merge-ready

Command: Merge Ready (seeded CI fixture — trimmed mirror, NOT the real file)

This is a trimmed, structurally-identical mirror of skills/merge-ready/SKILL.md's instinct steps, committed only so scripts/ci/validate-instinct-discipline.js's falsify step has a tree to run against. This file carries the C3/FR-1.5a dedup clause UNCHANGED and MUST pass every pre-existing discipline check. Its ONE deliberate defect: the Merge Reconciliation preamble's class (d) bullet has been removed — as if a later, unrelated edit quietly trimmed one repair class away — and nothing else is changed, proving the five-class assertion fires by name and isolates to the dropped class rather than only ever passing on the real file.

Post-Gate Instinct Capture

What fires it. For every gate, across this entire /merge-ready run, whose Auto-Fix Protocol needed at least one fix, capture exactly one instinct entry.

FR-1.5a pre-capture dedup scan — MANDATORY, restated here because capture fires in this file too, not only in /implement-slice. Before minting a new ### <slug> heading, scan every existing entry in BOTH ## Prevention Rules and ## Instincts Log for one whose Pattern: and Category: both match the pattern about to be captured. On a match, this is a recapture of that existing entry: update it in place — this feature's slug is added to (features: ...) only if not already present there. Only when no existing entry's Pattern: and Category: both match may a new slug be minted. Skipping this scan is exactly what fragments occurrence counts across near-duplicate headings until nothing ever elevates or retires.

Consolidate Instincts

Merge Reconciliation preamble — runs whenever the store shows merge artifacts (a union merge kept both branches' lines). Repair the five canonical classes, (e) first:

• (a) duplicate Feature counter: lines → keep the max. Safe direction: max undercounts by one per concurrent feature, so it only ever delays retirement, never triggers it early; a sum-of-deltas is not computable without the merge base and must never replace it.
• (b) duplicate ### <slug> entries → union their (features: ...) lists; Occurrences: is the max of the two sides, floored at the union length; Confidence: is min(formula ceiling at the repaired count, max of the two confidences) — the formula is an upper bound, never an equality. Section placement: a cross-section duplicate repairs to a single entry, placed in ## Prevention Rules only when the repaired count meets its category threshold, else ## Instincts Log, deleting the other copy.
• (c) Last confirmed at above the counter → clamp it to the counter and recompute Retires at.
• (e) duplicated section headings → fold each section's blocks into one before the other repair classes are applied — the store parser silently appends a duplicate heading's lines into the first, so the earlier repairs would mis-read an unfolded store.