0.36.0 · core 2026-06-24

release 0.36.0 on GitHub →

Added

• 🛡️ Quality Floor — appetite governs scope, never quality. New explicit invariant in stages/verification.md and propagated to all 24 codequality-review.md skill copies. The Quality Floor lists which verification gates always run regardless of declared appetite (test-suite, code-quality-gate, invisible-20%, static a11y when UI exists, Quick-Tier interactive-testing, code review). Appetite controls depth (how thoroughly), not whether these run.
• Anti-regression test suite in tests/appetite-consistency.test.ts (17 new tests across 7 files). Blocks any future commit that re-introduces an appetite table with Skip for a quality column. Preserves legitimate scope skips via explicit allowlist (no UI, greenfield, context-stage, etc.).

Changed

• stages/verification.md — appetite gate table inverted. Three rows previously allowed Lean/Core to skip quality gates; they now show the floor (light/single/static/quick-tier) and Complete adds depth (parallel/Nuclear/live-site/full browser). Rationale documented per row.
• cali-product-shape-up SKILL.md (shape:12): Tech Preview brownfield now always runs minimum cymbal structure; appetite adds refs/impact depth.
• cali-product-tech-planning SKILL.md (planning:10.5): Codebase Recon floor is always cymbal search --text; appetite adds refs/impact depth.
• cali-product-codebase-critique SKILL.md: Lean row no longer skips; it runs a single reviewer with a basic checklist. Header clarifies "Lean → light".
• cali-product-ux-critique SKILL.md: Header clarifies "Lean → static a11y baseline" (matrix table was already correct).

Removed

• extensions/stelow/modules/cache.ts — whole file. CacheManager and MapCache had no runtime callers and no test coverage.
• readAllEvents from modules/event-logger.ts — no callers.
• createFreshCheckpoint from modules/checkpoint.ts — no callers.
• formatTask, formatTaskList from modules/task.ts — no callers.
• TextFileStore, MarkdownFileStore, ensureDir, IFileStore from modules/file-store.ts — no callers. JsonFileStore preserved because checkpoint.ts uses it at runtime (getCheckpointStore in index.ts:422).
• tests/unit/modules-file-store.test.ts — coverage of removed code.

Fixed

• tests/integration/commands.test.ts — six assertions expected 17 command files; dispatcher registers 16 (the 17th was removed in a prior change). Updated to match npm run generate-cli-commands output.

Research basis

• Estimation Bias Correction (shape-up SKILL § Estimation Bias): LLMs systematically overestimate implementation time and tend to cut quality out of fear of complexity. The Quality Floor is the architectural countermeasure.
• proposal-structure.md: "Quality gates such as build/test/lint/ typecheck and a11y checks when UI exists are not appetite cuts."
• cali-product-testing-ai-code SKILL.md: "Quality baseline applies to every appetite... Appetite changes exploration breadth, not whether quality gates exist."

The Quality Floor rule aligns the verification behavior with what shape-up, tech-planning, and testing-ai-code already documented as the intent — the verification stage was the outlier.