30-Day Project Transition Plan¶

This plan turns the final month of primary-maintainer involvement into a verifiable transfer rather than an informal document dump. Operational pickup for coding agents is defined in the Claude Code handoff, human operations are in the Maintainer handoff, and the public release boundary, limitations, dataset plan, and model-work backlog remain in Publication readiness. The separate post-competition hosting transition is the authoritative event-gated runbook for retiring centralized hosting only after competition grading is owner-confirmed complete. Every unfinished action is normalized in the generated Deferred work register; that register wins if a duplicated status, owner, boundary, or acceptance test drifts. The immutable outcome of the inherited queue is the 2026-07-28 closeout resolution receipt. The repeatable technical exercise is the successor pickup rehearsal.

Status: maintenance mode enacted; zero current deferred items Start date: 2026-07-26 Target handoff date: 2026-08-25 Model-quota posture: whole model/flywheel stack cost-stopped; deterministic work only unless a separate frozen, budgeted run is approved

Enacted Closeout Decision - 2026-07-28¶

The repository owner delegated the remaining bounded decisions, and maintenance mode is now effective. Keep Render production, the independent read-only continuity site, GitHub Pages documentation, the source repository, and existing published research artifacts running. Keep all recurring model/flywheel tasks disabled and planned model calls at zero.

The later hosting direction is also decided without authorizing an immediate shutdown: Render and duecare-ai.com remain available through competition grading. After the owner confirms grading is complete, GitHub Pages becomes the durable presentation layer, centralized mutable hub APIs end, and the runtime continues through independently governed local, partner, Kaggle, edge, mobile, or containerized nodes. Follow the linked hosting transition gate before any service, DNS, secret, disk, or retention change.

All 11 inherited register items have explicit outcomes rather than silent deferral: one current source-freshness cycle completed; the release disposition was decided; private ownership was retained by the current owner; historical provider usage closed with an explicit unknown residual risk; and package, model, notebook, per-dimension, training-curation, provenance, and human-study work was declined or excluded from claims where its evidence did not exist. No package, model, dataset, notebook, image, chart, or private account was published or transferred to manufacture a completed checklist.

The dated schedule below remains the tested successor-transfer playbook if a maintainer later accepts the project. It is not an open requirement to spend credits, recruit reviewers, or publish artifacts before the current owner moves on. The next scheduled source-freshness review is 2026-10-28.

If the actual departure date changes, move the calendar dates together while preserving the sequence, evidence requirements, and final rehearsal window.

Definition Of Done¶

The project has reached a good stopping point when:

a named successor can establish live state, explain system boundaries, run the handoff and core release gates, and recover from common incidents;
or, if no successor is available, DueCare is deliberately placed in a documented maintenance mode with the whole model/flywheel stack stopped and no implied support or fresh-model promise;
an exact commit/tag and bounded claim set are chosen, or a written no-release decision is recorded;
package versions, CITATION.cff, changelog, release notes, datasets, active Kaggle references, and public docs agree at that exact revision;
access, recovery, domain/hosting, registries, provider billing, outreach, and archive ownership have private transfer receipts, or the current owner is explicitly retained as the private maintenance/recovery authority;
core, handoff, and relevant focused gates have saved receipts, while any red training or experimental lane is plainly described and isolated;
no raw worker data, private case material, credentials, ignored staging reports, or unreviewed entity allegations are published; and
a future successor's first reopened item must have a clear owner, acceptance test, and explicit model-credit budget; and
DEFERRED_WORK.md is current, placeholder-free, and agrees with the public status, release boundary, and owner-only checklist; and
the current hosting phase is explicit: Render remains live through grading, or a post-grading cutover receipt proves every Pages, data-retention, DNS, HTTPS, API-boundary, secret-removal, and rollback gate passed.

