# Project State

## Project Reference

See: .planning/PROJECT.md (updated 2026-05-08)

**Core value:** Every idle mechanic must function as a metaphor that the player absorbs without being told. When economy and meaning conflict, meaning wins.
**Current focus:** Phase 1 — Foundations & Doctrine

## Current Position

Phase: 1 of 8 (Foundations & Doctrine)
Plan: 0 of TBD in current phase
Status: Context gathered — ready for `/gsd-plan-phase 1`
Last activity: 2026-05-08 — Phase 1 context discussed and committed; user locked AI pipeline to minimum-viable, save schema to minimal v1, doctrine docs to principle-level, Phase 1 scaffold capped at success criteria.

Progress: [░░░░░░░░░░] 0%

## Performance Metrics

**Velocity:**
- Total plans completed: 0
- Average duration: —
- Total execution time: 0.0 hours

**By Phase:**

| Phase | Plans | Total | Avg/Plan |
|-------|-------|-------|----------|
| 1. Foundations & Doctrine | 0 | 0 | — |

**Recent Trend:**
- Last 5 plans: —
- Trend: — (no plans completed yet)

*Updated after each plan completion*

## Accumulated Context

### Decisions

Decisions are logged in PROJECT.md Key Decisions table.
Recent decisions affecting current work:

- Phase 1 will land all retrofit-hostile foundations (versioned saves, content/asset pipelines, sim/render firewall, anti-FOMO doctrine, Season 7 end-state design) before any feature code — research from all four researchers converged on this ordering.
- Phase 2 will ship Season 1 as a complete vertical slice that could *plausibly* ship as a free standalone prologue ahead of Seasons 2-7, defending against the 7-Season scope risk.
- Phases 4-7 deliver the remaining six Seasons in mechanic-introducing pairs (Season 2 alone with prestige, Seasons 3-4, Seasons 5-6, Season 7 alone) — at most one new mechanic per Season per the scope-defense doctrine.

### Pending Todos

None yet.

### Blockers/Concerns

Carry-forward banner concerns from research:
- **7-Season scope risk** is the project's biggest risk; defended by the standalone-Season-1 escape hatch (Phase 2) and the one-mechanic-per-Season cap.
- **Story ends but the loop doesn't** — Season 7 end-state design must land in Phase 1 (PIPE-05); finite Roothold ceiling enforced in Phase 4 (SEAS-04); credits/coda rest-state in Phase 7 (SEAS-10).
- **AI asset style drift** — provenance + curation + locked north-star reference set must land in Phase 1 (AEST-08, AEST-09, PIPE-03) before any production-volume asset generation in Phase 5+; visual regression testing in Phase 8 (PIPE-04).

## Deferred Items

Items acknowledged and carried forward from previous milestone close:

| Category | Item | Status | Deferred At |
|----------|------|--------|-------------|
| *(none)* | | | |

## Session Continuity

Last session: 2026-05-08
Stopped at: Phase 1 context gathered. User chose minimum-viable shape across all four gray areas (AI pipeline, save v1, doctrine docs, scaffold scope) — explicit pushback on overengineering recorded.
Resume file: .planning/phases/01-foundations-and-doctrine/01-CONTEXT.md
Next action: `/gsd-plan-phase 1`