Consolidation Review (Periodic, Mechanism-Backed)

In one line: A monthly review whose work-list is generated, with a mandate to subtract — retire flags and merge duplicated lanes, or record why not.

Do this: Run scripts/consolidation-census.sh <project-root> monthly; each cycle, retire at least two rollout flags (bake in the default, delete the else-branch) or merge one duplicated code lane — or justify the skip in the census report.

What: A scheduled review whose work-list is generated, not remembered. scripts/consolidation-census.sh <project-root> (this repo) emits the feature-flag census with born-dates, modules over 3,000 lines, and ADR-register integrity. It runs monthly, piggybacked on the existing re-verification cadence.

Why: The methodology mechanizes addition — gates fire when things are created — but has no native subtraction mechanism. Without one, flags and per-incident guard lanes accrete without bound. Subtraction left to willpower does not happen.

How: The census is the work-list; the 30-minute session is the review; the retirement mandate is the gate. A census run that produces no retirement and no written justification is an unfinished review.

Evidence: The census script is the mechanism — a census run that produces no retirement and no written justification is, by definition, an unfinished review. Reproducible: run it against a project that has been adding flags for months and watch the unbounded flag count appear on the work-list. The one scheduled, generated-worklist review that already existed (a documentation re-verification sweep) caught a real safety-doc fail-open/fail-closed inversion — evidence the pattern works when the work-list is generated rather than recalled.

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