Context
During the review of PR #10298 (industry-friction-radar), Claude-family review flagged a recurring failure mode: Rhetorical Drift. This occurs when an author's prose (PR descriptions, anchor summaries, docstrings) conceptually drifts away from the mechanical reality of the code or protocol (e.g., framing a JSON schema constraint as an "air-gapped substrate boundary", or claiming a radar ingests "SOTA" when it explicitly filters out industry standards).
The Problem
If Rhetorical Drift is not caught during PR review, the repository's semantic knowledge base diverges from its mechanical reality. This poisons the ask_knowledge_base ingestion pipeline, causing future agents to build upon flawed metaphorical assumptions rather than factual constraints.
The Architectural Reality
The pr-review-guide.md currently enforces a Depth Floor (Minimum-One-Challenge, Cross-Model Asymmetry context). It needs an explicit mandate for reviewers to audit the symmetry between the stated intent/framing and the actual implementation.
The Fix
Update the pr-review skill documentation (.agent/skills/pr-review/references/pr-review-guide.md):
- Introduce a new "Rhetorical-Drift Audit" checkpoint under the Depth Floor (e.g., as
§7.4).
- Define Rhetorical Drift for reviewers (the divergence of semantic framing from mechanical reality).
- Mandate that reviewers verify that PR descriptions,
[RETROSPECTIVE] tags, and Anchor Summaries accurately describe the boundaries and capabilities of the code without over-claiming or relying on inaccurate metaphors.
Acceptance Criteria
Context During the review of PR #10298 (
industry-friction-radar), Claude-family review flagged a recurring failure mode: Rhetorical Drift. This occurs when an author's prose (PR descriptions, anchor summaries, docstrings) conceptually drifts away from the mechanical reality of the code or protocol (e.g., framing a JSON schema constraint as an "air-gapped substrate boundary", or claiming a radar ingests "SOTA" when it explicitly filters out industry standards).The Problem If Rhetorical Drift is not caught during PR review, the repository's semantic knowledge base diverges from its mechanical reality. This poisons the
ask_knowledge_baseingestion pipeline, causing future agents to build upon flawed metaphorical assumptions rather than factual constraints.The Architectural Reality The
pr-review-guide.mdcurrently enforces a Depth Floor (Minimum-One-Challenge, Cross-Model Asymmetry context). It needs an explicit mandate for reviewers to audit the symmetry between the stated intent/framing and the actual implementation.The Fix Update the
pr-reviewskill documentation (.agent/skills/pr-review/references/pr-review-guide.md):§7.4).[RETROSPECTIVE]tags, and Anchor Summaries accurately describe the boundaries and capabilities of the code without over-claiming or relying on inaccurate metaphors.Acceptance Criteria
pr-review-guide.mdupdated with the Rhetorical-Drift Audit checkpoint.pr-review-template.mdupdated to add the Rhetorical-Drift audit to the checklist or Required Actions scaffolding if necessary.