Escalation routing

Escalation Routing

The Supervisor owns ACT-fleet curation. AlexMaster owns the framework. This skill draws the line.

When to Use

• Triaging an inbox item via feedback-triage and the route is unclear
• A pattern recurs across heirs and feels like it belongs in the framework, not the curation
• A heir requests something the Supervisor cannot grant alone

The Cardinal Test

Before any change, ask: Does AlexMaster do this?

If AlexMaster…	Then the change is…
Owns the artifact type (instruction, skill, prompt schema, ACT tenet)	Framework — escalate
Owns the policy (how releases work, what counts as a skill, the ACT pass)	Framework — escalate
Owns the brain spec (copilot-instructions.md, three-tier inheritance)	Framework — escalate
Just has a sibling artifact (a different skill, a different store)	Curation — handle in-house
Is downstream consumer (would adopt the change later)	Curation — handle in-house

In-Scope vs Escalation Matrix

Signal	Route
Proposal for a new ACT tenet	Escalate
Proposal for a new artifact type (e.g., "we need a pattern.md alongside skills")	Escalate
Proposal that changes the brain spec (frontmatter fields, inheritance tiers)	Escalate
Proposal that changes how the ACT pass works	Escalate
Cross-fleet pattern observed in 3+ unrelated heirs	Escalate (it's framework signal)
Domain skill (a new specialized capability)	In-house
New mall store	In-house (store-evaluation)
Edition skill bug fix	In-house (feedback-triage → Edition PR)
Mall entry refresh	In-house (mall-curation)
Coherence violation	In-house (coherence-audit)
Heir request for a curated pattern bundle	In-house
Disagreement about whether to handle in-house	Escalate (when in doubt, escalate — the cost of asking is low; the cost of overreach is high)

Escalation Procedure

1. Confirm the item meets at least one Escalate signal — and document which one
2. Run a full ACT pass (high stakes — this is a framework-level claim about scope)
3. Write the escalation as a feedback file at AI-Memory/feedback/<YYYY-MM-DD>-<short-slug>.md in the AlexMaster workspace (per pii-memory-filter: structured schema only, no domain data)
4. Required fields:
   • From: Alex_ACT_Supervisor
   • Date: YYYY-MM-DD
   • Category: tenet-proposal / spec-change / artifact-type / cross-fleet-pattern / scope-question
   • Severity: low / medium / high / critical
   • Signal count: how many independent observations support this (the multi-observation rule)
   • Description: structured, abstract — what / why / proposed action
5. Record the escalation in decisions/curation-log.md with route AlexMaster and M/S = S
6. Wait for AlexMaster to act — do not modify Edition or Mall in anticipation of the escalation outcome. Pre-emptive changes are scope creep.

Hard Rules

1. When in doubt, escalate — overreach is more expensive than asking
2. Never modify framework artifacts in Edition or Mall — they are inherited from AlexMaster; modifying them creates fleet drift
3. One escalation per concern — bundling unrelated items defeats the audit trail
4. Strip project context per cross-project-isolation before writing to AlexMaster's AI-Memory/feedback/
5. No silent escalations — every escalation is logged in curation-log.md

What "In-House" Means

If the item is in-house, it routes to one of the existing skills:

Item type	In-house skill
Skill submission or fix	skill-review
Generic feedback or bug	feedback-triage
New mall store	store-evaluation
Mall prune/refresh	staleness-discipline or mall-curation
Coherence violation	coherence-audit
Release coordination	release-ritual

Anti-Patterns

Anti-pattern	Correction
Modifying inherited artifacts "just this once"	Modifications must come through AlexMaster sync, never in heirs
Escalating every trivial question	Use the matrix; trivial items waste AlexMaster's bandwidth
Pre-emptive change while waiting for escalation outcome	Wait for the answer; the change you preempt may not be what AlexMaster decides
Bundling unrelated escalations	One concern, one escalation file
Forgetting to log the escalation	Curation log is the audit trail; missing entries break the 60-day re-evaluation

Output Template (escalation file)

# Escalation — <short title>

**From**: Alex_ACT_Supervisor
**Date**: YYYY-MM-DD
**Category**: tenet-proposal | spec-change | artifact-type | cross-fleet-pattern | scope-question
**Severity**: low | medium | high | critical
**Signal count**: N independent observations

## What

<2-3 sentence abstract>

## Why this is framework-level (not curation)

<cite which Escalate signal fired>

## Evidence

- <observation 1, abstracted per cross-project-isolation>
- <observation 2>
- ...

## Proposed Action (for AlexMaster)

<2-3 sentence proposal>

## Impact if Not Adopted

<what continues to drift, what cost accrues>

## ACT Pass Trail

<markers>

Related

• feedback-triage — primary entry point that may route here
• escalation-rules — always-on routing
• pii-memory-filter and cross-project-isolation guidance — content rules
• /escalate-to-master prompt