,
      "contractPath": "contracts/sprint-1.md",
      "contractDigest": "<sha256-of-reviewed-contract-with-status-normalized>",
      "artifactsToReview": {
        "spec": ["specs/behavioral-spec.md", "specs/verification-architecture.md"],
        "tests": ["tests/..."],
        "source": ["src/..."]
      },
     "reviewDimensions": ["spec_fidelity", "edge_case_coverage", "implementation_correctness", "structural_integrity", "verification_readiness"]
   }
   

4. Create output directories: reviews/contracts/sprint-N/output/findings/
5. Spawn FRESH vcsdd-adversary agent with zero Builder context
6. Collect outputs after adversary completes:
   • reviews/contracts/sprint-N/output/verdict.json
   • reviews/contracts/sprint-N/output/findings/FIND-NNN.json
   • contract-review verdicts must set:
     • reviewContext.reviewType = "contract"
     • reviewContext.contractPath = "contracts/sprint-N.md"
     • reviewContext.contractDigest = manifest.contractDigest
     • iteration = negotiationRound + 1
7. Interpret verdict:
   • PASS: the human may update contracts/sprint-N.md to status: approved
     • after PASS, only the status field may change without rerunning review
     • any substantive contract edit changes the digest and requires a new contract review
   • FAIL: revise the contract, increment negotiationRound, and rerun
8. Negotiation limit: maximum 2 rounds before human escalation

Gate Semantics

Strict-mode Phase 3 requires both:

• contracts/sprint-N.md with status: approved
• reviews/contracts/sprint-N/output/verdict.json with:
  • overallVerdict: "PASS"
  • matching reviewContext.contractPath
  • matching reviewContext.contractDigest
  • iteration = negotiationRound + 1

This prevents self-approved or post-review-edited sprint contracts from bypassing the adversarial gate.

Examples

/vcsdd-contract-review
/vcsdd-contract-review --sprint 2