ADR-003 — Slice Record and Closeout Relationship

Status

Accepted

Context

The AletheIA evolution plan calls for operational compression before adding more framework surface. A future slice-record-template.md may help first-time users run one practical Work Slice, but AletheIA already has closeout-oriented templates and records, especially:

• starter-pack/templates/slice-finalization-review-template.md
• starter-pack/templates/hermes-closeout-template.md
• versioned closeouts under docs/aletheia/closeouts/
• Hermes-specific policy in docs/adr/ADR-001-hermes-role.md

Adding a new slice record without defining its relationship to closeout artifacts would create silent duplication.

Decision

A future slice-record-template.md should contain closeout and restart information. It must not replace existing closeout templates and must not compete with them as a parallel closure system.

The intended relationship is:

• the slice record is the lightweight first-use operating record for a Work Slice;
• closeout/restart is a required section inside that record;
• specialized closeout templates remain valid when the slice needs a formal, runtime-specific, high-assurance, or audit-heavy closure artifact;
• if a specialized closeout is used, the slice record should link to it instead of duplicating every field.

Consequences

This preserves AletheIA’s existing closeout discipline while allowing a smaller first-use path later. It also prevents P0 from adding a competing template before the core operating path has been tested.

Deferred decisions

The following decisions are intentionally not made in P0:

• whether a future closeout standalone template should become a compatibility stub;
• whether any existing closeout template should be renamed or retired;
• whether closeout sections should keep layer labels such as Layer 1 / Layer 2 / Layer 3 or use purely functional labels in first-use material.

Those decisions belong in P0.5 or P1 after the core operating path has been tested against real use.