Scope freeze

Skill tmusser/ai-engineering-skills/skills/scope-freeze

Portable AI-engineering skills for Claude Code, Codex, and coding agents: bounded scope, mini-specs, vertical slices, verification, ship gates, and handoff.

Install

npx -y skills add tmusser/ai-engineering-skills --skill scope-freeze

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One thing to look at

3 stars3 stars. Stars are a popularity signal and not a quality one, but at this level it is likely that nobody has read this closely except its author, and you would be relying on your own review.

What its author says it does

Copied from the file, not written here

Explicitly limit blast radius before any implementation or file changes.

SKILL.md

1.8 KB, as published. Nobody here has run it

Scope Freeze

Purpose

Prevent uncontrolled changes by defining a narrow, enforceable boundary. This freezes write scope, not discovery.

When to use

Immediately before editing files or running state-changing commands.

Inputs

SPEC.md / PLAN.md / TODO.md
Selected task
Current repo state

Workflow

Name the exact task.
List allowed files/folders.
List read-only files/folders.
List forbidden operations.
Set max files/lines changed (if helpful).
List allowed commands.
List compatibility seams and test-integrity triggers before editing.
Define clear stop condition.
Note that reads/searches are allowed unless explicitly forbidden.

Outputs

Canonical output block:

SCOPE FREEZE
Task: ...
Allowed writes: ...
Read-only: ...
Forbidden: ...

Compatibility seams to preserve:
- Public imports / APIs: ...
- CLI behavior: ...
- Output schema: ...
- Fixture/data meaning: ...
- Existing tests that must remain meaningful: ...

Test integrity:
- Existing tests may be added to: yes/no
- Existing tests may be changed only if: ...

Review required if:
- tests changed
- dependencies changed
- protected paths touched
- compatibility seams changed

Allowed commands: ...
Stop when: ...
Invalid if: ...

Success looks like

The canonical block above.

Stop conditions

Scope is narrow enough for safe implementation.
Task requires changes outside boundary → pause and renegotiate.

Anti-patterns

Roaming the entire repo for a small fix.
Expanding scope because "nearby code looked easy."
Running write commands before boundary is agreed.
Forbidding necessary discovery reads.