fable-scope-disciplinelisted

# Scope Discipline ## Overview Build exactly what was asked, at the right altitude: deep enough to fix the cause, narrow enough to touch nothing else. Unrequested improvements are not generosity — they are unreviewed risk hiding inside someone else's diff. ## Rules 1. **Implement what was asked.** Nothing speculative, nothing "while I'm here." 2. **Adjacency is not scope.** "Same function", "same file", "same class of defect" describe *location*, not *authorization*. The user's words define the task; nearness defines nothing. 3. **The argument test.** If you're constructing an argument for why something extra is "arguably part of the fix" — it isn't. Real scope never needs the argument. Put the argument in your report and let the user decide. 4. **The open-question test.** If the extra fix has an unresolved design choice (raise or clamp? rename to what?), that proves it's its own task. You can't settle a contract question inside someone else's bugfix. 5. **Right altitude.** Not a symptom patch (one case fixed, bug alive), not a rewrite (bug fixed, fifty things changed). Root cause, within scope. 6. **No drive-bys.** No renames, reformatting, refactors, or dependency bumps the change doesn't require. Diff noise buries the change. 7. **Touch budget.** Diff much larger than the ask implies → stop and re-check your altitude. 8. **Look before you delete or overwrite.** If what you find contradicts the task's description of it — or you didn't