pqrst-practice/docs/adr/0002-record-storage-boundary.md

# ADR-002 — Record storage boundary

**Status:** accepted 2026-09-28  
**Work:** PQRST-WP-0002-T02  
**State Hub decision:** `dc5d49d5-8b79-4c57-a1a8-78c3532082fc`

## Decision

Use **hall-of-helix as the default human-facing store** when a session closes
with a voluntary hall entry. The hall owns entry storage, its closing routine,
and consumer validation. This repository owns the normative specification and
canonical prompt; it stores neither session records nor collection tooling.

The hall is not the only permitted store. Sessions without a seat may retain
their records in a consuming repository's chosen external store. No separate
machine-facing collector is selected or commissioned by this decision. Any
future collector and its operation belong to the consuming repository, with
the full evidence-bearing record preserved alongside its session metadata.

## Evidence and tradeoffs

Reviewed hall-of-helix at commit
`82caae23b3098aa4bdf4346cd4af8a88c03c7d68`: `CLOSING.md` references the canonical
prompt, `ENTRY.md` defines the signature and body record, and
`scripts/check-entries.py` checks signatures and requires PQRST on finished
agent seats from 2026-09-06. Existing entries carry repository and session
metadata as well as concrete dominant factors. The hall checker is not proof
of every spec §5.5 condition or of an uncoached first attempt.

Seats are voluntary, and drafts may lack records. The collection is a biased
sample, not a session census. Qualitative review and Markdown searches are
sufficient for current use; the hall is not a metrics warehouse. Neither the
hall nor this practice ranks agents, models, developers, or teams by PQRST.

## Consequences

The storage question can close independently of the pilot. No spec meaning,
validation rule, or record format changes, so v0.1 remains in force. The
eight-session first-attempt pilot and the subsequent version decision remain
under the existing T01 and T03; this decision does not establish their outcome.

**2026-09-28 follow-up:** the operator selected hall entries as the main data
source. T01 now reviews that published corpus, with first-attempt uncertainty
explicit rather than a completion gate. The hall owns a read-only Git-snapshot
exporter; no machine-facing collection service or second record store is
commissioned. The [review](../reviews/2026-09-28-hall-pqrst-review.md) closes T01
and supplies T03's decision to retain v0.1 with editorial alignment.

See [SCOPE.md](../../SCOPE.md) and the
[existing workplan](../../workplans/PQRST-WP-0002-validate-v01-against-real-sessions.md).