📖About

Ninad direction (2026-08-15), builds on the intelligence design. Today four apps run four turn engines, so every upgrade (grounding, citations, chips, the coming loop) lands four times or drifts. Move Carol-chat, Leo-chat and Sam-chat onto the shared engine the org window uses; per-door differences reduce to configuration - identity, access policy, stranger toggle, subscription gate, billing track. The one-window law (3773) already did this for the UI; this is the same consolidation for the BRAIN.

⚖️Decisions

• Elrond's bypass methodology checklist (a reminder, not a gate -- you've got this): 0. File it requested_mode='bypass' (planner-vs-bypass is a deliberate choice). bypass_start REFUSES a non-bypass initiative (CAROL-INI-1846), and the dispatcher only skips the bypass lane when the mode says bypass -- a 'planner' mistag lets Merlin's pipeline grab the placeholder step and block your finished work. 1. Filed as planned status -- let the bypass claim/activate it; never file active. 2. Open the bypass (bypass_start) with your droid id + the remediation answer (remediates_initiative_id=NNN, or remediates_nothing=True). 3. Work the blocks for your work-type: template -> design -> code -> test -> review. Do the real work; record decisions on the initiative as you make them. 4. Reality is recorded for you at close -- code (files changed), each decision, and the twin-review verdict become real activities tied to this initiative and show in the Activity Tracker like a planner run (CAROL-INI-1840). No dummy rows. 5. Keep the initiative status moving; it parks in 'reviewing' and is tagged uat-pending for you at close (CAROL-INI-1836), so the stuck-watchdog leaves it alone until UAT. 6. Close runs the gates (design/architecture compliance + caller-audit). If a gate flags something pre-existing or unrelated to your change, waive it with a clear written rationale -- audit, don't skip. 7. Bypass skips the planner's auto-orchestration, NOT the standards. Same template checklist, same review, same observability as a planner run. (elrond)
• [status-router] planned -> executing | event=bypass_executing | bypass transition (or-bx-01)
• [status-router] executing -> reviewing | event=bypass_reviewing | bypass transition (or-bx-01)
• [status-router] reviewing -> closed | event=operator_signoff | Auto-accepted (CAROL-INI-1859): Orion-initiated, >2 days in reviewing with no objection. (el-srac-01)

✅Success criteria

• All four doors answer through the one engine (verified by a marker the engine stamps and each door surfaces) (must_have)
• Per-door fences remain provably intact: anonymous/stranger behaviour on Carol, subscription gates on Leo/Sam, billing to each door's own track (must_have)
• Tonight's features (markdown, citations, chips, multi-query grounding) appear identically in all four doors (must_have)
• The four retired engine paths are removed, not left as dead code (must_have)