4 lightweight gates that sit between existing phases to prevent scope creep, rubber-stamp verification, and silent phase-skipping. Each gate is a simple checklist — no new tools, no new infrastructure.
TheAlgorithm v1.6.0 has strong entry gates (Quality Gate in OBSERVE) and exit gates (Verify Completion Gate before LEARN). But the transitions between THINK→PLAN→BUILD→EXECUTE→VERIFY have no checkpoints. This creates three failure modes:
- Silent mutations — THINK's pressure test changes ISC criteria, but nobody tracks what changed. PLAN works against stale criteria.
- Scope creep — BUILD creates artifacts that weren't in the plan and have no ISC backing. Extra work that nobody asked for.