---

type: adr id: adr-0092 status: accepted created: 2026-06-21 updated: 2026-06-23

ADR-0092 — corpus-agents: a Claude-Code-first member of self-contained, useful worker definitions (records, never an executor; toolable-not-enforced)

Ledger note (2026-06-23): the portable-layer hold here is narrowed by ADR-0098 — the Codex emitter + the universal AGENTS.md discipline ship now (the second runner, Codex, is real). The part this gate actually protected — value measured across ≥2 real external runner teams — is preserved unchanged as the honest exception. The founding Claude-Code-first stance stands; the emitter is an addition.

Context

ADR-0088 froze the delegation-provenance contract and shipped two producers; a corpus-reviewer probe and the producer-2 hook landed as experimental tenants in corpus-starter-kit/advanced/.claude/. corpus-works #43 left the standalone corpus-agents repo on a do-not-found hold ([FINDING-delegation-provenance-measurement]) gated on (1) ≥2 demonstrated runner projections and (2) measured per-role value.

A 2026-06-21 refresh ([SURVEY-corpus-agents-shipping]) confirms Claude Code subagents are a mature, file-based authoring surface, and that the runner ecosystem matured (Copilot, Gemini CLI, Cursor are file-based-agent runners). Honest status: gate-1 is still UNMET — it required ≥2 runners demonstrating corpus-agents' value, and v1 is Claude-Code-only, so it demonstrates value on zero other runners. The owner has decided to found the member now regardless. This ADR records that as a conscious override of the unmet measure-first gate, conditioned on a post-ship measurement wave — not a claim that the gate cleared.

Decision

1. Found corpus-agents — a derived-content, markdown-only family member (sibling to corpus-skills; no runtime, no checks). It ships Claude-Code-first worker definitions for corpus roles, the producer-2 delegation hook, a read-only-guard hook, and the evidence docs behind them.

2. The model: self-contained, useful worker definitions — persona-optional. Each corpus-* agent is selected on usefulness as a delegated subagent (where fresh-context isolation + tool-scoping + the trace add value), not on mapping to a persona. Each agent body carries its own discipline, grounded in the durable canon ADRs (ADR-0056 self-review, ADR-0077 reconcile-only/no-verdict, ADR-0088 trace), and stands alone — it does not depend on the corpus-skills personas (whose own quality is a separate, later evaluation). An optional one-line "pairs with persona-X / the Y guide if you use them" see-also is allowed; nothing is load-bearing on it. People copy the one agent they need.

3. Two honesty tiers (ADR-0063 levels). Tier 1 — read-only: the tools allowlist excludes Edit/Write and a PreToolUse guard blocks write-ish Bash; this is toolable/partial — it narrows the surface, it does not guarantee behavior (the inherit-all default, a parent in bypassPermissions/acceptEdits/auto, fork mode, plugin-loaded subagents that ignore hooks, and bare-name-Bash-deny bypasses such as claude-code#25000 all defeat it). Tier 2 — bounded authoring: value is the baked-in discipline + isolation + the trace, explicitly not enforcement. Nothing in corpus-agents is labeled "enforced." A trace + scoping buys reviewability/attribution, not a behavioral guarantee.

4. Records, never an executor (ADR-0077/0088 spine). A catalog of definitions + a hook are records; they run nothing. The only sanctioned launcher stays corpus run --agent, which never becomes the agent. corpus-agents is not an orchestrator/runtime; the absence of orchestration stays observable. The README must not present it as a runtime.

5. Producer-2 home moves to corpus-agents. The delegation hook (ADR-0088 producer 2) relocates from corpus-starter-kit/advanced/ to corpus-agents; the kit redirects to it; the corpus-reviewer probe is promoted (single source — removed from the kit). This supersedes the producer-2 destination in ADR-0088's Propagation line; ADR-0088's body is left intact (it remains the contract of record).

6. Convention-first; founding conditioned on measurement. No checks.yaml change (ADR-0088 D5 holds). The override carries a measurement wave running [FINDING-delegation-provenance-measurement]'s protocol (enforcement-vs-prose, trace utility, non-redundancy) on the shipped agents; a role that shows no value is trimmed. That wave is the honest condition on "found now, measure later."

Alternatives considered

Alternative	Why weaker
Keep the probe + hook in the kit's advanced/	Diverges from the family pattern (every other capability is its own member); leaves corpus-agents permanently "experimental" with no home for the broader catalog.
A portable cross-runner format now	No shared schema exists (field sets diverge; enforcement/provenance don't travel) — [SURVEY-corpus-agents-shipping] F5. Claude-Code-first + later mapping docs is the honest scope.
Wait for measured value before founding	The measure-first gate; the owner chose to ship on ecosystem readiness + product judgment, conditioned on the post-ship measurement wave. Recorded as an override, not a met gate.
Make agents projections of the personas	The personas' own quality is unaudited; coupling corpus-agents to them imports that risk. Self-contained, canon-grounded agents stand alone (Decision 2).

Consequences

Accepted: corpus-agents is a founded, Claude-Code-first family member of self-contained useful worker definitions, honestly scoped (toolable/partial for read-only; discipline+isolation+trace for authoring; nothing "enforced"), honoring ADR-0077 D8 (a record, never a verdict) and ADR-0063 (levels). The producer-2 hook + the corpus-reviewer probe move there; the kit redirects. The founding is an explicit override of an unmet measure-first gate, conditioned on a measurement wave that can trim the catalog. ADR-0088 remains the contract of record; only its producer-2 destination is superseded here.

Propagation

corpus/docs/adrs/README.md (the index row) · corpus-starter-kit/advanced/README.md (redirect to corpus-agents; remove the promoted probe) · ../corpus-agents/ (the new member: agents, hooks, docs) · corpus/CLAUDE.md + ../corpus-works/CLAUDE.md (governed-repos list) · ../corpus-works/status.md (board) · the corpus-works workspace cuts/reviews the build waves ([specs/corpus-agents/spec.md]). No checks.yaml change (convention-first).