Ce Ideate

# Post-Ideation Workflow

Read this file after Phase 2 ideation agents return and the orchestrator has merged and deduped their outputs into a master candidate list. Do not load before Phase 2 completes.

## Phase 3: Adversarial Filtering

Review every candidate idea critically. The orchestrator performs this filtering directly -- do not dispatch sub-agents for critique.

Do not generate replacement ideas in this phase unless explicitly refining.

For each rejected idea, write a one-line reason.

Rejection criteria:
- too vague
- not actionable
- duplicates a stronger idea
- not grounded in the stated context
- too expensive relative to likely value
- already covered by existing workflows or docs
- interesting but better handled as a brainstorm variant, not a product improvement
- **unjustified — no articulated basis** (sub-agent failed to provide `direct:`, `external:`, or `reasoned:` justification, or the stated basis does not actually support the claimed move)
- **below ambition floor** (fails the meeting-test: would not warrant team discussion — except when Phase 0.5 detected tactical focus signals, in which case this criterion is waived)
- **subject-replacement** (abandons or replaces the subject of ideation rather than operating on it — e.g., "pivot to an unrelated domain," "become a different organization")
- **scope overrun** (expands beyond the asked scope rather than ideating within it — e.g., proposes changes to the whole product when the user asked about one flow, stage, or section). Allowed only when the basis explicitly justifies the expansion; default is reject or downgrade.

Score survivors using a consistent rubric weighing: groundedness in stated context, **basis strength** (`direct:` > `external:` > `reasoned:`; none excluded, but direct-evidence ideas score higher all else equal), expected value, novelty, pragmatism, leverage on future work, implementation burden, overlap with stronger ideas, and **axis spread** (when Phase 1.5 produced an axis list) — survivor sets that cover the topic's surface outscore sets that cluster on one axis, all else equal.

**Axis coverage as a list-level concern.** When axes were defined, axis spread is evaluated across the survivor set, not per-idea. After per-idea filtering, check the survivor set: if axis coverage is uneven and stronger candidates exist on under-represented axes, prefer the spread when promoting borderline candidates. Phase 2's recovery dispatch should already have surfaced candidates for empty axes; this is a polish step on the survivor selection. If an axis ends up with zero survivors despite recovery (or because recovery hit the 2-axis cap), note it in the rejection summary as a deliberate gap rather than an oversight.

Target output:
- keep 5-7 survivors by default
- if too many survive, run a second stricter pass
- if fewer than 5 survive, report that honestly rather than lowering the bar

## Phase 4: Present the Survivors

**Checkpoint B (V17).** Before presenting, write `<scratch-dir>/survivors.md` (using the absolute path captured in Phase 1) containing the survivor list plus key context (focus hint, grounding summary, rejection summary). This protects the post-critique state before the user reaches the persistence menu. Best-effort: if the write fails (disk full, permissions), log a warning and proceed; the checkpoint is not load-bearing. Reuses the same `<run-id>` and `<scratch-dir>` generated in Phase 1; not cleaned up at the end of the run (the run directory is preserved so the V15 cache remains reusable across run-ids in the same session — see Phase 6).

Present the surviving ideas to the user. The terminal review loop is a complete ideation cycle in itself — persistence is opt-in (Phase 5), and refinement happens in conversation with no file or network cost (Phase 6).

Present only the surviving ideas in structured form:

- title
- description
- **axis** (when Phase 1.5 produced an axis list)
- **basis** (tagged `direct:` / `external:` / `reaso