# Significance test: fire the full review, or skip it

`$rite-temper` is **significance-gated**: full strategic rigor only when the work is big
enough to earn it, a one-line skip otherwise. This is the shared definition used by both the
optional `$rite-temper` path and the always-run (significance-gated) `$rite-autocomplete` step,
so they agree on when it fires.

## Fire the FULL review when ANY trips
- **Irreversible-risk contact:** the slice/spec touches anything on the [`afk-hitl.md`](../../devrites-lib/reference/standards/afk-hitl.md)
  irreversible-risk list: destructive data migration, auth/authz boundary, public-API break,
  external-service contract, filesystem destruction outside the workspace.
- **Data model:** new/changed entities, relationships, or persistence shape.
- **Cross-module blast radius:** the impact (from a code-intelligence index if available (see
  `../../devrites-lib/reference/standards/tooling.md`) or an honest estimate) crosses
  module/service boundaries or has many dependents.
- **Greenfield / ambiguous scope:** a new surface with no existing seam to follow, or a spec
  whose "right size" is genuinely open (multiple defensible scopes).
- **Multi-slice / multi-day:** the work decomposes into several slices (large enough that a
  wrong scope call is expensive to unwind).
- **The user asked:** "think bigger", "is this ambitious enough", "scope check", "pre-mortem",
  an explicit `$rite-temper` invocation, or a chosen `--mode`. An explicit ask always fires.

## Skip (low stakes) when ALL hold
- Single-module, reversible, behavior-shaped-not-structural change.
- No irreversible-risk contact; blast radius contained to the touched files.
- Scope is unambiguous: there's one obvious right size and the spec already has it.

On skip, **don't run the passes**. Write only the one-line verdict to `strategy.md`:

```markdown
# Strategy: <slug>
Tempered: <iso>

## 1. Significance
skipped — low stakes (<trigger>)
Next: $rite-define
```

Then recommend `$rite-define`. A skip is a *recorded* decision, not a silent omission: the
seal can see the call was made deliberately.

## In `$rite-autocomplete`
Autocomplete runs the significance test every feature. On skip → straight to `$rite-define`
(no pause). On fire → run the full review and auto-apply the recommended mode, including
`expand` and extra acceptance (record the ADR; fold via Spec Drift Guard).
Irreversible-risk findings always pause.