Workstreams And Deliverables¶

Workstream	Required deliverable	Evidence
Current truth	Live-state inventory and deliberate-stops register	Handoff/core receipts, whole-stack cost-stop status, engine status, branch/status snapshot
Product boundary	Maintainer can explain active, optional, archived, and propose-only surfaces	Handoff rehearsal notes and architecture walkthrough
Release	Exact release or no-release decision	Commit/tag, release notes, version/citation reconciliation receipt
Data and research	Accepted datasets separated from candidate, quarantine, and experimental evidence	Manifests, lineage/audit results, limitations register
Operations	Access, recovery, alerts, backups, and publishing authority transferred	Private least-privilege transfer receipts
Public deployment	Render remains production through grading; independent read-only continuity Pages and MkDocs Pages have distinct ownership; post-grading retirement is event-gated	Website health, continuity `source_revision`, docs workflow receipt, and, after owner confirmation, the complete `POST_COMPETITION_HOSTING_TRANSITION.md` cutover receipt
Documentation	Public entry points and purpose maps lead to current handoff/release truth	Handoff validation and public-surface audit
Continuity	Successor completes a fresh-shell pickup, safe change, and restore rehearsal	Signed or dated rehearsal record outside the public repo if it names people

Week 1 - Inventory And Freeze Candidate¶

2026-07-26 through 2026-08-01

Freeze scope: no broad new features, datasets, judging sweeps, or model runs.
Inventory live Git/process/engine state and compare it with saved .claude state, ignored reports, status docs, and public claims.
Preserve the 2026-07-27 correction: a paused autonomous engine did not stop the independent discovery and server-automation watchdogs. The verified closeout disables all five recurring tasks, keeps four daemon sentinels, and requires zero verified repository daemon processes; historical unmetered background usage is reconciled privately at the provider.
The pre-closeout sequence advanced through pull requests 11 through 16. Pull request 16 is the immediate fully merged predecessor to this maintenance receipt at 1c8f6b25729da869b2775a29321ab3b74bd4715f; all 16 checks passed. Pull request 15's 4,646-pass local run remains older historical evidence. Render stayed live, the independent duecare-ai-site continuity repository published the reviewed 51-route backend-free export without a production CNAME, and this monorepo retained MkDocs as its Pages site. Pull request 14 also corrected the homepage worker-story grid that had squeezed body text into the 28-pixel number column. Use live master as the base and rerun gates on every later candidate.
Keep the handoff, transition plan, deferred-work registry, purpose maps, and navigation links reconciled through their deterministic validators.
Confirm the canonical active Kaggle surfaces and keep optional/archived lanes labeled correctly.
Classify every open item as release-blocking, successor backlog, experimental, or deliberately stopped in configs/duecare/deferred_work.json.
Choose a release candidate claim set. The default is a core/docs/data release with no new training/model-improvement claim while the strict training gate remains red.
Start the private access inventory without copying credentials into tickets, chat logs, or the repository.

Exit evidence: handoff and core gates green in the working environment; known red lanes recorded; candidate release boundary agreed.

Week 2 - Release Candidate And Transfer Package¶

2026-08-02 through 2026-08-08

Reconcile package/workspace versions, CITATION.cff, changelog, dataset versions, Kaggle pins, and release notes as one proposed release decision.
Run focused regressions, the full practical regression suite, public-surface checks, package collection, Kaggle validators, and privacy-safe secret/data scans. Preserve exact warnings and skips.
Build the source/release artifacts reproducibly and record hashes; do not upload them yet unless external publication is separately authorized.
Verify a durable archive and isolated restore, including generated evidence needed to support published claims.
Complete private access-transfer invitations using least privilege, and test recovery/second-factor paths without sharing recovery material in Git.
Prepare a one-hour architecture/evidence walkthrough from the reusable Capability-Gap Harness and Network Blueprint, then trace one benchmark result and one dataset-lineage item end to end in the concrete DueCare implementation.

Exit evidence: release-candidate receipt, artifact hashes, restore receipt, and access-transfer matrix ready for successor rehearsal.

Week 3 - Successor Rehearsal And Knowledge Transfer¶

2026-08-09 through 2026-08-15

Have the successor execute the First 30 Minutes sequence from a fresh shell without relying on the outgoing maintainer's command history.
Rehearse a documentation-only change through review, focused tests, public validation, commit, and rollback/recovery planning without publishing.
Walk active workbench behavior, shared model loading, deterministic/model boundaries, benchmark comparability, dataset admission, entity-intelligence quarantine, and archived Kaggle surfaces.
Rehearse incident responses for unexpected provider traffic, a suspected secret, a worker-data leak, stale generated state, and a failed core gate.
Let the successor identify one confusing or fragile area; improve the docs or test that would have prevented the confusion.
Decide maintenance cadence, issue/security intake, release authority, and the first 30-day successor backlog.

