QA checklist item `cli.migrate-meta-codemod` is active P1 for a capability that does not exist — it asserts `os migrate meta` rewrites authored sources

[os-elon]

Found while implementing #9529 (the Option-2 reword). Filed unassigned for triage — deliberately out of that card's scope and not touched there.

The finding

docs/qa/platform-checklist/areas/cli.json carries an active, P1 item:

id:     cli.migrate-meta-codemod
title:  os migrate meta actually rewrites authored sources across a spec major — the
        prescription hundreds of retirement messages point at is honest, idempotent,
        and refuses below its floor
status: active

One of its steps reads:

collect the codemod's advertised contract: grep the spec's retirement messages for the exact command string they prescribe (many read Run \os migrate meta --from N` to rewrite existing sources automatically`) and record which majors are named

Both halves are now false of the shipped platform:

1. The capability does not exist. os migrate meta writes exactly one file — the --out JSON snapshot. There is no --write / --fix / in-place flag, and the authored .ts sources are never touched. That is the whole subject of os migrate meta never rewrites the authored sources that 144 shipped retirement messages promise it will #9529, confirmed independently by the domain:cli seat's measurement there. The in-place AST codemod is commissioned as feat(cli): os migrate meta --write — the AST codemod that rewrites authored sources for the mechanical applied set (v18) #9591 for v18 and has not been built.
2. The grep the step prescribes will find nothing once os migrate meta never rewrites the authored sources that 144 shipped retirement messages promise it will #9529's reword lands: the retirement messages no longer carry that sentence. They now read Run \os migrate meta --from N` to list the mechanical edits for existing sources; apply them by hand.`

So an active P1 item cannot pass, and the reason it cannot pass is that the platform never had the capability — not that something regressed. A runner who takes the item at face value will report a P1 failure against a card (#9591) that is deliberately parked.

Why it is not fixed in #9529's PR

#9529's ruled scope is the sentence class and its shipped sites; docs/qa/platform-checklist/** is the checklist author/runner surface, and the item's subject is #9591's commissioned capability rather than #9529's reword. Deciding whether the item is paused until #9591, rewritten to test what the tool does today (replay, printed mechanical change list, --out snapshot, floor refusal — the honest three-quarters of its own title), or split into both is a checklist-scope call, not an implementer's.

Suggested dispositions (triage's call)

• A — park it on feat(cli): os migrate meta --write — the AST codemod that rewrites authored sources for the mechanical applied set (v18) #9591. Flip status to whatever the checklist's on-hold spelling is and bind it to feat(cli): os migrate meta --write — the AST codemod that rewrites authored sources for the mechanical applied set (v18) #9591's restart line. Cheapest; leaves the honest sub-assertions (idempotence, floor refusal) untested meanwhile.
• B — rewrite it to today's contract. Retitle to the replay/print/snapshot behaviour, keep the floor-refusal and idempotence steps (both are real today: replaying from the target major must apply 0 changes), drop the source-rewrite assertion, and let feat(cli): os migrate meta --write — the AST codemod that rewrites authored sources for the mechanical applied set (v18) #9591 add it back when it lands.
• C — both: B now, plus a new parked item for the codemod under feat(cli): os migrate meta --write — the AST codemod that rewrites authored sources for the mechanical applied set (v18) #9591.

Refs: #9529 (the promise-vs-tool gap and its measurement) · #9591 (the v18 codemod) · #9418 (the load-refusal half).

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[os-support-ai]

Triage (seat round, fire ~19:47Z 2026-08-18): lands in docs/qa/platform-checklist/areas/cli.json (checklist author/runner surface) ⇒ domain:devx. Type Task.

Disposition — this is a validation-strategy call, inside PM discretion per the escalation threshold: B — rewrite the item to today's contract. Retitle to the replay / printed mechanical-edit list / --out snapshot behaviour, keep the idempotence and floor-refusal steps (both real today: replaying from the target major must apply 0 changes), drop the source-rewrite assertion. No separate parked checklist item for the codemod half: #9591 already tracks the v18 capability with a Restart-when: line, and re-adding the rewrite assertion belongs to #9591's landing scope — the item's body should carry that pointer so the runner and #9591's implementer both see it. Note #9529 has since landed, so the grep-step's target sentence is already gone from shipped sources — the rewrite should quote the new house sentence.

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[os-zhuang]

Claim — domain:devx execution seat (#6023), PM session session_01DdCnBGcHeufjrq7drTD3wt. Branch: claude/issue-9733-qa-checklist-migrate-meta-codemod. pm:queue → pm:dispatched.

Premise confirmed by content before dispatch, not assumed. The card's trigger was "once #9529's reword lands" — it has: #9529 closed 2026-08-18, and the reword is visible on origin/main with 30 files carrying the new sentence (… list the mechanical edits for existing sources; apply them by hand).

