Ultragoal — the closed loop for goals too big to ship in one run

An ultragoal is the term for a north-star that spans many sessions: fork the repos, combine the strong parts, ship one product. A /closed-loop run is one task through the loop. An ultragoal is a chain of phases, each of which is its own full closed-loop run, tracked so any cold session can resume.

Core rule (from dwarves-kit, adopted fully): the worker never grades its own homework, and wrongness compounds across sessions — so verify every phase, not just the end.

When to use

• /ultragoal <name> — resume or advance an existing ultragoal
• /ultragoal new "<north-star>" — charter a new one
• /ultragoal status — report all ultragoals from the registry
• Trigger phrases: "make this an ultragoal", "this is a long-running goal", "combine these into one product over time"

Do not use for single-run work (that is /closed-loop), and do not start one on a request that never asked for one. Rule of thumb: if it needs a phase decomposition and won't finish today, it is an ultragoal.

Files (one goal = one folder)

File	Role
04-projects/harness/ultragoals.md	Registry: every ultragoal, status, current phase
04-projects/<goal>/spec.md	Contract: north-star + AC-n acceptance criteria + phases P0…Pn + traceability matrix
04-projects/<goal>/STATUS.md	Living ledger: phase state, current phase, open AC-n, next action (resume from here)
04-projects/<goal>/evidence/P<n>/	Per-phase evidence bundle (ledger.md + CP-* files)

Code, if any, lives outside the vault (e.g. ~/code/<goal>/) — the spec/status/evidence stay in the vault.

Phase 0 — Charter (/ultragoal new)

1. Interview the user for the north-star in one sentence (what "done" looks like).
2. Write 04-projects/<goal>/spec.md from ../closed-loop/references/spec-template.md:
   • North-star statement
   • Falsifiable AC-n acceptance criteria (these define done for the whole goal)
   • Phase decomposition P0…Pn — each phase is a shippable increment mapped to a subset of AC-n
   • Traceability matrix (AC-n ↔ phase ↔ status)
3. Create STATUS.md (see template below) and add a row to the registry.

Record: bash .claude/lib/checkpoint.sh record 04-projects/<goal>/evidence/P0 CP-1 PASS "N criteria, M phases"

The phase loop (every phase, no lane downgrade)

Each phase runs the full closed loop. Do not shortcut with tiny. Ultragoals are full lane by construction.

select next phase from STATUS.md
        │
        ▼
CP-2 PLAN     tasks for this phase ↔ AC-n   → evidence/P<n>/CP-2-plan.md
        │
        ▼
CP-3 BUILD    worker implements (traced to AC-n); returns paths only
        │
        ▼
CP-3v VERIFY  task-verifier (fresh context, read-only) → evidence rows per AC-n
        │       ├── FAIL:fixable → fix-agent (max 2) → re-verify
        │       └── FAIL:escalate → stop, escalate to the user
        ▼
CP-4 INTEGRATE  integration-verifier → does this phase wire correctly with prior phases?
        │        (always run for ultragoals — cross-phase regression is the main risk)
        ▼
CP-5 ACCEPT   observe the artifact (curl / screenshot / re-fetch), not the tool return
        │       EVIDENCE AC-n | CP-5 | PASS | <observation> | <artifact>
        ▼
CP-6 SHIP     external mutation? → Review Gate: you approve. Internal? → auto.
        │
        ▼
update STATUS.md (phase → done, advance current phase, log open AC-n)
        │
        ▼
CP-7 RETRO    /retro 04-projects/<goal>/evidence/P<n>  → harvest + STATUS

Merge every verifier's EVIDENCE rows into evidence/P<n>/ledger.md.

The two acceptance gates

1. Per-phase (CP-5): every AC-n this phase claims has a PASS row before the phase is marked done.
2. North-star (final): before the ultragoal is declared complete, spawn a fresh-context verifier whose only job is to check the spec matrix — every AC-n across all phases has ≥1 PASS evidence row. Any AC-n without one is a gap, not a ship. This is the ultragoal-level analogue of CP-5.

