claude/.claude/memory/decisions.md

type	entry_prefix	schema	rules
decisions_registry	BDR	id date title decision why alternatives status supersedes BDR-XXX YYYY-MM-DD string (<= 80 chars) string (what was chosen) string (motivation, context) list of strings (what was rejected + why) proposed | accepted | deprecated | superseded BDR-XXX (optional)	Append-only. Never rewrite past entries - add a new one with status superseded if needed. One entry per non-trivial choice. Trivial = reversible in under 10 min with no cross-file impact. Capture why more carefully than what - the what rots, the why lasts.

Decisions registry (BDR)

Index

ID	Date	Title	Status
BDR-001	2026-04-22	Uniform --help helper via session-start hook (option C)	accepted
BDR-002	2026-04-23	Move tasks/ + introduce memory + audits under .claude/	accepted
BDR-003	2026-04-23	Gitignore wildcard + negations pattern for .claude/	accepted
BDR-004	2026-04-27	Adopt auto permission mode as default	accepted
BDR-005	2026-04-27	motion as default animation library; advisor stays read-only	accepted
BDR-006	2026-05-03	Caveman as 4th always-on plugin (output compression)	accepted

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BDR-001 — Uniform --help helper via session-start hook (option C)

• Date: 2026-04-22
• Status: accepted
• Decision: every skill exposes --help via a shared snippet injected by the session-start hook, rather than duplicating the helper in each SKILL.md.
• Why: 25+ skills — keeping the same helper synced across every file guarantees drift. A single injection point = single source of truth.
• Alternatives rejected:
  • Option A (copy the helper into each SKILL.md) — rejected: maintenance entropy.
  • Option B (external wrapper /help <skill>) — rejected: breaks the "one command = one skill" experience.
• Reference: commit 3968a29.

BDR-002 — Move tasks/ + introduce memory + audits under .claude/

• Date: 2026-04-23
• Status: accepted
• Decision: migrate ./tasks/ to .claude/tasks/, create .claude/memory/ (5 registries BDR/LRN/BLK/journal/EVAL) and .claude/audits/ for AUDIT_* files. Adapt skills/agents/CLAUDE.md. Integrate a CAPITALIZE step into completion skills (ship-feature, feat, bugfix, hotfix, commit-change) and add a /close skill for the session-end ritual.
• Why: grouping all meta-project state (AI config + tasks + memory + audits) under .claude/ isolates Claude governance from real code. Aligned with the official Claude Code memory docs. Without integration in completion skills, the registries would stay empty (aspirational text).
• Alternatives rejected:
  • Keep ./tasks/ at root — rejected: clutters the repo, mixes code signal with governance signal.
  • Use .claude/agent-memory/ for everything — rejected: agent-memory/ has a distinct role (already used by other tools).
  • Ritual as aspirational text only in CLAUDE.md — rejected: zero execution guarantee, registries would stay empty.
  • Stop hook to ask the 3 questions every turn — rejected: too noisy.

BDR-003 — Gitignore wildcard + negations pattern for .claude/

• Date: 2026-04-23
• Status: accepted
• Decision: use .claude/* (wildcard match of immediate children) + negations !.claude/tasks/, !.claude/memory/, etc., rather than .claude/ (recursive ignore).
• Why: when a parent is ignored via .claude/, git does not descend into it (performance optimization) and negations on children are ignored — documented in gitignore(5). With .claude/*, git matches each child individually, making negations active.
• Alternatives rejected:
  • .claude/ + !.claude/tasks/ (naive) — rejected: negations have no effect, everything stays ignored.
  • Drop .claude/ from gitignore entirely — rejected: .claude/settings.local.json and .claude/agent-memory/ must stay ignored (per-machine).
  • Track paths via .gitattributes or an external tool — rejected: over-engineering, git handles this natively.
• Reference: commit 499cd07, git check-ignore -v verified on 4 paths (2 tracked, 2 ignored).

BDR-004 — Adopt auto permission mode as default

• Date: 2026-04-27
• Status: accepted
• Decision: set permissions.defaultMode to "auto" in user-scope settings.json and drop disableAutoMode: "disable". Auto mode runs a classifier on every action and blocks risky operations (curl|bash, prod deploys, force push, IAM grants, mass deletes, exfiltration to external endpoints) while auto-approving local edits, lockfile-declared dep installs, and read-only HTTP.
• Why: prompt fatigue under default mode is significant on multi-step autonomous work. Auto mode keeps a safety net (classifier review) without the per-tool friction. The classifier also re-evaluates conversation-stated boundaries ("don't push", "wait for review") on every check, so verbal constraints carry weight.
• Alternatives rejected:
  • Keep default — too many prompts, breaks flow on long tasks.
  • acceptEdits — eliminates prompts but no classifier, blanket trust on Bash beyond filesystem helpers.
  • bypassPermissions — skips all checks, no prompt-injection guard. Only for isolated containers.
  • dontAsk — full denylist, breaks anything not pre-approved. Suited to CI, not interactive work.
• Caveats: requires Claude Code v2.1.83+, plan ≠ Pro (Max/Team/Enterprise/API only), Sonnet 4.6 / Opus 4.6 / Opus 4.7, Anthropic API provider. On entering auto mode, blanket allow rules (Bash(*), Bash(python*), package-manager run, Agent) are dropped and restored on exit.
• Reference: commit 1421578.

