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SOP-016 — Reconcile session decisions into rules (GR-6)

Guide

SOP-016 — Reconcile session decisions into rules (GR-6)

SOP · owner: Rules & Governance (Golden Rule). Layer: SOP/Runbook (docs/canon.md). The Golden Rule half of GR-6’s session-close routine: review the session’s decisions/directives and reconcile the ones that clear the GR bar into rules, so nothing durable is lost. (HR owns the parallel policy half.)

Interface Contract

  • Inputs: session decision set ← from PA / reporting agent · trigger: “briefing posted”
  • Outputs: GR candidate dispositions → to Principal · trigger: “review requested”
  • Outputs: approved rule (GR-#) → to all agents · trigger: “rule approved”
  • Handoff trigger (in): the session-close decision set / candidates report is posted to reports/
  • Handoff trigger (out): each durable decision is either co-created into a rule (SOP-015) or recorded as deferred/rejected with a reason
  • Definition of Done before handoff:
    • [ ] Every session decision triaged against the GR bar (project-wide · durable · prevents a failure class)
    • [ ] Each candidate has a recorded disposition — accept (→ SOP-015) / defer / reject, with a one-line reason
    • [ ] No durable rule-class decision left undisposed (the GR-6 “nothing lost” test)
    • [ ] Learnings captured if any

The in-trigger "briefing posted" matches the PA / reporting agent’s broadcast output (docs/handoff-triggers.md, fan-out). The "review requested" edge to the Principal is point-to-point and is the same trigger SOP-015 consumes as its input — so a candidate that clears the bar flows SOP-016 → SOP-015 on the same registry phrase. "rule approved" is reached only via SOP-015 (no rule is finalized here without explicit approval, GR-3).

Purpose

Make sure the durable decisions a session produced are not lost when the session resets: triage them, and route the rule-class ones into the co-creation procedure or record why they were not (GR-6). This is the rules half of session-close; HR runs the policy half (hr/policies/operating-cadence.md).

When to use

At each session close, and whenever a candidates report is posted (e.g. reports/<date>-gr-candidates.md). Run before the session is considered closed.

Flow

flowchart LR
  D["Read session<br/>decision set"] --> T{"Clears the<br/>GR bar?"}
  T -->|yes| C["Co-create (SOP-015)<br/>review requested"]
  T -->|no| R["Record disposition<br/>defer / reject + reason"]
  C --> L["Close: nothing<br/>durable lost"]
  R --> L
  classDef s fill:#1d4ed8,color:#fff,stroke:#1e3a8a
  classDef d fill:#0f766e,color:#fff,stroke:#134e4a
  class D,C,R,L s
  class T d

Text fallback: read the session’s decision/directive set → for each, test it against the GR bar (project-wide, durable, prevents a class of failure); if it clears, route it into SOP-015 (review requested to the Principal); if it does not, record a disposition (defer or reject) with a one-line reason. Close only when no durable rule-class decision is left undisposed.

Steps

  1. Gather. Read the session decision set (PA candidates report / session notes in reports/).
  2. Triage against the GR bar. A Golden Rule is project-wide, durable, and prevents a class of failure. Policy-level or one-off items are not GRs — note that they belong to HR/policy and pass them on, don’t force them into a rule.
  3. Dispose each candidate.
    • Accept → run SOP-015 (co-create with the Principal). Do not finalize here.
    • Defer → record “deferred — <reason>” in the candidates report.
    • Reject → record “rejected — <reason / superseded by …>”.
  4. Check for stale referents (the Phase 0 F1/F2 failure): confirm no candidate’s draft GR-# number collides with a shipped rule, and no prior candidate was left undisposed across sessions.
  5. Confirm nothing durable is lost. Every rule-class decision is accepted, deferred, or rejected with a reason. Capture any learning.

Roles / approvers

Run by Golden Rule; the Principal approves any rule that results (via SOP-015). HR owns the parallel policy reconciliation (GR-6), not this SOP.

Guardrails

  • Disposition is mandatory, not optional — an undisposed candidate is the orphaning failure (K2) applied to rules.
  • Do not promote a policy-level decision to a GR to look thorough; pass it to HR.
  • No rule is finalized in this SOP — acceptance only routes to SOP-015, where explicit approval lives (GR-3).

See also: CLAUDE.md GR-6 · SOP-015 (rule co-creation) · hr/policies/operating-cadence.md · docs/units/rules-governance/charter.md.