Remove received Brain executables from the Engine

Context

This is Wave 3's terminal Neo-side PR. It may open only after source/package receive, deployment/image receive, tracker conversion, day-one Brain CI, skill/enforcement substrate, peer-owned learn/ADR migration, and the cut manifest's removal predicate are all green at pinned heads.

The Problem

Deleting earlier makes rollback and completeness unprovable. Deleting later without cleaning scripts/dependencies/hooks/package/public surfaces leaves a mixed Engine that still carries Brain authority.

The Architectural Reality

• ADR 0040 keeps src/ai/**, Fleet Manager keeper surfaces, Engine apps, Engine contracts/clients, and Engine-facing tests by subject; moving/staying follows the cut manifest, not the ai token alone.
• Engine never depends on the Brain package, including devDependencies.
• #17783 owns hook/CI custody and trigger/binding receipts; #17798 owns the public skill substrate (#17784 closed and superseded when the transport became an npm dependency).
• Brain receive and image proofs are the preconditions; Wave 4 owns severe continuity after the cut.

The Fix

Open one terminal PR against neomjs/neo:dev that removes exactly the cut-manifest mover set, retires/rewrites root scripts and package entries, sheds Brain package/deployment artifacts, preserves every stay-Engine subject, and proves Engine-only clone/build/test/onboarding with the Brain available only as an externally provisioned runtime for the whitebox tier.

The PR is human-merge-gated after the Brain receive PRs, tracker transfer, and peer learn/ADR work merge.

Contract Ledger Matrix

Decision Record impact

aligned-with amended ADR 0040; depends-on ADR 0019 for retired/moved config and #17783 for enforcement custody.

Decision Record

Required: consume the final ADR 0040 amendment; this PR is its terminal execution receipt.

Acceptance Criteria

• Every cut-manifest mover is absent from Neo and present at the pinned verified Brain head; no extra deletion or source/target residue.
• Every stay-Engine identity remains, including src/ai/**, Fleet Manager keeper surfaces, Engine apps, public contracts/clients, and subject-owned tests/guards.
• Root scripts, package manifests/locks, .npmignore, exports, docs/build references, hooks, and workflows match Engine-only custody.
• Neo has zero dependency or devDependency on neo-agent-brain and zero relative import into the removed implementation.
• #17783 binding/trigger receipts are green at their merged heads, and #17798's npm-transport receipts are green at theirs. (Truth-synced 2026-08-26: this AC said "#17784 substrate receipts". #17784 is closed and superseded by #17798 — the transport changed from committed bytes to an npm dependency, so the receipt class changed with it.)
• The package-reference contract is discharged before this PR merges — #17798 comment 5425965214: no vendored guide tree; the census-split docs references URL-qualify (13 Brain / 5 Engine); write globs stay trigger-scoped. Concretely, neo-agent-skills ≥ 0.1.2 is published and every consumer lockfile resolves it — 0.1.2 does not exist at the time of writing (dist-tags.latest is 0.1.1), so this is a live upstream precondition on #17798, not a checkbox this ticket can satisfy alone. Rationale, so it is not read as ceremony: the shipped package points into a learn/ tree it does not contain, and this removal is what makes those pointers resolve nowhere instead of only-in-neo.
• Brain source/package and deployment/image receive PRs are merged and verified; tracker ledger is complete; peer learn/ADR migration is merged.
• No open PR or active A2A lane targets removed paths at the final pre-merge recheck.
• Engine-only fresh clone + install + build + unit/component/non-Neural-Link e2e + package dry-run pass without Brain source.
• Cross-repository whitebox tier uses explicit distinct agentosRuntimeRoot / targetRepoRoot; swapped/omitted bindings fail without cwd recovery.
• Source provenance, redirects, ADR/Architecture docs, and D#17782 Wave-3 receipt are current.
• Rollback instructions name the Wave-0 image pin + named verified bundle and the exact revert/receive heads; agent performs no merge.
• Post-merge Wave 4 remains required; this PR does not claim severe runtime continuity.

Out of Scope

• Brain receive/deploy implementation;
• tracker triage or transfers;
• peer-owned learn/ADR migration;
• Wave-4 severe test and final production re-point;
• Engine feature refactors unrelated to removal;
• history rewrite.

Avoided Traps

• Delete to discover imports: too late.
• ai/** blanket removal: deletes stays-Engine/subject-owned surfaces.
• Engine devDependency on Brain: restores the monorepo through npm.
• Same-cwd whitebox fallback: hides root authority bugs.
• Merge before tracker/CI receipts: strands both people and enforcement.
• Call removal “the split complete”: Wave 4 remains.

Related

Blocked by: #17788 · #17789 · #17790 · #17783 · #17798 · peer learn/ADR lane → neo-agent-brain#10
Parent Wave-3 Epic: #17786

Handoff Retrieval Hints

Retrieval Hint: terminal Engine removal exact mover set Brain verified no back dependency Wave4 remains

Origin Session ID: 975b7d3f-ebb0-46bd-8b5a-ac7fa64ba0d0