= Cutdown Change Gate == Purpose Protect the Cutdown boundary: - Cutdown owns grammar, parser behavior, and AST shape. - Cuttie owns runtime behavior, workflow, UI, collaboration, publishing, and permissions. If a proposal does not prove language relevance, it is out of scope for Cutdown. == Layer Test (Must Pass) Classify every proposal before implementation: - If it changes syntax, parse rules, precedence, normalization, or AST nodes/fields -> Cutdown layer. - If it changes rendering behavior, workflow, collaboration, permissions, branching, publishing orchestration, or UI -> Cuttie layer. - If uncertain, default to Cuttie layer until language impact is proven. == Mandatory Proposal Payload Every Cutdown proposal MUST include all of the following: 1. Grammar impact - Exact syntax addition/change. - Ambiguity analysis. - Interaction with precedence and whitespace rules. 2. AST diff - New/changed node types or fields. - Backward-compatibility impact. 3. Consumer fallback - How existing consumers behave if they ignore new data. - Migration path and compatibility mode expectations. 4. Ambiguity coverage - Add conformance fixtures (``tests/``) for every inline token change. - Include canonical conflict, escape, malformed, and neighboring-precedence cases. 5. Version impact classification - Declare intended version bump (``patch``, ``minor``, or ``major``) per ``./versioning-policy.md``. - Justify why the proposal fits that bump level. 6. Conformance payload - Add/updated conformance test vectors for happy path, malformed input, escape behavior, and precedence-neighbor interaction. - Confirm spec text and tests are aligned per ``./conformance-policy.md``. 7. Profile behavior declaration - State whether behavior requires a specific parser profile configuration per ``./parser-profile-policy.md``. 8. Diagnostics impact declaration - Declare whether new/changed diagnostic codes are introduced. - Define severity level and deterministic recovery behavior per ``./diagnostics-policy.md``. 9. Capability declaration - Declare required external capabilities (if any) per ``./capability-policy.md``. - Define denied-capability fallback and diagnostic behavior. 10. Serialization impact declaration - Declare any effect on canonical output ordering/normalization. - Update snapshots/rules per ``./canonical-serialization-policy.md``. 11. Compatibility fallback declaration - Define behavior when construct/profile/version support is missing. - Confirm deterministic fallback + diagnostic coverage per ``./compatibility-fallback-policy.md``. 12. Corpus evolution declaration - Classify conformance corpus changes as additive/fix/breaking. - Provide rationale and version-impact mapping per ``./conformance-corpus-governance.md``. 13. Profile source declaration - Confirm whether behavior depends on external profile configuration. - If document-embedded hints exist, define non-authoritative handling per ``./profile-source-policy.md``. 14. Compliance-level impact declaration - State whether the change affects Level 1/2/3 compliance definitions or evidence expectations. - Update claim requirements per ``./compliance-levels-policy.md``. 15. Evidence freshness impact declaration - State whether the change introduces a new revalidation trigger. - Confirm version-triggered evidence rules per ``./compliance-evidence-freshness-policy.md``. 16. Compliance failure-response impact declaration - State whether the change affects downgrade/restoration obligations. - Align failure handling requirements per ``./compliance-failure-response-policy.md``. 17. Diagnostic code registry impact declaration - State whether new/deprecated/removed diagnostic codes are introduced. - Update central code lifecycle records per ``./diagnostic-code-registry-policy.md``. 18. Publication lifecycle declaration - Assign change lifecycle state (``Draft``/``Accepted``/``Effective``) and target version. - Include effective date and migration publication plan per ``./change-publication-policy.md``. 19. Cross-implementation validation declaration - Confirm required reference-parser validation status. - Record optional non-reference implementation results per ``./cross-implementation-validation-policy.md``. 20. Reference-parser alignment declaration - State whether change introduces temporary reference-parser divergence. - If divergent, publish non-conformance disclosure and remediation plan per ``./reference-parser-status-policy.md``. 21. Governance-review impact declaration - State whether policy amendment needs scheduled-cycle routing or emergency path routing. - Define follow-up review obligations per ``./governance-review-policy.md``. Proposals missing any section are rejected as incomplete. == Cross-Layer Change Policy If a proposal touches both language and app layers: - Two-track approval is required: - Language owner sign-off. - App/workflow owner sign-off. - One track cannot override the other. Final language-layer disputes are resolved per ``./decision-authority-policy.md``. == Tie-Break Rule If the two tracks disagree: - No language change is merged. - Ship an app/runtime workaround first. - Re-open language change only after workaround evidence shows syntax is necessary. == Out-of-Scope Defaults (for Cutdown) The following are out of scope unless direct grammar/AST impact is proven: - Permissions and access control - Branching model and merge workflow - Comments/review workflow - Render theming and export orchestration - App-side AI behavior and agent policies == Related - [``./versioning-policy.md``](/latest/policies/versioning-policy) - [``./conformance-policy.md``](/latest/policies/conformance-policy) - [``./parser-profile-policy.md``](/latest/policies/parser-profile-policy) - [``./diagnostics-policy.md``](/latest/policies/diagnostics-policy) - [``./capability-policy.md``](/latest/policies/capability-policy) - [``./canonical-serialization-policy.md``](/latest/policies/canonical-serialization-policy) - [``./compatibility-fallback-policy.md``](/latest/policies/compatibility-fallback-policy) - [``./conformance-corpus-governance.md``](/latest/policies/conformance-corpus-governance) - [``./decision-authority-policy.md``](/latest/policies/decision-authority-policy) - [``./profile-source-policy.md``](/latest/policies/profile-source-policy) - [``./compliance-levels-policy.md``](/latest/policies/compliance-levels-policy) - [``./compliance-evidence-freshness-policy.md``](/latest/policies/compliance-evidence-freshness-policy) - [``./compliance-failure-response-policy.md``](/latest/policies/compliance-failure-response-policy) - [``./diagnostic-code-registry-policy.md``](/latest/policies/diagnostic-code-registry-policy) - [``./change-publication-policy.md``](/latest/policies/change-publication-policy) - [``./cross-implementation-validation-policy.md``](/latest/policies/cross-implementation-validation-policy) - [``./reference-parser-status-policy.md``](/latest/policies/reference-parser-status-policy) - [``./governance-review-policy.md``](/latest/policies/governance-review-policy)