0.81.0-alpha · core 2026-10-22

A single-breadth run executed nothing. The proposal task in the interface-contrast and architecture-contrast recipes was gated on exploration_supports_fanout, and every task after it depends on it. At breadth 1 the gate skipped the producer, the cascade skipped the verify, the hybrid, the contrast and the readable interface — the whole stage silently ran zero tasks. Breadth controls the count of proposals, never whether they happen: at breadth 1 the recipe now generates one proposal (which is what the visual gate needs) and the contrast compares whatever exists. The gate is now when: always, and the standalone alternatives recipes follow the same rule so the two copies cannot disagree.
Verification silently lost its report without a UI. The report depended on the optional ui-review task, and the cascade skips a dependent of a skipped task — so any non-UI project ran tests and then produced no verification/report.md at all. The report now depends only on the tests and reads the UI review when it exists.
The graph rule is now a test. "An unconditional task must not depend on a conditional one" is checked for every recipe in the generated catalog, so the next recipe that reintroduces the shape fails instead of shipping a stage that runs zero tasks.