Accountability Drift Audit — Weekly Cron

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title: "Accountability Drift Audit — Weekly Cron" owner: Q domain: quality fr: FR-G3 spec: docs/plans/claude-surface-restructure/fr-g3-drift-audit-routine.md last_updated: 2026-04-21

Accountability Drift Audit — Weekly Cron

Owner: Q (Quality System Manager) Cadence: Weekly, Sunday at 05:00 (before Monday operational sweep) Script: scripts/audit/accountability-drift.js Output: data/audits/accountability-drift-{YYYY-MM-DD}.json

This procedure documents the crontab setup for the FR-G3 weekly sweep on VFT-CommandCtr. The script also runs on every git commit that touches .claude/agents/*.md via the post-commit hook (installed by scripts/session-hooks/install-git-hooks.sh).

Crontab Line

0 5 * * 0 cd /mnt/d/Projects/value-first-operations && node scripts/audit/accountability-drift.js --trigger weekly-cron >> /tmp/accountability-drift.log 2>&1

Expression breakdown:

Field Value Meaning
minute 0 At :00
hour 5 05:00
day of month * Any
month * Any
day of week 0 Sunday

Installation Steps

Step 1: Open crontab editor

crontab -e

Status: NOT BUILT — crontab entry has not yet been installed on VFT-CommandCtr.

Step 2: Add the cron line

Paste the following line at the end of the crontab:

0 5 * * 0 cd /mnt/d/Projects/value-first-operations && node scripts/audit/accountability-drift.js --trigger weekly-cron >> /tmp/accountability-drift.log 2>&1

Status: NOT BUILT

Step 3: Save and exit

The crontab editor will install the entry on save (:wq for vi, Ctrl+X for nano).

Status: NOT BUILT

Step 4: Verify cron is installed

crontab -l | grep accountability-drift

Expected output:

0 5 * * 0 cd /mnt/d/Projects/value-first-operations && node scripts/audit/accountability-drift.js --trigger weekly-cron >> /tmp/accountability-drift.log 2>&1

Status: NOT BUILT

Step 5: Verify node is available in cron environment

Cron runs with a minimal PATH. Confirm node is at /usr/bin/node or add a PATH override:

which node   # Should return a path like /usr/bin/node or /usr/local/bin/node

If node is at a non-standard path (e.g., via nvm), prefix the cron line with the full path:

0 5 * * 0 cd /mnt/d/Projects/value-first-operations && /home/chris/.nvm/versions/node/v20.x.x/bin/node scripts/audit/accountability-drift.js --trigger weekly-cron >> /tmp/accountability-drift.log 2>&1

Or add a PATH line at the top of the crontab:

PATH=/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin

Status: UNTESTED — node path in cron environment not yet verified.

Step 6: Install post-commit hook (if not already done)

The post-commit hook fires on every commit touching .claude/agents/*.md. Install once after clone:

bash scripts/session-hooks/install-git-hooks.sh

Status: ASSUMED — hook installer updated as part of FR-G3 implementation but not yet re-run on VFT-CommandCtr.

Verification

Manual test run

cd /mnt/d/Projects/value-first-operations
node scripts/audit/accountability-drift.js

Expected: Scans all non-excluded .claude/agents/*.md files, writes findings to data/audits/accountability-drift-{today}.json, exits 0 if fewer than 3 failures.

Status: VERIFIED — self-test run on 2026-04-21 as part of FR-G3 implementation (see self-test results in FR-G3 implementation handoff).

Confirm output file was written

ls -la /mnt/d/Projects/value-first-operations/data/audits/

Expected: accountability-drift-YYYY-MM-DD.json present.

Status: VERIFIED — output file written during self-test.

Check log after first cron run

tail -50 /tmp/accountability-drift.log

Expected: Timestamped output showing agents scanned, passed, failed counts.

Status: NOT BUILT — cron not yet installed; log file not yet created.

CAR Trigger Protocol

If the script exits with code 1 (car_triggered: true), Q acts:

  1. Read the findings JSON at data/audits/accountability-drift-{date}.json
  2. Run /corrective-action-report referencing:
    • The findings file path
    • The specific agent files listed in findings[].agent_file
    • The specific check IDs listed in findings[].checks_failed
    • Last-known-good state = the previous run's findings file (or FR-B2 completion if first failure post-B2)
  3. Assign remediation to the agent owner (typically Aegis for structural population, or the last git editor per git log --follow .claude/agents/{name}.md)

Threshold: agents_failed >= 3 triggers a CAR. 1–2 failures do not trigger a CAR — Q reviews manually.

Exclusions

The script automatically excludes:

  • _template.md — not an agent definition
  • Files with status: archived or status: deactivated in YAML frontmatter
  • Files with surface: archived in YAML frontmatter (e.g., loom.md)

Retention

The script deletes audit files older than 30 days from data/audits/ at the start of each run. Files outside the accountability-drift-*.json pattern are not touched.

Checks Reference (G3-C1 through G3-C7)

Check Name Pass Fail
G3-C1 Field presence accountability: key exists in YAML frontmatter Key absent or misspelled
G3-C2 Outcomes list outcomes: list has at least one entry Empty list or key absent
G3-C3 ID format Each id matches ^[a-z][a-z0-9-]+-[0-9]+$ ID missing, empty, or wrong format
G3-C4 Statement presence statement: is a non-empty string Key missing or empty string
G3-C5 Verification presence verification: is a non-empty string Key missing or empty string
G3-C6 No duplicate IDs All id values within the agent are unique Two outcomes with identical IDs
G3-C7 Codename prefix match Each id prefix matches the agent's filename codename Prefix is a different agent's codename — copy-paste drift

Change Log

Date Author Change
2026-04-21 Squire Initial document (FR-G3 implementation)