North-star acceptance:
  read spec.md matrix (all AC-n)
  read every evidence/P*/ledger.md
  for each AC-n: assert ≥1 PASS row exists, artifact re-observed
  any miss → list open AC-n, STATUS stays "in progress", do NOT declare done

The HTML report (regenerate at every phase gate + final)

Every ultragoal carries a single self-contained HTML report that covers everything: north-star, live status, all phases, the full AC-n traceability table with pass/open/fail, evidence rows per phase (with screenshots embedded as data: URIs), and the open-items / next-action block. It is the human-readable face of the evidence ledger.

• Template: ../closed-loop/references/report-template.html (theme-aware, rows-not-cards). Copy it, then fill every {{token}} and <!-- FILL --> / <!-- REPEAT --> block from spec.md + STATUS.md + evidence/P*/. You fill it by editing; do not build a parser.
• Deliverable path: 04-projects/<goal>/report.html. One file, overwritten each phase (it always reflects current truth).
• When: regenerate at each phase gate (CP-6) and again at final north-star acceptance. The final report must show every AC-n with a PASS row — if any pill is open, the goal is not done.
• Self-contained only: inline everything, embed screenshots as data: URIs, so it also works when published as an Artifact (external hosts are blocked). Before publishing as an Artifact, load the artifact-design skill.
• Surface it: SendUserFile 04-projects/<goal>/report.html (display: render) so the user can open it, or publish via Artifact for a shareable link.

STATUS.md template

# <Goal> — status ledger

North-star: <one sentence>
Spec: 04-projects/<goal>/spec.md · Registry: 04-projects/harness/ultragoals.md
Current phase: P<n> · Overall: <not-started|in-progress|blocked|done>

## Phases
| Phase | AC covered | State | Evidence | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| P0 | AC-1,AC-2 | done | evidence/P0/ | <one line> |
| P1 | AC-3 | in-progress | evidence/P1/ | <what's left> |

## Open AC-n (no PASS row yet)
- AC-3 — <why still open>

## Next action (resume cold from here)
<the single next concrete step + any user-gated decision waiting>

Resuming cold (most common entry)

/ultragoal <name> with no other context:

1. Read 04-projects/<goal>/STATUS.md → "Next action" and "Open AC-n".
2. Read the spec's phase for the current phase only (progressive disclosure).
3. Run the phase loop for the current phase.
4. Never re-do a phase already marked done unless integration verify caught a regression.

Rules

• Never downgrade the lane. Even a one-line phase inside an ultragoal runs CP-3v + CP-4. The point is compounding correctness.
• UI/UX phases verify visually. If a phase touches a UI/UX flow, capture rendered evidence with browser-harness (evidence_shot / FlowRecorder.save_gif / pixel_diff), read the image, fix any visual defect, and re-capture — do not accept a DOM check. Media lands in evidence/P<n>/ and feeds report.html. See CLAUDE.md → Visual Verification.
• Fresh-context verifiers. task-verifier, integration-verifier, north-star verifier get paths only — never paste worker output in (CLAUDE.md fresh-context isolation).
• Read-only verifiers. They cannot edit files or mutate external state.
• Gate all external. Any publish / deploy / push waits at CP-6 for the user (Review Gate = your approval).
• One STATUS.md is the source of truth for where the goal stands. Update it at the end of every phase or it drifts.
• Model routing per CLAUDE.md: Sonnet workers build/collect/verify; Opus lead reasons, decomposes, synthesizes.

Escalation template

ULTRAGOAL ESCALATED — <goal> / P<n>
Last CP: <CP-id> | Open AC: <list without PASS rows>
Evidence: 04-projects/<goal>/evidence/P<n>/
Decision needed: <one question>

Registered ultragoals

Live list: 04-projects/harness/ultragoals.md. Each ultragoal gets its own 04-projects/<goal>/ folder holding spec.md, STATUS.md, evidence/, and report.html.