Exit evidence: successor pickup receipt, safe-change rehearsal, incident walkthrough, and documented corrections from rehearsal feedback.

Week 4 - Final Fixes And Release Decision¶

2026-08-16 through 2026-08-22

Fix only issues discovered by rehearsal or release validation that threaten safety, reproducibility, pickup, or the bounded release claim.
Rerun affected tests, handoff scope, core scope, pickup validation, and public surface checks on the proposed final revision.
Verify duecare-ai.com/project-status from Render, the read-only continuity export at tayloramareltech.github.io/duecare-ai-site/ including its source_revision, and the MkDocs handoff pages after the release revision reaches master; do not deploy a marketing bundle into the documentation Pages environment or assign production DNS to the fallback incidentally.
Record the training gate as passing or explicitly red. Do not weaken it and do not delay a valid no-new-training-claim core release solely to manufacture a green training lane.
Confirm the incomplete per-dimension lane remains isolated from the default comparable board and is described as partial evidence.
Finish private ownership/recovery receipts and remove outgoing access only after incoming access has been tested.
Choose one of three explicit outcomes: publish/tag the bounded release, defer release with a dated reason, or enter maintenance mode.

Exit evidence: final decision record, exact revision, complete validation receipt, limitations, and tested successor or maintenance-mode owner.

Final 72 Hours¶

2026-08-23 through 2026-08-25

Freeze nonessential changes and rerun live-state, handoff, core, and pickup checks on the exact final revision.
Confirm domain/hosting, GitHub, Kaggle, registry, provider, outreach, alerts, billing, backup, and recovery ownership from the private receipt.
Publish/tag only the previously approved bounded artifacts. Record immutable links and hashes without copying secrets or private receipts into the repo.
Verify the public landing page, documentation, release, active Kaggle links, and citation/version text from an unauthenticated view.
Leave the whole model/flywheel stack cost-stopped. A future maintainer may resume it only through an explicit budgeted plan and current authorization.
Archive the closeout receipts and limitations, then remove outgoing access according to the agreed recovery plan.

If competition grading is still underway during this window, leave Render and production DNS unchanged. If grading has been owner-confirmed complete, the hosting transition is a separate operational sequence with its own crawl, retention, HTTPS/DNS, and rollback acceptance gate; do not compress it into the general closeout checklist.

No new feature, dataset family, provider integration, or broad benchmark run enters this window.

Owner-Only Actions¶

These actions require the current account owner or an explicitly authorized successor; local repository edits do not complete them:

approve the release/no-release/maintenance-mode decision and bounded claims;
transfer or invite GitHub, Kaggle, hosting/domain/DNS, PyPI, Hugging Face, monitoring, archive, shared-mailbox, and model-provider access;
verify billing, recovery, two-factor, security-contact, and revocation paths;
rotate any credential involved in an incident and review platform audit logs;
publish a GitHub release, package, model/dataset, Kaggle revision, website deployment, or competition submission;
confirm competition grading is complete and authorize the event-gated centralized-host retirement or any production DNS change;
authorize any nonzero model-credit budget, removal of the four daemon stop sentinels, or re-enabling of the recurring tasks; and
decide whether to retain, transfer, or retire public support commitments.

The resolved owner-decision ledger is USER_TODO.md, the dated acceptance record is CLOSEOUT_RESOLUTIONS_2026_07_28.md, and DEFERRED_WORK.md is reserved for genuinely reopened work.

The repository may document commands and public identifiers, but must never store the private receipt's secrets, recovery answers, personal contact details, or billing information.

