Visual Operations Retrospective — PR #193

Goal

Test whether the docs-first Visual Operations vocabulary can reconstruct one real AletheIA Work Slice from durable repository and GitHub evidence, while leaving unavailable signals explicit.

The subject is PR #193 — docs: add visual operations projection, the change that introduced the first Visual Operations contracts, templates, and synthetic example.

This report is field evidence, not a new contract.

Test boundary

The reconstruction used only durable sources available from the repository or GitHub:

• commit 40c5393;
• PR #193 metadata, description, timeline, reviews, and review threads;
• GitHub Actions run 27522883401;
• merge commit 88fc7b2;
• the merged Visual Operations contracts and synthetic example.

Private conversation content, local runtime traces, and provider telemetry were intentionally not copied into this report.

Reconstructed timeline

The last event is important: a Work Slice can be closed while a later review still produces a valid follow-up signal. closed therefore cannot mean “no future findings”; it means the authoritative change boundary was closed.

Projected Work Slice state

This is a successful use of unknown and unavailable, not an incomplete report. The projection remains honest because it does not infer planning depth, skill usage, human-review semantics, tokens, or cost from the fact that the PR merged.

Evidence reconstruction

The slice has durable evidence for:

• governance baseline passing;
• lockfile consistency;
• TypeScript no-emit validation;
• the Vitest CI job passing; the PR description separately reports 173 tests in 17 test files;
• aggregate quality gate passing;
• exact head SHA protected at merge;
• merge and close events on main.

The PR description also records local structural checks for JSON, JSONL, YAML, Markdown links, scenario assertions, and dashboard reconstruction. Those claims are durable as PR prose, but they do not have separate GitHub check runs. A cockpit should distinguish CI-observed evidence from author-reported validation rather than flattening them into one confidence level.

Comparison with the synthetic example

Findings

1. The projection vocabulary is usable without an importer

The PR could be reconstructed manually from durable sources using the existing event envelope and presentation-lane semantics. This is enough evidence to keep the model; no redesign is justified.

2. Source availability is the main constraint

GitHub exposes change, CI, readiness-for-review, merge, close, and review events well. It does not prove planning depth, skill activation, local runtime, token/cost telemetry, or the rationale behind human authorization unless those are deliberately attached as durable records.

3. Evidence needs provenance categories

The distinction between CI-observed checks and author-reported local checks mattered in this real slice. The current contracts already require source_refs; a future projection may additionally label evidence provenance without changing the underlying authority.

4. Canonical sensitivity drift was detected

The merged event envelope listed public | internal | confidential | restricted | unknown, while the canonical taxonomy includes regulated. The automated review correctly flagged that a projector would otherwise downgrade regulated data. This follow-up restores regulated in the event contract and starter template.

5. Closed slices may still receive follow-up alerts

The automated review was submitted after merge. The finding belongs to a new corrective Work Slice; it should not rewrite the historical lane of PR #193. A cockpit should keep the original slice closed while exposing the linked post-close finding or follow-up slice.

Verdict

Result mode: reinforced with one bounded correction.

The docs-first Visual Operations model was sufficient to reconstruct the real slice without fabricating missing data. The pilot found one concrete vocabulary defect (regulated) and one operational limitation: GitHub-only evidence cannot make local planning, skill, runtime, telemetry, or human-authorization context visible unless those signals are deliberately persisted.

Recommended next step

Do not build the static UI yet.

The next useful implementation slice is a small Markdown/JSON projector for GitHub PR evidence that:

1. consumes explicitly supplied PR metadata, timeline, checks, and review records;
2. emits a normalized event file and one derived Work Slice snapshot;
3. preserves unknown and unavailable values;
4. distinguishes CI-observed evidence from author-reported validation;
5. links post-close findings to a follow-up slice instead of reopening history.

Adaptive Skills integration remains separate until a real durable skill-activation record exists to consume.

Validation of this report

• Timeline timestamps were taken from GitHub PR, timeline, and Actions records.
• CI claims were checked against the individual completed jobs.
• Review state was checked at thread level.
• The sensitivity correction matches the canonical five-level vocabulary in Sensitivity Vocabulary Mapping.
• No private prompt, runtime trace, token count, cost, or restricted source content was published.