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STAGE 0.5.3

Released: 2026-07-22

STAGE 0.5.3 is a visual-ownership follow-through release. It keeps the 0.5 Practitioner Kernel, artifact schemas, and human authority model unchanged.

Why This Patch Exists​

STAGE 0.5.2 removed the detached visual pipeline and optional gallery recipes, but several active conclusions still described a gallery as the preferred replacement. The normative specification also named a gallery among STAGE-specific artifacts. That residual language could route a future agent back toward the same parallel product under a different name.

The corrected boundary is simpler: inspect bounded visual questions through the smallest real engine or game route containing the production consumer. A codex, gallery, bestiary, model viewer, world previewer, or inspect mode is ordinary project work only when its own player, author, or recurring developer needs it.

Changes​

  • Correct the Circussy visual-workflow trial so its retained Enemy Arrival sequence is historical evidence, not a reusable evidence-bundle template.
  • Remove retired visual-workflow labels and prescribed gallery language from current synthesis, research, and failure guidance while preserving historical ADRs and trials.
  • Remove gallery ownership from the method's earned-infrastructure model and point current guidance to ADR 0038.
  • Clarify normatively that a custom STAGE review layer is optional earned infrastructure, while persistent game or editor UI is ordinary project work.
  • Refresh the human and machine STAGE maps with the physical plugin path, current release operation, and narrower visual-evidence claims.
  • Add regression checks that prevent line wrapping or map drift from silently reintroducing the retired ownership model.

Practitioner Impact​

Ordinary visible changes still use stage-deliver-change. Use stage-visual-review explicitly only for one bounded diagnosis that benefits from the deeper native inspection procedure. It leaves the real editor or game view ready for human judgment and does not produce a review package.

If repeated work reveals a useful in-game codex, bestiary, gallery, model viewer, world previewer, or editor inspect mode, deliver that feature for its actual user through the ordinary backlog. It may incidentally help only those review claims whose production consumer and material context it contains.

Compatibility​

The plugin package version is 0.5.3; SPEC.md is method version 0.5. Project-map and case-study artifact versions 0.1 and 0.3 remain supported. No game-project artifact migration is required.

The specification edits clarify ownership inside the existing 0.5 contract. They remove a contradictory example rather than adding a new required capability or changing adopted artifact structure.

Verification​

The release is checked through:

  • the complete STAGE release gate;
  • direct Codex plugin and all skill-package validators;
  • repository-local Markdown-link and project-map validation;
  • package-boundary and release-metadata tests; and
  • a fresh local plugin installation reporting version 0.5.3.

Limitations​

This correction remains based on same-owner dogfood and explicit owner rejection of the detached workflow. It does not prove that galleries, visual regression systems, screenshots, or remote review systems are generally ineffective. It limits STAGE's ownership claim and requires each persistent surface to justify itself through its actual project or external consumer.

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