Drift Check

Drift Check

Check whether the project is still moving toward the North Star, whether the CodeRail Coordinate still holds, and whether the trace graph has gaps.

Read

• docs/NORTH_STAR.md
• docs/TASKS.md
• docs/HANDOFF.md
• docs/DECISIONS.md
• docs/ASSETS.md
• docs/TRACELOG.jsonl / docs/TRACE_INDEX.md
• git status
• recent diff or commits when available

Coordinate Drift checks

1. Do recent tasks share, or cleanly switch, their G field?
2. Is there a task whose T changed but whose G did not (suspicious)?
3. Is there a task whose S was expanded but whose X was not revisited?
4. Is there a task whose V passed but whose P was not updated?
5. Does HANDOFF.md's current task disagree with TASKS.md's T?
6. Are there trace change events with no G/T link?

North-Star checks

1. Do recent tasks map to Outcome, Current Bet, Invariants, or Current Slice?
2. Does HANDOFF.md mention a new direction not in NORTH_STAR.md?
3. Does TASKS.md contain orphan tasks with no G mapping?
4. Did code introduce capability, public API, schema, dependency, or state not recorded in docs?
5. Did DECISIONS.md change the Current Bet without updating NORTH_STAR.md?
6. Does the harness still verify the actual Outcome?

Trace Graph checks

1. Are there recent tasks that cannot map to a North Star?
2. Are there orphan change events (no task/north_star/file)?
3. Are there done tasks missing a verify trace event?
4. Does git diff include product assumptions not registered anywhere?
5. Does TRACELOG.jsonl have orphan changes?
6. Is TRACE_INDEX.md stale relative to TRACELOG.jsonl?

Asset checks

1. Are raw materials or working notes being treated as permanent assets?
2. Is HANDOFF.md too long or acting as a log?

Optional script

python3 scripts/drift_check.py --target .

Output

## Drift Check Report

Overall status: aligned | minor drift | major drift | blocked

North-Star mismatches:
- 

Coordinate drift:
- 

Trace Graph gaps:
- 

Task/document mismatches:
- 

Code/document mismatches:
- 

Asset-boundary issues:
- 

Handoff/context issues:
- 

Required fixes before more coding:
- 

Safe next task:
- 

Do not write code as part of drift-check unless the user explicitly asks to repair the docs after the report. Run /link to close trace gaps instead.

Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: HaipingShi
• Source: HaipingShi/coderail
• License: MIT
• Homepage: https://github.com/HaipingShi/coderail

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.