BDR-005 — motion as default animation library; advisor stays read-only

• Date: 2026-04-27
• Status: accepted
• Decision: when a project's stack supports it, the framework installs motion (or motion-v for Vue 3 / Nuxt) as the default animation library. Install is automatic in /init-project STEP 5e (post-scaffold) and opt-in in /onboard STEP 2.5 (existing projects). plugin-advisor only detects and reports the status — it never runs npm install itself. Detection logic lives in lib/animation-lib-check.sh (sourced by all three layers).
• Why: framer-motion was rebranded motion in November 2024 (single package supporting React motion/react, Svelte, vanilla JS; motion-v is the parallel package for Vue). Baking the new name in now avoids legacy-import sprawl across new projects. The split init-vs-onboard behavior follows the trust gradient: at init, the user has just validated the entire scaffold so silent install is fine; at onboard, we are touching an existing package.json, which is invasive without explicit consent. Plugin-advisor was kept read-only to preserve its "Never modify files" contract (PHASE 4 already mutates plugin state with confirmation; piling npm installs on top would blur its responsibility).
• Alternatives rejected:
  • Pin framer-motion (legacy name) — rejected: the package is in maintenance mode, every new project would inherit the old import path.
  • Auto-install during /onboard without asking — rejected: silently adds a runtime dep + ~50 KB gzip to a project the user did not ask to modify.
  • Make plugin-advisor install missing libs — rejected: violates its read-only spec and breaks separation of concerns (advisor advises; orchestrators mutate).
  • React-only scope — rejected: Vue/Svelte teams should also benefit; motion-v makes the Vue case clean.
• Eligibility rules (helper output):
  • eligible|motion: React, Next.js, Remix, Astro+React, Svelte/SvelteKit
  • eligible|motion-v: Vue 3, Nuxt
  • no|-: backend, CLI, embedded, Flutter, static HTML, React Native (use react-native-reanimated), Astro without UI integration, no package.json
• Reference: helper at lib/animation-lib-check.sh; integration in skills/init-project/SKILL.md STEP 5e, skills/onboard/SKILL.md STEP 2.5, agents/plugin-advisor.md PHASE 1/2/3, lib/design-gate.md.

BDR-006 — Caveman as 4th always-on plugin (output compression)

• Date: 2026-05-03
• Status: accepted
• Decision: install JuliusBrussee/caveman in the always-on tier alongside security-guidance, superpowers, and rtk. "Full" install = plugin (/caveman + cavecrew agents + plugin-scoped SessionStart/UserPromptSubmit hooks) + standalone hooks (statusline + stats badge in ~/.claude/hooks/) + caveman-shrink MCP scaffold (NOT auto-registered — proxy needs upstream wrapper). install-plugins.sh STEP 5.5 calls enable_plugin "caveman" "caveman" to write it into enabledPlugins. Hook paths in settings.json are normalized to ~/.claude/hooks/... post-install so this user's home dir doesn't leak across machines.
• Why: caveman compresses Claude's output ~75% via caveman-speak while preserving technical substance. Symmetrical with rtk (input compression hook) — rtk shrinks tool I/O, caveman shrinks model output. Both hooks pay zero passive cost in a clean session and amortize across long runs. Always-on is justified: the plugin auto-deactivates with phrases like "stop caveman" / "normal mode", so toggle would be friction without benefit.
• Alternatives rejected:
  • Toggle plugin (start OFF) — rejected: misses the by-default benefit; the user would need to remember claude plugin enable caveman@caveman per session, which negates the auto-compression value.
  • --minimal install (plugin only) — rejected: loses the standalone stats badge that surfaces token-saving telemetry.
  • --all install (adds per-repo caveman-rules.md etc. into $PWD) — rejected: would litter THIS config repo (the cwd at install time) with rule files meant for project repos. Let users opt in per-repo when they want it.
  • Auto-register caveman-shrink MCP — rejected: the proxy errors with "missing upstream command" without an upstream MCP to wrap, fails health checks. Print a snippet instead and let the user pick which upstream they want compressed (filesystem, github, …).
• Caveats:
  • Caveman's hooks/install.sh writes absolute paths ($HOME/.claude/hooks/caveman-*.js) into settings.json. Since settings.json is symlinked into the repo, the absolute path would commit a username. STEP 5.5 runs a Python post-process to rewrite to portable ~/.claude/hooks/... form (bash expands ~ before passing to node).
  • Caveman's hook files materialize in hooks/ (the repo dir, not ~/.claude/hooks/) because the latter is a symlink. They're added to .gitignore to prevent accidental commit of user-scope state.
• Reference: install-plugins.sh STEP 5.5, lib/detect-plugins.sh detect_caveman* + plugin_enabled, doctor.sh caveman block, commit 9b20b84.