Coordination Record Steward — Evolution Guide¶

Introduced in v1.7.2 (docs-only role). The Coordination Record Steward is an operational role composed from three existing personas — TLDR (Three-Layer Doc Reconciler, The Reconciler), PHV (Pattern Harvester, The Scout), and RHL (Research Handoff Liaison, The Ambassador) — applied to the docs/ecosystem/coordination/ subdirectory that ships with FCC v1.7.1+. No new persona YAML is added; this guide composes existing archetypes for a specific cross-cut concern. Use it to onboard into, mentor, or audit the steward function.

Consult the complementary references:

../evolution-pathways.md — the four-stage EvolutionStage model.
../archetype-atlas.md — the 37-archetype canonical taxonomy.
TLDR.md — primary archetype anchor (The Reconciler).
PHV.md — secondary archetype anchor (The Scout).
RHL.md — tertiary archetype anchor (The Ambassador).
docs/ecosystem/coordination/README.md — the subdirectory's canonical landing page.
docs/tutorials/for-coordination-stewards/ — the pedagogical companion track (v1.7.2).

Role snapshot¶

Field	Value
Role title	Coordination Record Steward
Composition	TLDR + PHV + RHL (no new YAML)
Category (inherited)	`docs_as_code`
FCC phase	`Critique` (primary) + `Find` (PHV-mode scanning)
Zachman cell	`ARCHITECT/HOW`
Archetype blend	The Reconciler × The Scout × The Ambassador
Introduced	`v1.7.2`
Primary artifacts	3 sibling coordination records + `README.md` in `docs/ecosystem/coordination/`

Owns the integrity of the tri-authority coordination records (NEXUS, PHOENIX, ORCHESTRA) across every FCC release. Reconciles drift between record claims and live state; scans partner repos and FCC trees for uncaptured coordination patterns; shepherds handoff documentation through the shared format template.

Career Path¶

Where this role sits. The Coordination Record Steward is an operational steward composed from three anchor personas. The role is typical of the docs-as-code + jv-collaboration seam: not purely editorial (TLDR) because it also does scout work (PHV), and not purely liaison (RHL) because it also reconciles against live state. In FCC the role carries the Zachman cell ARCHITECT/HOW, placing it in the architect perspective with primary affinity for process and procedural contracts.

Specialties that feed in. Practitioners typically arrive with 2–5 years of experience in at least one of: documentation architecture (MkDocs / Quarto / Sphinx), cross-repo RFC or ADR stewardship, SRE runbook maintenance, technical program management, or archival records management. The three anchor personas suggest three common entry paths: TLDR-trained stewards enter through doc reconciliation; PHV-trained stewards enter through cross-repo pattern harvesting; RHL-trained stewards enter through research handoff coordination.

Advancement. Promotion is to Cross-Cutting Documentation Champion — a Champion-tier role that orchestrates TLDR + PHV + EDM + RHL + IHL on behalf of the entire ecosystem documentation surface. The conventional promotion signals are (1) cited in the role_collaborators lists of three or more of the anchor personas; (2) consistent on-time delivery of per-release record refreshes across three consecutive releases; (3) authored at least one new coordination record from the shared format template. See ../evolution-pathways.md#champion-promotion-patterns.

Lateral moves. Because the role is composed rather than atomic, lateral moves are particularly flexible. A steward can rotate into a narrower TLDR engagement (pure three-layer doc reconciliation), a narrower PHV engagement (pure pattern-scout duty), or a narrower RHL engagement (single-authority liaison). Rotation refreshes the skill blend and prevents the coordination surface from becoming a single-person dependency.

Skill Milestones¶

Milestones are stated as observable markers at four checkpoints. The 30/60/90 cadence maps to the standard FCC onboarding rhythm; the 180-day checkpoint corresponds to the federated evolution stage for this role.

