existing-app-change: ask Stage 0 in plain words

[MendixMau]

What changed and why

Users of the change an existing app mode found "which slice, what is its blast radius" confusing, and the intake asked for a scope boundary before anyone had seen the app. Stage 0b in this mode now asks three plain questions, after the map:

1. What do you want to work on? — the topic, in the user's words
2. Do you have input documents? — user stories, tickets, a spec go in sources/; "none, the app plus my description" is a fine answer
3. What else does it touch? — computed by the agent from the app map already collected, confirmed by the user (what the skill used to call the blast radius)

plus the standing question: of what we touch, what must stay exactly as it is (default for an existing app: nothing beyond the ask changes).

Where the wording moved:

• skills/existing-app-change.md — ground rule 2, the "map the app first" section, the Stage 0b paragraph, the stage table (P row now says proposed answers are confirmed by the user, never filled in by the agent), coverage and deliverables. The literal mxcli brain capture --slice flag is kept, labelled as mxcli's own term.
• bin/lib/intake-template.sh — Q4 and Q5 headings and bodies (numbers unchanged; Q9 untouched).
• bin/gate-check.sh — the Stage 0 "waiting on the change" message (the grepped substring is unchanged).
• docs/pipeline-walks.html — change-app diagram and table only.
• skills/app-analysis.md, skills/conversion-runbook.md, CONVERSION-RUNBOOK.md, README.md intro, bin/lib/skill-routing.tsv row + re-render (ROUTING.md, two agent templates).
• skills/checkpoints/checkpoint-scope.md — CAC-1's mode table gains the missing Change an existing app row.
• CHANGELOG.md line.

Migration keeps "slice" — there it means ordering a large source. triage.md keeps its filename (scripts and tests key on it); renaming it is roadmap 1.4.

Field evidence

Wording change only, no instrument logic. Prompted by the 2026-09-22 field run of this mode and the workshop prep on 2026-09-23, where "slice" and "triage" were the two words the intended audience could not map to anything.

Guards run locally: render-routing.sh --check, check-scripts.sh, check-portability.sh, leak guard — all clean. Test fixtures not run; test-bug03-gates.sh T12's grep target (waiting on the change) verified present by inspection.

Checklist

• CHANGELOG line in the same commit
• No client data, paths or names
• Routing surfaces re-rendered from the table, not hand-edited
• Bash 3.2 compatible (no script logic changed)

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

https://claude.ai/code/session_01VJgWP5vEoAsNsJYqCDMGNw

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