---
name: consumer-verifies-core-decides
description: An adapter author (perri) may verify published doc surfaces and file evidence-backed bug reports — they never gate an spt-core merge or drive core design
metadata: 
  node_type: memory
  type: feedback
  originSessionId: 650aa13f-e98d-4c25-995f-c75873b0b298
  modified: 2026-07-20T08:08:57.746Z
---

BINDING (operator correction 2026-07-20). perri builds the `claude-spt` ADAPTER. Their legitimate inputs to spt-core: (a) blind/audit reads of **published doc surfaces** they must build against, (b) bug reports carrying evidence (a field trace is evidence, not authority).

**What is NOT theirs:** gating when an spt-core PR merges, deciding core design, or reaching into core source. doyle set the W4b merge condition as "a round comes back with no findings", which handed an adapter author the merge gate and ran eight review rounds while W5's gate and the release waited. **Merge gates belong to the gater.** A consumer round is INPUT to the gater's read, never a verdict.

**How to apply:** cap consumer review rounds per wave and own the exit criterion; convert any finding that implies product work into a SEED the gater rules on; require explicit gater sign-off for any consumer-sourced change to core SOURCE (a doc-string fix still counts); when a page is better than what it replaced, ship it and file the residue as doc-debt — "not yet perfect" is not a release blocker.

**Open flag for the operator:** `REQ-DIGEST-JSON-SELF-CONTAINED` pins the JSON field name `version` *because perri's adapter parses it* — a consumer pinning core's wire shape, adapter-boundary-adjacent, dating to the 2026-07-19 triage. Not unpinned; awaiting an operator ruling. Related: [[adapter-glue-model-boundary]], [[spt-core-harness-boundary-and-grounding]], [[dont-solo-across-role-lines]], [[blind-consumer-read-beats-author-checklist]].