Political Economy Eval-Ready Implementation Plan

For agentic workers: REQUIRED SUB-SKILL: Use superpowers:subagent-driven-development (recommended) or superpowers:executing-plans to implement this plan task-by-task. Steps use checkbox (- [ ]) syntax for tracking.

Goal: Move political economy from a deferred candidate shell to eval_ready with a subject-owned fixture pack, manifest-backed signals, and gate coverage, while keeping it unavailable for default runtime activation.

Architecture: Reuse the existing runtime subject contract, manifest-backed subject router, and eval-ready gate. Political economy becomes measurable only when the evaluation runner passes evaluation_subjects=["political-economy"]; default runtime suggestions still require a later runtime_enabled promotion.

Tech Stack: Python 3, unittest, PyYAML runtime manifests, JSON subject router fixtures, Qiongli bridge modules, local subject router evaluation script.

---

File Map

• Modify: tests/test_subject_router_eval.py
  • Add a real political-economy eval-ready gate test.
  • Keep runtime-enabled blocked while the subject is only eval_ready.
  • Remove political economy from the deferred-shell blocker loop.
• Modify: content/subjects/political-economy/runtime-subject.yaml
  • Set activation_status: eval_ready.
  • Add subject-owned subject_skill.
  • Add method, data/outcome, venue, and theory/construct signal groups.
  • Add method lenses and a subject-specific evaluation_pack.
• Create: tests/fixtures/subject_router_eval/political-economy/*.json
  • Add clear positive, method-only borrow, confirmed-subject, mixed-adjacent, and near-miss fixtures.
• Modify: docs/superpowers/roadmaps/2026-07-01-adaptive-subject-runtime-roadmap.md
  • Record political economy as the current eval-ready Stage 4 subject.
  • Keep geoeconomics and economics-accounting as deferred candidates.

Execution Notes

• Do not promote political economy to runtime_enabled.
• Do not change finance, economics, accounting, or business routing behavior.
• Do not change provider configuration, local-agent execution, release automation, or plugin packaging.
• Group commits by content:
  • test(subject-router): cover political economy eval readiness
  • feat(subjects): mark political economy eval ready
  • docs(roadmap): record political economy eval readiness

Task 1: Add Political Economy Gate Tests

Files:

• Modify: tests/test_subject_router_eval.py

• [ ] Step 1: Write the failing eval-ready gate test

Add this test next to the existing accounting, business, and economics real fixture pack gate tests:

    def test_political_economy_eval_ready_gate_passes_real_fixture_pack(self) -> None:
        cases = load_eval_cases(FIXTURE_DIR)

        report = subject_gate_report("political-economy", cases, gate="eval-ready")

        self.assertEqual(report["subject"], "political-economy")
        self.assertEqual(report["activation_status"], "eval_ready")
        self.assertTrue(report["eligible_for_eval_ready"])
        self.assertFalse(report["eligible_for_runtime_enabled"])
        self.assertEqual(report["blocking_failures"], [])
        self.assertEqual(report["metrics"]["decision_accuracy"], 1.0)
        self.assertEqual(report["metrics"]["primary_subject_accuracy"], 1.0)
        self.assertEqual(report["metrics"]["suggest_subject_precision"], 1.0)
        self.assertEqual(report["metrics"]["forbidden_subject_accuracy"], 1.0)
        self.assertEqual(report["metrics"]["method_lens_accuracy"], 1.0)
        self.assertEqual(report["metrics"]["all_case_checks_passed"], 1.0)
        self.assertEqual(report["metrics"]["near_miss_false_positives"], 0)

• [ ] Step 2: Write the failing runtime guard test

Add this test near the business eval-ready/runtime blocking tests:

    def test_political_economy_runtime_enabled_gate_blocks_eval_ready_manifest(self) -> None:
        cases = load_eval_cases(FIXTURE_DIR)

        report = subject_gate_report(
            "political-economy",
            cases,
            gate="runtime-enabled",
        )

        self.assertEqual(report["activation_status"], "eval_ready")
        self.assertFalse(report["eligible_for_eval_ready"])
        self.assertFalse(report["eligible_for_runtime_enabled"])
        self.assertIn("activation_status is eval_ready", report["blocking_failures"])

• [ ] Step 3: Keep only true deferred shells in the candidate blocker test

Change the deferred_subjects tuple in test_candidate_subject_eval_ready_gate_reports_deferred_shell_reasons to:

        deferred_subjects = (
            "geoeconomics",
            "economics-accounting",
        )

• [ ] Step 4: Run the targeted RED check

Run:

.venv/bin/python -m unittest tests.test_subject_router_eval.SubjectRouterEvalTests.test_political_economy_eval_ready_gate_passes_real_fixture_pack -q

Expected before implementation:

FAIL: activation_status is candidate

Task 2: Add Political Economy Runtime Manifest Resources

Files:

