§1 The problem

Every defense traces to a failure mode

ADLC has one design rule: if a gate can't name the model failure mode it defends against, it gets cut. Here is the full map.

Failure mode

How it shows up

Defended by

F1
Premature satisfaction
Declares victory the moment code plausibly compiles.
spec-lintat P1
F2
Sycophancy
Agrees with whatever framing the prompt implies.
prosecuteat P5
F3
Context rot
Loses the plot as the session grows.
coldstartat P2
F4
Confident hallucination
Invents APIs, files, and facts with total certainty.
premortemat P1
F5
Reward hacking
Games the check instead of doing the work.
hollow-testat P3
F6
Finding-count prior
Stops at the usual dozen findings, whether or not more exist.
review-calibrationat P5
F7
Generative bloat
Writes ten files where a diff would do.
lesson-foundryat P7
F8
Coherence loss
Switches models mid-task and leaves the seams showing.
model-routerat P4

EXHIBIT 1.1Do the tests detect behavior changes?

adlc hollow-testEXIT 2 — REFUSED

$ adlc hollow-test --test-cmd "npm test" --base main
✗ FAIL: one changed-code mutant survived

The command and exit code are real; the verdict line is this record's one-line summary of the result, not a verbatim transcript.

§2 Implement

Run it against your own repository

$curl -fsSL https://www.agenticlifecycle.ai/install.sh | sh

macOS and Linux, Node 18+. Then adlc init in your repository. Windows is not supported. Every install channel →