[dmccoystephenson]

Summary

Stage A documentation accuracy sweep. Every doc source of truth listed in CLAUDE.md was checked against create-dev-loop.md (Steps 1–7, the Step 4 substitution table, and what Steps 3/5/6/7 write). README.md, SECURITY.md, the PR template, the issue templates, and scripts/README.md were found accurate. CONTRIBUTING.md had drifted from CLAUDE.md in two places:

• Restated conventions were incomplete. CLAUDE.md's "Skill file conventions" requires two things that CONTRIBUTING.md did not mention: backslash-escaping fenced code blocks inside the template, and placing the template-version / generated-at comments directly below the H1 heading (the fix for Template-version HTML comment at file top breaks skill-list description for commands-format installs #36). Both are now restated.
• The validation checklist was looser than CLAUDE.md's "Testing changes" list. Item 4 said only that the comments "appear correctly". It now says they must sit below the H1, with the SHA matching the create-dev-loop commit the skill was generated from. Item 5 said only to "exercise MODE=update end-to-end". It now names the three things to confirm: the abort-on-uncommitted-changes check, the pre-overwrite diff prompt, and that Steps 6–7 are skipped.

No tracking issue — gap found during triage.

Open issues not taken this cycle were deferred because nearly all of them change template behavior or CLAUDE.md. Template-behavior changes need a manual /create-dev-loop validation run, which a headless dispatch cannot perform (#109). CLAUDE.md edits need separate authorization (#106, and half of #128). A docs-only sweep was selected as the change that could be fully verified in this run.

Doc sync check

No Step, placeholder, or RESEARCH.md finding is touched, so none of the checkboxes apply.

Test plan

• python3 scripts/check_docs.py — "Doc consistency check passed."
• python3 -m unittest discover -s tests — Ran 41 tests, OK
• No /create-dev-loop run is needed: this change is docs-only and does not touch the template (UNVERIFIED-not-applicable).

This PR description was drafted during a Gardener session (https://github.com/Stephenson-Software/gardener).

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

---

drafted by Claude on behalf of Daniel Stephenson

[dmccoystephenson]

Self-review rubric (one pass, scored against the diff and the CI run):

• Scope: PASS. Only CONTRIBUTING.md changes (+13/−3), and every hunk restates a rule that already exists in CLAUDE.md.
• Tests-new: N/A. No code changed.
• Tests-fix: N/A. This is a documentation correction, not a behavior fix.
• Sibling structure / renames: PASS. No new files and no renames.
• Docs: PASS. The new bullets match CLAUDE.md's "Skill file conventions" (fence escaping; version comments below the H1) and items 4–5 of its "Testing changes" list. The other Phase 7 sources (README.md, SECURITY.md, PR/issue templates, scripts/README.md) were checked against create-dev-loop.md Steps 1–7 and need no change.
• Issue resolution: N/A. No Closes; the gap was found during triage.
• CI: PASS. doc-consistency was green on the PR head (run 39560927601); locally, check_docs.py passed and 41 unit tests passed.
• Placeholder parity / README Step parity / fence escaping / phase numbering / version comments: N/A. create-dev-loop.md is not touched.
• Research grounding: N/A. The change is docs-only and touches neither the template nor any phase definition.
• Behavioral validation: UNVERIFIED-not-applicable, because the change is docs-only.

Judgment call:

• CONTRIBUTING.md:31: the inline code \``` uses a double-backtick delimiter so the escaped triple backtick renders literally. GitHub renders it as intended.
• CONTRIBUTING.md:77: the MODE=update trigger was widened from "if you touched update-mode behavior" to CLAUDE.md's "if the target repo already has a skill". This deliberately follows the source of truth.

Nothing blocking; the PR is ready to merge.

This review comment was drafted during a Gardener session (https://github.com/Stephenson-Software/gardener).

---

drafted by Claude on behalf of Daniel Stephenson