• Modify: content/subjects/political-economy/runtime-subject.yaml

• [ ] Step 1: Promote only to eval-ready

Set:

activation_status: eval_ready
subject_skill: content/subjects/political-economy/skills/political-economy-mechanism-auditor.md
evaluation_pack: tests/fixtures/subject_router_eval/political-economy

• [ ] Step 2: Add method-only signals and lenses

Add method signals whose activation is method_only:

method:
  - id: political-economy.method.process-tracing
    value: process-tracing
    activation: method_only
    method_lenses:
      - political-mechanism-audit
  - id: political-economy.method.comparative-case
    value: comparative-case
    activation: method_only
    method_lenses:
      - comparative-institutional-design

Add method lenses:

method_lenses:
  political-mechanism-audit:
    resource: content/subjects/political-economy/skills/political-economy-mechanism-auditor.md
    activation: method_only
  comparative-institutional-design:
    resource: content/subjects/political-economy/overlays/skills/study-designer.md
    activation: method_only
  political-economy-positioning:
    resource: content/subjects/political-economy/overlays/skills/manuscript-architect.md
    activation: method_only

• [ ] Step 3: Add subject-level signals

Add at least one subject signal in data_or_outcome and at least one in theory_or_construct, plus venue context_only signals. Positive fixtures must hit at least two dimensions and one subject-level dimension.

• [ ] Step 4: Keep runtime disabled

Do not set activation_status: runtime_enabled.

Task 3: Add Subject-Owned Fixtures

Files:

• Create: tests/fixtures/subject_router_eval/political-economy/clear_actor_institution_outcome.json

• Create: tests/fixtures/subject_router_eval/political-economy/method_only_process_tracing_borrow.json

• Create: tests/fixtures/subject_router_eval/political-economy/confirmed_political_economy_mechanism_audit.json

• Create: tests/fixtures/subject_router_eval/political-economy/mixed_finance_distributional_conflict.json

• Create: tests/fixtures/subject_router_eval/political-economy/near_miss_policy_brief.json

• Create: tests/fixtures/subject_router_eval/political-economy/near_miss_campaign_strategy.json

• [ ] Step 1: Add clear positive fixture

Expected:

{
  "decision": "recommend",
  "primary_subject": "political-economy",
  "suggest_subjects": ["political-economy"],
  "forbidden_subjects": [],
  "method_lenses": ["political-mechanism-audit", "political-economy-positioning"]
}

• [ ] Step 2: Add method-only borrow fixture

Expected:

{
  "decision": "recommend",
  "primary_subject": "auto",
  "suggest_subjects": [],
  "forbidden_subjects": ["political-economy"],
  "method_lenses": ["political-mechanism-audit"]
}

• [ ] Step 3: Add confirmed-subject fixture

Use active_subject: "political-economy" and subject_mode: "confirmed".

Expected:

{
  "decision": "confirm_subject",
  "primary_subject": "political-economy",
  "suggest_subjects": [],
  "forbidden_subjects": [],
  "method_lenses": []
}

• [ ] Step 4: Add adjacent and near-miss guards

Near misses must stay core_only with forbidden_subjects: ["political-economy"]. The mixed finance case may mention market returns, but it must still include enough political economy subject-level signal to keep the expected primary subject as political-economy under the eval-ready gate.

Task 4: Verify Gate And Update Roadmap

Files:

• Modify: docs/superpowers/roadmaps/2026-07-01-adaptive-subject-runtime-roadmap.md

• [ ] Step 1: Run targeted GREEN checks

Run:

.venv/bin/python -m unittest tests.test_subject_router_eval.SubjectRouterEvalTests.test_political_economy_eval_ready_gate_passes_real_fixture_pack -q
.venv/bin/python tooling/scripts/evaluate_subject_router.py --subject political-economy --gate eval-ready --json

Expected:

eligible_for_eval_ready: true
blocking_failures: []
near_miss_false_positives: 0

• [ ] Step 2: Run related regression checks

Run:

.venv/bin/python -m unittest tests.test_subject_router_eval tests.test_subject_contracts -q
git diff --check

Expected: all commands exit 0.

• [ ] Step 3: Update Stage 4 roadmap

Record:

• political economy is now eval_ready.

• runtime activation remains a later promotion-ready/runtime-enabled follow-up.

• geoeconomics and economics-accounting remain deferred candidate shells.

• [ ] Step 4: Commit by content

Run:

git add tests/test_subject_router_eval.py tests/fixtures/subject_router_eval/political-economy
git commit -m "test(subject-router): cover political economy eval readiness"

git add content/subjects/political-economy/runtime-subject.yaml
git commit -m "feat(subjects): mark political economy eval ready"

git add docs/superpowers/plans/2026-07-06-political-economy-eval-ready.md docs/superpowers/roadmaps/2026-07-01-adaptive-subject-runtime-roadmap.md
git commit -m "docs(roadmap): record political economy eval readiness"