Instruction distillation view

3 min readReferenceUpdated 2026-05-21

What you'll find here

The read-only operator display for declared instruction sources, source snapshots, provenance records, distilled proposals, and promotion reviews. The view exposes the audit trail behind every runtime instruction through craik operator instructions.

Proposals are review records, not authority.

Distilled proposals never become runtime authority on their own. Only promoted constraints participate in compiled prompts.

Commands

craik operator instructions
craik operator instructions --json

craik operator instructions prints the human-readable review view. --json emits the same snapshot for tooling, with sources, snapshots, provenance, proposals, and reviews arrays. Both forms are read-only and do not promote, reject, or mutate proposals.

What it formats

Declared instruction sources

And their trust boundaries.

Source snapshot hash status

Provenance records

And source ranges.

Distilled proposals

By promotion status.

Promotion reviews

Linked receipts · handoffs · policy envelope.

Review flow

Proposal state

Display

Notes

Proposed / rejected / deferred / stale / contradicted

inactive

Visible so an operator can audit why the instruction did not become active.

Approved

active

Shows the promoted constraint ID. Without a promoted constraint ID, the proposal is displayed as inactive even when it has provenance, evidence, or prior review notes.

Trust boundaries

Source authority is preserved.

Sources include their owner and trust boundary. The view preserves those fields so operators can distinguish repository, project, organization, user, and external instruction authority before promoting a distilled instruction.

What's next

ReferenceInstruction sourcesThe declared-source registry.ReferenceInstruction distillation workflowThe pipeline this view audits.ReferenceDistilled instructionsProposal states, categories, provenance, and snapshots.ReferenceOperator surfaceThe shared TUI boundary.