Decision Register¶

Decision	Current disposition	Revisit trigger
Core release versus new training claim	Maintenance mode enacted; no new release and no new training/model-improvement claim	A maintainer proposes a named bounded artifact and the relevant strict gates pass on a new append-only record
Model usage during closeout	Zero planned calls by default; deterministic closeout commands need no Ollama or hosted-model spend. Historical auxiliary-daemon usage before the whole-stack correction is unknown locally.	Owner reconciles provider-side usage and approves a frozen sampled plan with finite allowance and stop condition
Model/flywheel stack	All five recurring tasks disabled, four sentinels present, and zero verified repository daemons; no automatic resume	Explicit current authorization plus live preflight, finite budget, reviewed pricing, and review plan
Comparable benchmark board	Keep v1/h1 batched evidence as default	A versioned successor board is complete and independently documented
Exhaustive per-dimension lane	Exhaustive closure declined as low-value; partial evidence stays experimental and isolated	A preregistered narrower slice has positive expected information value and a frozen budget
Entity-intelligence pipeline	Propose-only, curator-reviewed, separate from worker-facing and training paths	A reviewed governance and evidence-admission change is approved
Kaggle surface inventory	`01`, `02`, and `A-00` active; `03` and `04` optional; notebook-era variants archived	Root `AGENTS.md` and `kaggle/_INDEX.md` change together
Public hosting after grading	Render remains production through grading; afterward the approved target is durable Pages presentation plus independently governed runtime nodes, with centralized mutable APIs intentionally absent	Owner confirms grading completion and every acceptance item in `POST_COMPETITION_HOSTING_TRANSITION.md` passes
Release version/tag	No release tag or PyPI publication during closeout	A real consumer need and a maintainer-owned package release proposal exist
Target branch	Root rules name `master`; pull request 16 at `1c8f6b25729da869b2775a29321ab3b74bd4715f` is the immediate fully merged predecessor, with all 16 checks green	Continue from live `master`; rerun gates on the exact candidate before any tag
Successor	Current owner retains private maintenance/recovery authority; no transfer is claimed	A named successor is authorized, accepts, and completes the rehearsal plus private receipt

Historical Pre-decision Snapshot - 2026-07-27¶

This earlier snapshot authorized reconciling and publishing the GitHub source, documentation, website, and Pages changes after the deterministic gates pass. The bounded local release-candidate disposition is:

preserve independent package SemVer and build all 18 wheel/source cohorts, but do not publish a Python distribution until its exact package tag and trusted-publisher path are deliberately selected;
validate Docker and Helm locally, but publish container/chart artifacts only from the guarded release workflow on an approved tag or explicit publish dispatch;
keep all five root notebook sources executable and model-free in local validation, without spending Kaggle or model quota merely to refresh a run;
make no new trained-model, dataset-quality, or field-effectiveness claim;
keep the whole model/flywheel stack cost-stopped and planned model calls at zero; and
prefer a tested successor transfer, with documented maintenance mode as the automatic safe outcome if no successor accepts by the final-decision window.

It is superseded by the enacted 2026-07-28 maintenance decision above. This snapshot authorized repository reconciliation; it did not claim that private accounts have been transferred or that external registries have been published. Those outcomes require the owner-only evidence listed above.

Maintenance-Mode Exit Receipt¶

The no-release maintenance branch is complete when the final published revision preserves each statement below. These checks close the current transition; they do not claim a successor transfer, a package/model/dataset release, independent human review, or reconciliation of historical pre-ledger provider usage.

If No Successor Is Available¶

Use maintenance mode rather than leaving an ambiguous live project:

Keep the whole model/flywheel stack cost-stopped and the zero-call default documented; include the Windows stop_ollama_stack.ps1 -Status check in successor acceptance.
Freeze the last supported commit, release artifacts, checksums, docs, and limitations; do not imply that volatile legal/operational facts stay fresh.
Add a dated public maintenance notice that names the support and security posture without exposing personal contact information.
Disable or narrow unattended deployments, provider credentials, write integrations, webhooks, and billing only through their owner-authorized platform controls.
Preserve the repository and public research artifacts unless the owner makes a separate archival decision. Repository archival is an external/manual action, not an automatic closeout step.
Retain a private recovery owner for domain, hosting, security reports, and backups, with a periodic renewal/expiry calendar.
Keep candidate data, unreviewed entity matches, partial judge lanes, and ignored reports out of publication.

