downstream-impact

# Downstream Impact The question behind every invocation: **if this ships, what does a hermit running on someone else's box do differently, and what does the person chatting with it notice?** Not the diff, not the architecture. The reader is the maintainer deciding whether a change is worth shipping, how to word the changelog, or how to explain it to an operator on Discord. Read-only. Never edits, commits, or releases. ## Usage - `/downstream-impact` — the change under discussion in this conversation; otherwise `git diff main...HEAD` plus the working tree; on a clean `main`, every plugin's `[Unreleased]` section. - `/downstream-impact <PR number>` — `gh pr diff <N>` and the PR body. - `/downstream-impact <branch>` — that branch against `main`. - `/downstream-impact <plan file>` — the plan's steps, before anything is built. - `/downstream-impact "<described change>"` — a change that exists only as an idea; label every claim as assumed. ## Step 1 — Locate the touchpoints A change reaches downstream only through a few surfaces. Read only what the diff (or plan) touches and check each surface: - **Operator chat**: channel notices, push notifications, `AskUserQuestion` prompts, skill text that composes messages. Does the operator see new, fewer, or differently worded messages? Is there a new thing they can ask for? - **Hermit flow**: hooks, heartbeat, routines, watches, watchdog, session start/close. Does the hermit wake more, less, or for a different reason? Did a step mov...