Business Runtime Promotion Readiness Design

Goal

Add a promotion-readiness review path for business that proves default runtime precision under a simulated runtime_enabled status while keeping the checked in business manifest at activation_status: eval_ready.

This is not the activation change. The output of this slice is a stronger harness and fixture pack that can say whether business is safe to promote in a later, smaller PR.

Current Baseline

As of July 5, 2026 on dev:

• Accounting, economics, and finance are runtime_enabled.
• Business is eval_ready.
• Business eval-ready gate passes with a business-owned fixture pack.
• Business runtime-enabled gate fails closed because the manifest is still activation_status: eval_ready.
• Business default runtime does not suggest business from auto-mode task text.

The current eval-ready gate proves that business signals can be measured when evaluation_subjects={"business"} is provided. It does not prove that default runtime routing would remain precise after business becomes runtime-enabled.

Decision

Introduce a distinct promotion-ready subject gate.

The new gate evaluates the requested subject's fixture pack as if that subject were runtime-enabled, but it does not edit the runtime subject manifest. It is a pre-promotion harness:

• eval-ready: current status must be eval_ready; eval-only measurement is allowed through evaluation_subjects.
• promotion-ready: current status must still be eval_ready; evaluation runs default routing with a test-only activation override for the target subject.
• runtime-enabled: current status must be runtime_enabled; no activation override is used.

This separation keeps review semantics explicit:

• A subject can be eval-ready without being promotion-ready.
• A subject can be promotion-ready without being activated.
• Runtime activation remains a separate reviewed manifest-status change.

Scope

In scope:

• Add a promotion-ready gate to tooling/scripts/evaluate_subject_router.py.
• Add a test-only activation override path to subject refinement so the gate can evaluate default routing as if business were runtime-enabled.
• Keep content/subjects/business/runtime-subject.yaml at activation_status: eval_ready.
• Fill business runtime resource metadata needed for a later promotion review, using existing checked-in business resources.
• Add promotion-ready fixture expectations for business positive, mixed, method-only, locked, confirmed, and near-miss cases.
• Expand business near-miss coverage for practitioner marketing, sales, consulting, strategy, customer, and launch vocabulary.
• Add a second non-qualitative business positive fixture so promotion readiness is not only case-study or marketing-journal driven.
• Update CLI and roadmap docs to explain the new gate.
• Verify accounting, economics, and finance runtime-enabled gates still pass.

Out of scope:

• Do not change business to runtime_enabled.
• Do not add political economy, geoeconomics, or economics-accounting subject packs.
• Do not change provider configuration, Zotero, literature retrieval, full-text search, local-agent execution, or release automation.
• Do not add network-dependent verification.
• Do not change normal install behavior or project subject lifecycle commands.

Business Promotion Boundary

Promotion-ready business may suggest business in default routing only when a request includes subject-level scholarly business evidence from at least two dimensions. Acceptable promotion-ready positives include:

• management theory plus empirical business design,
• business venue plus construct or theory contribution,
• organizational, firm, team, or platform research data plus mechanism,
• strategic management or marketing research framing plus manuscript venue.

Promotion-ready business must not suggest business from:

• practitioner product launch, sales enablement, customer journey, or channel execution work,
• consulting market analysis, competitor bullets, or client workshop requests,
• startup or small-business planning,
• teaching case assignments or case interview preparation,
• project management workflow requests,
• generic competitive advantage, customer, market, firm, or capability wording that lacks scholarly research context,
• finance, economics, or accounting tasks where business language is secondary.

Method-only business evidence may still borrow a business method lens without making business primary.

Architecture

Activation Override

Add an optional activation override mapping to the subject refinement call path:

activation_status_overrides: Mapping[str, str] | None = None

The override is used only by evaluation tooling. It should:

• affect _subject_can_be_suggested() for the requested subject,
• affect manifest-backed runtime subject matches so their activation_status reflects the override,
• affect candidate filtering in the same way normal runtime status does,
• leave checked-in runtime subject manifests unchanged,
• remain absent from normal runtime callers.