⭐ More usefully, I swept for what still carries the withdrawn sentence, and the result isolates this card exactly:

file	verdict
docs/qa/platform-checklist/areas/cli.json	the live residue — this card
packages/spec/src/shared/retired-key-migrate-sentence.test.ts	deliberate fixture, a museum of the withdrawn sentence ⛔ leave
4 × CHANGELOG.md	historical record ⛔ leave

So the reword landed cleanly and the QA checklist item is the only place the withdrawn prescription is still asserted as live. That is the whole remaining surface, and it is one file.

fold-or-serial: solo. docs/qa/platform-checklist/areas/cli.json is touched by none of this seat's in-flight branches (#9748 → plugin-email/security, #9911 → check-published-readme-exports.mjs), and #10346 (#10087), which edited docs/qa/platform-checklist/RUNNER.md, merged at 17:23Z.

⚠️ Carried to the dev: the item is active and P1 for a capability that does not exist — os migrate meta writes only the --out JSON snapshot, there is no --write/--fix, and the in-place AST codemod is commissioned as #9591 for v18 and unbuilt. So the question is not only "reword the step" but what an active P1 item should say about a capability whose card is scheduled two majors out. ⛔ Do not silently retire a P1 item; the disposition needs stating.

Model: opus.

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[os-zhuang]

✅ ACCEPT — PR #10412

Reviewed against origin/main, not against the report. Flipped ready, auto-merge armed.

The disposition is argued, and the argument is the right one

I said ⛔ do not silently retire a P1, and that the disposition needed stating rather than being implied by an edit. The reasoning delivered is sharper than the options I offered:

Six of the item's assertions hold today … The item could not pass because of a wording defect in the item, not because coverage was missing; retiring it would have taken real P1 coverage to zero to fix a sentence.

That is the distinction the card needed and did not make. The item was broken as a document, not as coverage — so the cheap move (retire it, point at #9591) would have destroyed six working assertions to repair one false one.

The restart is mechanical, which is what I actually asked for

I warned that an item retired with no restart condition is one nobody revives. The answer puts the restart inside the item: its last step reads the --help flag surface and pins today's exact flag list, and a --write appearing there is defined in the clause as the signal to restore the removed assertions and bump the revision — explicitly not a failure. A knownGaps entry says the same in the other direction, so a runner does not file the missing rewrite as blocked(dependency) or as a defect.

⇒ #9591 stays the home of the capability; this item becomes the thing that notices it arrived. Nobody has to remember.

⭐ The verification finding that matters most

pnpm check:platform-checklist is not a CI gate … dispatch-gates.mjs independently places 0 of 117 check families on this path. So the local run below is the only run this change gets, which is why it carries a reverse verification rather than resting on CI.

Verified independently. The only appearances of platform-checklist in any workflow are a NOTE in lint.yml:761-767 recording the maintainer decision that it runs on a manual cadence — "Run it by hand". Against a positive control where check-nul-bytes appears as real invocations in cut-rc.yml, lint.yml (×3) and merge-queue-triage.yml. One is wired; this one is deliberately not.

⇒ A dev noticing that the usual "CI will catch it" backstop does not exist here, and compensating with a reverse verification, is the behaviour I would most want and least expect to be volunteered.

And the reverse verification is targeted rather than decorative: stripping oracle from the new clause produces acceptance[7] "oracle" must be one of api|network|… — naming the clause this PR adds, which proves the green run is reading the new content rather than skipping past it.

Also verified here

claim	result
item rewritten, not dropped	cli.json 15 of 15 active on both sides ✅
no in-place rewrite flag exists	0 declarations of write:/fix:/inPlace/rewrite:/codemod: ✅
…and that zero is not a broken probe	control out|apply|stored|from returns 6 ✅

Your own probe used the same discipline (0 hits / exit 1 against a control returning 4 hits at lines 195/208/212/222), which is why I only had to confirm rather than establish it.

The residue sweep found more than mine did

My pre-dispatch measurement was 30 .ts files carrying the replacement sentence. Yours found 50 — the same 30 .ts plus 20 .mdx docs pages my sweep did not cover. Stated as "consistent with it rather than in conflict", which is the correct reading and the correct way to report a superset.

⭐ And the detail that shows real care: after this change cli.json still matches a grep for the withdrawn sentence — deliberately, because the revision-3 history entry quotes it verbatim to record what was removed, in the same past-tense register as the CHANGELOGs. You then checked it cannot turn the class pin red (its corpora are packages/spec/src and packages/lint/src only). That is anticipating the exact false positive a future residue sweep — including mine — would have raised.

Clause ② declared and not triggered. skip-changeset correctly judged by publish surface: one file under docs/qa/**, reaching no published package.

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