Maintenance mode is a responsible stopping point, not a claim that every research lane or product roadmap item is complete.

Future Improvements¶

These are ordered for a successor; they are not exit blockers unless promoted by the Decision Register. Operational ownership, prerequisites, budgets, and acceptance evidence live in DEFERRED_WORK.md; the themes below do not override it.

Reliability and maintenance¶

Add the handoff/core gates to continuous integration with pinned Python versions and artifact receipts.
Automate version/citation/changelog consistency checks and reproducible release builds without automating publication authority.
Keep the completed three-file Ruff cleanup enforced without file-wide suppressions or reintroducing its retired deferred-work entry.
Keep the strict-MkDocs repository-link resolver test-covered, and reduce informational notices only when doing so preserves the intentional public-versus-provenance navigation boundary.
The refreshed CI, Pages, website-artifact, harness, evaluation, and Gitleaks actions passed without the Node 20 annotation on 2026-07-27. Validate the release-triggered Docker, Helm, and package actions on the first approved release candidate/tag rather than dispatching a production smoke test.
Add restore drills, dependency/security review cadence, and a dated legal and public-source freshness dashboard.

Ollama and provider calls¶

Keep the completed ledger mandatory for every llm_generate.py, adverse-media, model-failure candidate, and model-failure judge attempt; migrate other standalone/application/package clients and design a portable notebook equivalent one caller at a time.
Make retry classification explicit: retry transient transport/service errors only; fail closed on authentication, permission, quota, and invalid requests.
Use content-addressed generation/judging caches keyed by provider, immutable model revision, prompt, rubric, decoding settings, and harness version.
Add preflight capability discovery and a dry-run plan that cannot start a daemon, write a heartbeat, or mutate result artifacts.
If its access blockers clear, execute the frozen Kimi/Gemini campaign in separately authorized candidate, cross-family judge, and self-judge phases; then allocate any extra judging only to disagreement, calibration, and decision-boundary cells.
Emit sanitized budget and coverage receipts so an interrupted run can resume without duplicate paid calls.
Treat Kimi K3 and Meta Muse Spark 1.1 as required future comparison lanes. Reverify exact provider identifiers, access, modalities, context, and pricing before spending; report an unavailable lane rather than silently substituting another model.

Dataset and evaluation quality¶

Close the current 25-task / exact 75-slot corridor-diversification plan with lawful dated sources, lineage, two-person adjudication for severe cases, and no threshold weakening.
Add dataset cards with license/terms snapshots, inclusion/exclusion reasons, transformation code, source freshness, language/corridor coverage, and known harms for every publishable dataset family.
Strengthen near-duplicate and lineage-family leakage detection across supervised, preference, reward, benchmark, quarantine, and held-out splits.
Add multilingual and code-switch evaluation designed with native speakers, including abstention, translation drift, and culturally specific hard negatives.
Build temporal legal-freshness and source-ablation lanes so the project can measure when retrieval is stale or a response depends on one weak source.
Publish human-adjudication protocol, agreement, disagreement taxonomy, severity stratification, and benign-control performance before stronger safety claims.
Keep synthetic/model-generated candidates labeled and quarantined until provenance, privacy, diversity, and human/rule-based admission gates pass.

Research and product evidence¶

Complete the isolated per-dimension lane only under a frozen budget and exact coverage manifest; never backfill it into v1/h1 silently.
Add calibration, abstention, uncertainty, and selective-judge escalation reporting rather than relying on aggregate score lift alone.
Run a small prospective study with NGO/caseworker review, ethics and privacy controls, predeclared outcomes, and a clear boundary between usability and field-effectiveness claims.
Test cross-corridor counterfactual consistency and subgroup error patterns, then publish harms and regressions alongside wins.
Convert repeated operational lessons into narrow tests and decision records before expanding the application surface.

The best first successor milestone is intentionally modest: keep all model calls locked, make the handoff/core gates reproducible in a fresh environment, close one evidence-backed documentation or dataset-quality gap, and preserve the project's honest claim boundary.