instructions: CONTRACT.md drops other files' step counts from copy-in-checklist rationale (#130)

Files changed:
- CHANGES.md
- VERSION
- instructions/CONTRACT.md

CHANGES.md

@@ -59,7 +59,7 @@ concern - readable here, never shipped as something to parse.
 
 ---
 
-## 7.0.0-beta.15 - 2026-09-22 - Weekly review proposes task new/task close; tracker gains a closing write path
+## 7.0.0-beta.16 - 2026-09-22 - instructions/CONTRACT.md drops other files' step counts from the copy-in-checklist rationale
 
 **Author:** Torben Nehmer
 
@@ -90,6 +90,7 @@ concern - readable here, never shipped as something to parse.
 - Skill-Namensfamilien: weekly-review -> gtd-weekly-review, dritte Person in allen Descriptions
 - Veraltete Skill-Aufzaehlungen in der Instruction-Schicht nachgezogen
 - gtd-weekly-review: task new nachgezogen, veralteter Begründungszeiger korrigiert
+- instructions/CONTRACT.md drops other files' step counts from the copy-in-checklist rationale
 <!-- /wikitool:bumps -->
 
 ### Typ `project` und Collection `kb/gtd/`: das Vorhaben als eigene Seitenart
@@ -469,6 +470,27 @@ stand, sind auf eine zusammengezogen; die zweite verweist nur noch.
 korrekt (zwei Lese-, drei Schreibkommandos) und haelt fest, warum sie bei "anlegen" und "erledigt
 markieren" endet, nie bei "loeschen" oder "aendern".
 
+### instructions/CONTRACT.md drops other files' step counts from the copy-in-checklist rationale
+
+`instructions/CONTRACT.md` § "When a skill carries a copy-in checklist" used to justify the
+threshold by citing each other skill's step count by number - evidence that the two-halves test
+(length *and* a silently-omittable step) is what actually decides `wiki-ingest`/`wiki-lint`, not a
+count fitted after the fact. Nothing kept those numbers in sync with the `SKILL.md` files they
+described: one of them had already drifted silently (`wiki-query` cited at six steps where it had
+been seven for a while), and the passage itself named only five of the eight skills that exist -
+neither wrong number failed any check, because `docs verify` reads presence, not another file's
+prose (`instructions/dev/doc-pull-through.md`).
+
+Of the three fixes considered - a `docs verify` check against a codified step-counting convention,
+a qualitative rewrite that drops the numbers, or tracking the sync as a manual `doc-pull-through.md`
+duty - the qualitative rewrite won: it is the only one of the three that removes the possibility of
+drift rather than catching or documenting it, and the per-skill counts were decoration for the
+two-halves test, never load-bearing for it. The passage now names which skills qualify and why,
+without citing a number that belongs to a file it does not own. Today's counts were checked against
+the actual files before this bump (`wiki-ingest` twelve, `wiki-lint` nine, `wiki-manage` two flows
+of seven, `wiki-query` seven, `wiki-status` five, `gtd-weekly-review` five, `stack-dev` six,
+`stack-close` four) - all correct, confirming the passage was not itself wrong, only unguarded.
+
 ---
 
 ## 6.2.0 - 2026-09-19 - Entity-Subtyp project nach codebase umbenannt

VERSION

@@ -1 +1 @@
-7.0.0-beta.15
+7.0.0-beta.16

instructions/CONTRACT.md

@@ -330,15 +330,27 @@ required. Length alone is not the problem: a long flow of tool calls announces i
 because the next call fails without the previous one.
 
 Two skills qualify today, and the block names each of their numbered steps once, verbatim:
-`wiki-ingest` (twelve steps, of which `## Not Extracted` in step 6, the coverage check in step 10
+`wiki-ingest`, whose flow is long *and* carries steps that fail silently - `## Not Extracted`,
-and the lint cadence in step 12 all fail quietly) and `wiki-lint` (nine, with steps 3-6 pure
+the coverage check, and the lint cadence all skip past with no tool error and no validator to
-judgment). The rest do not, and the reason is worth stating so nobody adds one out of symmetry:
+catch the omission - and `wiki-lint`, whose flow contains several steps that are pure judgment
-`wiki-manage` has two flows of seven, `wiki-query` seven, `wiki-status` five and
+calls the same way. The rest do not, and the reason is worth stating so nobody adds one out of
-`gtd-weekly-review` five - none of them long enough for a reader to lose the thread.
+symmetry: every other skill's flow is short enough, and fails loudly enough step to step, that a
+reader cannot lose the thread even without a checklist - `wiki-manage`'s two flows, `wiki-query`,
+`wiki-status` and `gtd-weekly-review` all clear that bar.
 <!-- dist:strip-start -->
-Dev-instance-only: `stack-dev` (six) and `stack-close` (four) sit under the same threshold.
+Dev-instance-only: `stack-dev` and `stack-close` sit under the same threshold, for the same
+reason.
 <!-- dist:strip-end -->
 
+None of this is counted by number on purpose: a per-skill step count is a claim about a file this
+one does not own, and a claim like that can drift silently the moment the other file changes.
+This passage once cited `wiki-query` at six steps where it had already been seven for a while, and
+separately named only five of the eight skills that exist - neither wrong number made any check go
+red, because nothing here reads another file's prose. The two-halves test above (length *and* a
+silently-omittable step) is what actually does the work of picking `wiki-ingest` and `wiki-lint`
+out from the rest; a count was never load-bearing for that test, only decoration for it, and
+dropping it removes the one part of this passage that could be wrong without anyone noticing.
+
 The block says that it is to be copied and carried, not read. A checklist read once is the table
 of contents it replaced.