The override must not use evaluation_subjects; promotion-ready is explicitly testing default runtime behavior after activation, not eval-only behavior.

Subject Gate Semantics

Extend gate choices:

GATE_CHOICES = ("runtime-enabled", "eval-ready", "promotion-ready")

For promotion-ready:

• current contract status must be eval_ready,
• subject cases are evaluated with activation_status_overrides={subject: "runtime_enabled"},
• evaluation_subjects is None,
• runtime resources required by runtime-enabled are checked,
• threshold failures block eligible_for_runtime_promotion.

The report should expose:

{
  "eligible_for_eval_ready": false,
  "eligible_for_runtime_promotion": true,
  "eligible_for_runtime_enabled": false
}

when the promotion-ready gate passes.

Business Runtime Resource Metadata

Keep business status eval_ready, but set its subject skill to an existing business runtime resource so promotion-ready resource checks can pass:

subject_skill: content/subjects/business/skills/business-journal-positioning-auditor.md

Keep overlay: "" for this slice. The runtime resource check treats a blank overlay as optional, matching accounting.

Fixture Strategy

Add promotion-ready expectations only where default eval-ready expectations are not enough:

• clear business positives should expect primary business under promotion-ready,
• method-only business should continue to borrow a lens without suggesting business,
• finance-dominant mixed cases should keep finance primary while allowing business only as a neighbor when appropriate,
• confirmed business should stay business and should not rely on eval-only subject measurement,
• near-misses should forbid business under promotion-ready.

Add at least four new business fixtures:

• a clear non-qualitative management/organization positive,
• a clear strategic management positive,
• a practitioner customer/marketing/sales near-miss,
• a practitioner strategy/competitive-advantage/capability near-miss.

Testing Requirements

Minimum verification:

uv run python -m pytest tests/test_subject_refinement.py tests/test_subject_router_eval.py -q
uv run python -m pytest tests/test_subject_contracts.py tests/test_subject_router_eval.py tests/test_subject_refinement.py -q
uv run python tooling/scripts/evaluate_subject_router.py --json
uv run python tooling/scripts/evaluate_subject_router.py --subject business --gate eval-ready --json
uv run python tooling/scripts/evaluate_subject_router.py --subject business --gate promotion-ready --json
uv run python tooling/scripts/evaluate_subject_router.py --subject business --gate runtime-enabled --json
uv run python tooling/scripts/evaluate_subject_router.py --subject accounting --gate runtime-enabled --json
uv run python tooling/scripts/evaluate_subject_router.py --subject finance --gate runtime-enabled --json
uv run python tooling/scripts/evaluate_subject_router.py --subject economics --gate runtime-enabled --json
git diff --check

Expected results:

• default eval exits 0,
• business eval-ready exits 0,
• business promotion-ready exits 0 if the new readiness pack passes,
• business runtime-enabled exits 1 while the manifest remains eval_ready,
• accounting, finance, and economics runtime-enabled gates exit 0,
• whitespace check exits 0.

Risks

• Promotion-ready may create false confidence if the fixture pack is too narrow. Mitigation: add practitioner near-misses with business-like wording before allowing the gate to pass.
• Activation override code could leak into normal runtime behavior. Mitigation: keep the parameter optional, default to no override, and cover default business suppression tests.
• Adding a new gate can confuse CLI consumers. Mitigation: document the exact difference between eval-ready, promotion-ready, and runtime-enabled.
• Business vocabulary remains broad by nature. Mitigation: keep runtime activation as a separate PR even after promotion-ready passes.

Rollback

If the promotion-ready gate is noisy or misleading:

• remove promotion-ready from gate choices,
• remove activation override plumbing,
• keep business as eval_ready,
• keep added near-miss fixtures if they improve default eval coverage.

No user project state migration is required because this slice does not write project manifests or change runtime activation status.