Hotfix Mode

You are now in hotfix mode - a streamlined workflow for urgent production fixes.

Warning: Only use this for genuine emergencies. For regular bugs, file a tracker issue and work it through addw-implement.

Your Task

Hotfix: $ARGUMENTS

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Step 1: Assess Urgency

Before proceeding, confirm this is a genuine hotfix:

Use the AskUserQuestion tool to confirm urgency:

• Question: "Is this a production-critical issue that cannot wait for the normal ticket flow?"
• Options: "Yes — critical issue" (security vulnerability, data corruption, service outage, or critical user-facing bug), "No — regular bug" (file a tracker issue and work it as a normal ticket)

If "No": file the tracker issue and stop — the fix arrives through addw-implement.

If "Yes": Proceed with hotfix.

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Step 2: Create Hotfix Branch

eval "$(bash .claude/skills/lib/config/vars.sh ADDW_MAIN_BRANCH || echo "(exit $?)")"
git checkout "$ADDW_MAIN_BRANCH" && git pull
git checkout -b hotfix/[short-description]

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Step 3: Minimal Investigation

First, read docs/ARCHITECTURE.md's Core Architecture Principles section plus the section(s) covering the affected layer — pick them via the change-type table in docs/ARCHITECTURE-rules.md. (Scoped read is deliberate: this is the urgent path; the full ARCHI read belongs to the normal ticket flow.) Then explore the codebase and read the files relevant to the issue.

Quickly identify:

1. Root cause (1-2 sentences)
2. Affected files (list)
3. Fix approach (brief)

No ticket needed before the fix — the scrutiny this path skips is ticketed on the way out (Step 6).

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Step 4: Implement Fix

• Focus only on the fix - no refactoring, no "while I'm here" improvements
• Minimal changes to resolve the issue
• Follow existing patterns from the codebase

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Step 5: Verify Through the Gate

• Manually confirm the issue is resolved
• Run the deterministic testing gate, passing the affected test paths:

bash .claude/skills/lib/gate/gate.sh [affected-test paths]

Keep the summary line it prints — the PR body carries it. The gate must be green: a hotfix that breaks lint or unrelated tests is not expedited, it is a second incident.

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Step 6: File the Deferred-Scrutiny Ticket

The expedited path is a reordering of scrutiny, not a reduction — deferral, not waiver. Before opening the PR, file one follow-up ticket through the tracker layer — never the tracker CLI directly — naming exactly what this hotfix defers:

bash .claude/skills/lib/tracker/tracker.sh create "chore: deferred scrutiny for hotfix [short-description]" <body-file> backlog

The body names the three deferred checks, with enough context that whoever picks it up rediscovers nothing:

1. Regression/contract test for the bug this hotfix fixed — the test the normal flow would have written first.
2. Codex review over the landed diff.
3. Doc-impact check: whether the fix changed documented design, and the living-doc update if it did.

Filed backlog per ADR 0007's gate. The ticket carries no ## Parent, so it gates no spec's completion and no release. The PR body names its number, so the human's merge is the naming act that graduates it — keep the number; the next step and Post-Hotfix both use it.

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Step 7: Open the Expedited PR

Review git status, stage the fix's files explicitly (never git add -A), commit, push the branch, and open the PR:

• Title: must parse as a conventional-commit subject — normally fix: [brief description]. It becomes the squash subject on main, which is all the mechanical changelog projects.
• Body: what was broken, the root cause, what the fix does, the gate summary line, and the deferred-scrutiny ticket's number — and say it is a hotfix requesting immediate merge.

The human merges it immediately (squash). Seconds of ceremony, and main's every-commit-is-a-reviewed-PR invariant holds — emergencies included.

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Post-Hotfix

• The merge graduated the deferred-scrutiny ticket (ADR 0007's graduation mechanic — a human-merged PR whose body names a filing). Make the graduation mechanical so the frontier picks it up:

bash .claude/skills/lib/tracker/tracker.sh unlabel [ticket-number] backlog
bash .claude/skills/lib/tracker/tracker.sh label [ticket-number] ready-for-agent

• If the fix must ship as a tagged release now, invoke addw-release after the merge — a release tags what main has accumulated since the last tag.
• The merged PR is the incident record. If the real fix is deeper than the patch, file a follow-up tracker issue.

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What This Workflow Defers

No ticket before the fix, no contract tests, no codex review loop, no pre-filter code review — the human's immediate PR review is the only pre-merge gate — and no living-doc update unless the fix obviously changed documented design. None of it is waived: the deferred-scrutiny ticket (Step 6) carries every skipped check, so total scrutiny converges with the normal path. What the emergency buys is time-to-main — and every use costs a visible follow-up ticket, which is why this path cannot quietly become the default.