00 — START HERE: Scope Discipline Kit

This is the setup and orientation document for the Scope Discipline Kit. Read this to understand what it is, what it does, what files it needs, and how to use it.

What This Is

The Scope Discipline Kit produces the scaffolding an advisor needs to discern and act on the boundary between in-scope work and the out-of-scope asks that bleed hours. It generates a living, per-client scope-check.md document that names what's in scope, what's explicitly out, the specific patterns this client has pulled the advisor into before, the triggers to watch for, and scripted response starters in the advisor's voice. It also generates a proposal scope-section template used at engagement kickoff so the living doc has something concrete to reference.

Audience: Advisor-internal. Scope-check docs are the advisor's decision scaffolding — not client-facing.

Format: Markdown (per-client doc) + Markdown (proposal scope-section template) + Markdown methodology (file 06 — the consultant layer).

Lifecycle: Living. Mode 1 generates once per client at engagement start. Mode 3 updates the doc after every scope-relevant event across the engagement's life.

Design Anchor: Scaffolding for Judgment, Not a Substitute for It

Scope creep is a decision-moment failure. The advisor is on a call, an email comes in, the client is a friend, the ask is framed as "just a quick thing" — and in that moment the advisor has nothing concrete to reference. By the time they notice the hours have been absorbed, it's week four of a pattern.

This kit puts scaffolding at the decision moment. The scope-check.md document is not a checklist; it's a document the advisor (or a thinking partner) can pull up during or right after a client ask and verify: is this inside what we contracted? Is there a lever I can pull to close it? Is this the pattern this client always pulls me into?

The kit does not make the decision. The consultant does. The consultant's relationship judgment, read of the client, tone calibration, and knowledge of when to hold hard vs. give a structured favor — all of that lives with the advisor, not in the kit. File 06 documents where that judgment lives and how to preserve it.

Scope discipline is a behavioral pattern. This kit is the structural scaffolding around it. Both have to exist for either to work.

Operating Modes

Mode 1 — Create

When to run:

• At engagement kickoff, after SOW is signed, as part of new-client scaffolding
• For an existing client that doesn't yet have a scope-check doc — typically after a scope incident surfaces in an advisory session and the advisor realizes the pattern needs to be named

Required inputs (full spec in 01-kit-scope-discipline-context.md):

• Client name, engagement type, signed SOW (blocks the build if absent)
• Client reference data (names, tools, stakeholders)
• Historical engagement evidence (session recaps, master plan constraint trail, prior out-of-scope incidents)
• Advisor's trigger-pattern input (free-form or from a 10-min interview — blocks the build if the advisor can't produce concrete triggers)
• Active bleed amounts if any (optional but strongly recommended when they exist)
• Forbidden topics for this client (optional)

Produces:

• clients/[client-name]/scope-check.md — fully populated, follows the golden example structure
• drafts/[client-name]-proposal-scope-section-[YYYY-MM-DD].md — drop-in scope language for the SOW, change order, or renewal

Mode 2 — Improve This Kit

The self-improvement loop. After running the kit, ask:

1. Did I change anything in a generated output by hand? → Update file 03 (golden example) + file 05 (output skill) so the kit produces it that way next time.
2. Did QC miss something I caught? → Update file 04 (quality checklist) + add an entry to Common Failure Modes.
3. Should the kit do something it doesn't? → Update file 05 (output skill).
4. Is a forbidden term or new locked vocabulary needed? → Update file 02 (terminology).
5. Did an advisory play surface that belongs in the consultant methodology? → Update file 06.

The rule: Every manual fix becomes a kit fix. If you fixed it by hand, fix the kit so you never fix it by hand again.

Mode 3 — Update Scope-Check

The living-document loop. Run Mode 3 when any of the following occurs for an existing client:

Mode 3 runs fast — the doc is already populated; updates are targeted edits, not regeneration.

What This Does NOT Do

• Does not replace the client conversation. The tool tells the advisor what to notice. The advisor chooses what to do, how to say it, and whether a relationship can take a hard message or needs a softer one.
• Does not end client relationships. The goal is to clarify what work is being bought, not to exit engagements. When exit is the right call, that's an advisory decision documented elsewhere.
• Does not produce invoices, SOWs, or change-order contracts. Those are downstream artifacts. This kit produces the scope-awareness layer that determines whether those need to be generated.
• Does not solve the behavioral root. Scope discipline is a pattern that recurs because the advisor, under pressure, says yes. The kit gives scaffolding; the human layer (judgment, conversation, timing) remains the deciding factor in any individual moment.
• Does not apply to self-facing production freeze. If the advisor stalls on their own website positioning, their own brand voice, or their own productization work, that's a different behavioral pattern and needs a different tool. Scope discipline is about client-facing boundaries.
• Does not produce firm-level scope policy. The universal "what the firm does vs. doesn't do" at a business level is a prerequisite the advisor authors once, outside this kit. This kit assumes it exists.

File Inventory

Total: 7 files (standard 6 + consultant methodology, per kit-builder's rule for kits that facilitate human judgment in live sessions).

Relationship to Other Kits

Confirm Understanding Before Executing (Mode 1)

Before generating a scope-check doc for a client, the kit must confirm:

"Here's the client I'm about to generate for: [client name]. Here's what I'm reading: [SOW summary, key historical incidents from session recaps, known triggers]. Here's what I'll produce: [filename and path]. Here's what I'll NOT include: [anything the advisor wants held back]. Does this match your intent, or am I missing something?"

Do not start production until the advisor confirms. The cost of generating the wrong scope-check doc is that the advisor trusts the wrong scaffolding in a live client moment. The cost of confirming first is 30 seconds.

File Location

advisory-os-vault/content/frameworks/kit-scope-discipline/
    00-kit-scope-discipline-start-here.md          (this file)
    01-kit-scope-discipline-context.md
    02-kit-scope-discipline-terminology.md
    03-kit-scope-discipline-golden-example.md
    04-kit-scope-discipline-quality.md
    05-kit-scope-discipline-output-skill.md
    06-kit-scope-discipline-consultant-methodology.md

Per-client outputs land in the advisor's client repo at clients/[client-name]/scope-check.md. Proposal scope-section drafts land in drafts/ in the advisor's client repo.

Change Log

2026-04-24: Rebuilt via kit-builder Mode 1 after v1 was shipped without following the kit-builder procedure (Steps 0, 1, 2, 3 skipped in v1). This version went through all 12 steps with confirmation gates.