# SEAT dispatch block — the canonical text (`SEAT-08`)

> **This file is the ONE source.** Copy the fenced block below into the repo's
> `docs/claude/CLAUDE.md`, adjust **only** the bracketed tracker path, and delete this quote block.
> Do **not** re-word it: [`SEAT-08`](../docs/standards/SEATS.md#SEAT-08) requires a verbatim copy,
> precisely so two repos can never come to believe different things about the same protocol. The
> rules are [`docs/standards/SEATS.md`](../docs/standards/SEATS.md); the full pattern lives once, in
> [`docs/recipes/dual-model-economics.md`](../docs/recipes/dual-model-economics.md).
>
> **Where it goes — today: BELOW the `END` marker.** Paste the block into the **repo-owned region**
> of `docs/claude/CLAUDE.md`, *after* the `<!-- END mgf-common ... -->` marker, under a pointer
> comment such as:
>
> ```markdown
> <!-- SEAT-08 dispatch block, copied verbatim from mgf-standard templates/SEAT_DISPATCH.md.
>      Repo-owned region (below the END marker) until `mgf-fed catch-up` emits it into the
>      managed block — see SEATS.md §3 / SOOTH_ADOPTION.md DB-S1-1. Do not re-word. -->
> ```
>
> **Never paste it between the `BEGIN`/`END` markers.** `catch-up` regenerates that span wholesale
> (`_splice_auto_block`) and deletes any second block it finds (`_strip_orphan_auto_blocks`), so
> hand-written text inside the markers does not survive the next `--apply`. The managed block is
> where the block *will* live once `catch-up` learns to emit it — the same
> [AG-01](../docs/standards/AGENTS.md#AG-01) / [AG-02](../docs/standards/AGENTS.md#AG-02)
> machinery — but that emitter is staged (`SEATS.md` §3). A hand-pasted copy that later diverges
> from this file is the defect `SEAT-08` names.
>
> **Path adjustment — the only edit permitted.** Replace `[THE TRACKER]` with the repo's own
> decision-packet tracker under `docs/inprogress/` (per [DOC-06](../docs/standards/DOCUMENTATION.md#DOC-06)),
> e.g. `docs/inprogress/RELEASE_MASTERPLAN.md`. A repo with no tracker of its own points at the one
> that governs its current wave.

```markdown
## Model economics (the seat protocol — `SEATS.md`, founder-enacted)

**Declare your seat before you act** (`SEAT-02`): identify your model class from your system
prompt, say which seat you are taking, then work only at that seat's altitude. Rules:
`mgf-fed standards SEATS`. Full pattern: `mgf-standard/docs/recipes/dual-model-economics.md`.

- **Scarce tier (Fable / Mythos-class) — the designer seat.** Design, ruling, and audit
  altitude ONLY (`SEAT-03`). At session start re-rank [THE TRACKER], take ONE item from the
  top, and produce or advance a **decision packet**: the honest floor first (what this cannot
  close), the design, then **decision boxes for the enactor** — each box one decision, options
  with costs, and exactly ONE recommendation. Never execute what has a playbook, a validator,
  or a golden to converge on: write it down as an executor handoff instead. **Pin `model:`
  explicitly on every Agent / workflow spawn** — `opus` for build work, `haiku` for mechanical
  sweeps (`SEAT-04`); inheritance is the measured leak. **Commit as each artifact finishes**,
  never batched to session close (`SEAT-05`) — a relayed session must be able to pick your work
  up from your committed worktree and the written contract.
- **Executor tier (Opus / Sonnet / Haiku-class) — the builder seat.** Implement against
  rulings, packets, and the gates — the four green gates (`WF-02`) and `mgf-fed app-doctor` are
  the definition of done, not your own judgement of it. Do not redesign a ruled decision and do
  not enact governance (`SEAT-06`); observations go to the tracker or a FEEDBACK paper as
  proposals (`AG-04` / `AG-10` / `AG-11`), and spec, tracker, and code move in the same
  recorded change (`AG-14` / `DOC-18`). Routine wedge and increment review rounds are yours;
  gate-opening rounds, golden re-blesses, corpus amendments, and releases get the scarce chair
  (`SEAT-07`).
- **The founder — the enactor seat, sole.** Ratifies decisions, commits governance, merges.
  Agents propose, draft, verify, advise, and may push back with a recorded rationale — they
  never enact (`SEAT-01`, `AG-06`, `AG-13`). A decision box is not ruled until the founder's
  word is written into the tracker.
- **Spend from measurement, not extrapolation** (`SEAT-09`): before planning a wave, re-measure
  output-token burn by model family and watch the subagent share as the `SEAT-04` tripwire.
```

## Notes for the adopting repo

- **Placement.** A top-level `## Model economics` section in the repo-owned region **below** the
  `catch-up` managed block's `END` marker (see the header — inside the markers it is overwritten).
  It must load with the rest of the file: a block behind a fold or in a linked file does not reach
  the session.
- **A pre-existing local seat directive** is **superseded**: replace its body with a pointer to
  this block and to `SEATS.md`, rather than maintaining two texts that will drift apart.
- **"Dual-seat court round" is a different thing** — a review method, not this protocol; and "the
  supervisor" (`AG-13`) is a library write-authority role, not a model tier. Keep the three distinct
  in decision records; see [`SEATS.md` §1](../docs/standards/SEATS.md).
- **No dates in this block.** It is fleet-propagated text; a date baked into it becomes wrong
  everywhere at once and is a maintenance liability. The enactment date lives in `SEATS.md`'s own
  enacted marker, recorded at merge.
- **Do not localise the vocabulary.** Designer / executor / enactor are the federation's words for
  the three seats. A repo that renames them has forked the protocol.

---

*Adapted with attribution from the Sooth family's `templates/SEAT_DISPATCH.md`; copy, never a
dependency — see the Provenance note in [`docs/standards/SEATS.md`](../docs/standards/SEATS.md).*
