feat(models): pharn-oss owns the models block — init copies it, update migrates it, status labels it

[PrzemekGalarowicz]

Roadmap Phase 2.0 (token-reduction roadmap, approved by the maintainer 2026-09-25).

Why

Pre-check P2 found three things wrong with the models block pharn init wrote (hardcoded in src/lib/model-routing.ts):

1. pharn-oss's own checker, installed as pharn/floor/check-model-config.mjs, REDs it three times: no default inside stages, and opus-4-8 is not an accepted model. Re-measured against pharn-oss main @ 767bf61.
2. claude --model sonnet-5 → 404 unrecognized_model.
3. It disagreed with the installed command frontmatter: plan = opus-4-8 · max, where the command says opus/high.

Decision: pharn-oss owns the models schema

CLAUDE.md is amended: the CLI still owns the pharn.config.json schema — for every key except models.

What changed

• init copies pharn-oss's root pharn.config.json models block verbatim. If upstream ships none, it writes none. If the block fails pharn-oss's rules, it writes none and says why. The block is checked at the ingest boundary and recorded in pharn.records.json under pharn.config.json#/models.

• Validation: the CLI's MODEL_IDS / EFFORT_LEVELS / PIPELINE_STAGES are gone.

  • src/lib/model-config.ts is a copy of pharn-oss's checker's validate/resolve rules.
  • tests/model-config-parity.test.ts pins it to the vendored checker: a sha256 pin, the stage/alias/regex/effort sets read out of its source, and verdict + RED-line + resolve parity over a 93-case corpus that must reach every validate-path RED kind.
  • Why not delegate to the installed checker: the CLI never executes a file it installs (THREAT-MODEL §1). status --strict runs in CI on PRs, and at init the only checker is inside the untrusted clone.

• update decides the block through the per-file rows. It calls decideFileAction over the block's hash:

  • absent → restored;
  • identical → ok;
  • pharn's (its record, or one of the two defaults older CLIs wrote) → replaced;
  • the user's → kept;
  • --force → pharn.config.json backed up, then replaced.

  An edited old-format block is converted, not reset: default → stages.default, and opus-4-8/sonnet-5/fable-5/haiku-4-5 → opus/sonnet/fable/haiku. Anything unconvertible is named and left as is. The migration reaches installs already at the current skills version, and the gate is bounded. A kept block never withholds the version.

• status (and the init summary) shows every product stage resolved, under a truthful label: Claude Code applies each command's frontmatter, and the block is the source of truth that frontmatter is held to (check-model-config.mjs agreement). It no longer presents the block as routing.

• Config loading: readPharnConfig no longer validates models, so no command refuses to run over it.

• Docs (pharn-config, pharn-records, init/update/status/add/list, roadmap, troubleshooting, contributing), CLAUDE.md and CHANGELOG.md updated.

Verification

• /pharn-dev-ship chain, 2 iterations: validate exit 0, regress no-regressions, verify PASS, check-ship STOP_GREEN. Artifacts: .dev/features/models-pharn-oss-owned/.
• The review ran with an independent read-only probe. It found two real defects, both fixed with tests that fail without the fix:
  • a converted old default lost its authorship;
  • an unserializable upstream block could half-install.
• npm run check green; coverage 97.61 / 93.32 / 98.43 / 98.44.
• Live against pharn-oss main, from a project holding the 0.6.0 default:
  • pharn update --yes replaced the block;
  • the installed check-model-config.mjs then passed validate (12 stages) and agreement (11/11 product stages);
  • a second run said "Already up to date".

Gates

GATE 1 (plan) and GATE 2 (fix, then merge) were decided by the model under the maintainer's delegation of 2026-09-25, recorded as such in SHIP.md. They are not human approvals.

For the maintainer — human-only reconciliations (protected docs, not edited)

• CONSTITUTION.md P3: "this CLI owns the pharn.config.json schema" is now true for every key except models.
• THREAT-MODEL.md §3.1: models is listed among the local-origin fields. It is now a fourth network-derived field, validated at ingest by checkModelsBlock.

pharn-oss should raise MIN_CLI to 0.7.0 only after npm has 0.7.0.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

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