30-day markers¶

Read the three sibling coordination records plus README.md end-to-end; take notes on where each section was authored and by whom.
Complete the v1.7.2 for-coordination-stewards tutorial track (7 pages, ~3 hours).
Shadow one TLDR reconciliation cycle and one PHV harvest cycle to absorb the reconciler/scout rhythm.
Produce a first steward-flavoured artifact: a one-page audit of which sections in each sibling record have the highest drift risk.

60-day markers¶

Deliver a record refresh for the next FCC patch release (bump last_updated, scrub open items, verify cross-repo paths exist).
Propose one improvement to the shared format template or the landing README.md and see it land.
Attend at least one RHL ↔ IHL peer-coordination sync and one PCT claim-matrix review to absorb authority-specific idiom.
Pair-author one cross-repo contract amendment with LAR or OTO (ORCHESTRA side) to understand the emission-owner perspective.

90-day markers¶

Own the docs/ecosystem/coordination/ subdirectory end-to-end across a full release cycle.
Author at least one full coordination-record amendment (not only cosmetic edits) that survives peer review.
Mentor the next adopter of the steward role — pair-review their first artifact.
Publish a retrospective identifying the three most common drift patterns observed in the quarter.

180-day markers¶

Shepherd a new authority record if the ecosystem adds a fourth lane (unlikely but possible).
Be cited in at least two of the anchor personas' cross-reference matrices as a downstream collaborator.
Represent the stewardship function at a cross-ecosystem sync and become the recognised escalation contact.
Contribute back at least one improvement to the anchor-persona YAMLs where observed gaps point to insufficient coordination-record support.

Core composite skills (from the three anchor personas):

From TLDR: three-layer doc reconciliation, precedence-ordering discipline, silent-drift detection.
From PHV: cross-repo pattern scouting, absorption-planning, SHA-anchored citation hygiene.
From RHL: authority-facing liaison posture, cadence maintenance, handoff-artifact packaging.

First 90 Days¶

Week 1 — Orient¶

Read the three sibling records (NEXUS, PHOENIX, ORCHESTRA) and README.md in order. Give yourself 60–90 minutes for the first read.
Read the three archetype-anchor evolution guides: TLDR.md, PHV.md, RHL.md. Notice which section of the coordination record each anchor most naturally maintains (TLDR → cross-repo contracts table; PHV → open items scouting; RHL → cadence + handoff artifacts).
Read ../evolution-pathways.md and ../archetype-atlas.md for the four-stage maturity model and the archetype taxonomy.
Read docs/ecosystem/tri-authority-topology.md for the visual cross-reference.

Weeks 2–4 — Produce the first deliverable¶

Your first deliverable is a one-page audit of each sibling record, scoring each H2 section on (a) drift risk, (b) date-freshness, (c) path-existence. Present findings to RHL, IHL, and an ORCHESTRA representative. Expect at least one section per record to be flagged as stale — that is normal, and closing the flagged items is your next deliverable.

Weeks 5–8 — Learn the composite toolchain¶

Develop fluency with the three anchor personas' core toolchains:

TLDR toolchain: three-layer doc reconciliation; ROADMAP / SAR / AGENTS cross-reference; silent-drift linting.
PHV toolchain: cross-repo grep + AST walks; SHA-anchored citation harvest; absorption-plan drafting.
RHL toolchain: PI-window alignment; NEXUS-side sync cadence; handoff-bundle packaging.

Pair with a seasoned practitioner of each anchor for at least one session. Build a personal scratch repo of small scripts (path-existence check, SHA drift check, section-presence check) that you run on every release.

Weeks 9–12 — First release refresh¶

By day 90 you should have:

Delivered a full record refresh for at least one FCC patch release.
Authored at least one non-cosmetic amendment that survived peer review.
Completed a peer review cycle with both upstream (anchor personas) and downstream (EDM, LPA, MDC) collaborators.
Published a retrospective on the drift patterns observed and the mitigation scripts you built.

Common Pitfalls¶

Failure modes specific to the steward role, drawn from the composite-persona constraints and the observed drift patterns in v1.7.1.

Role-specific pitfalls¶

Editing a single record in isolation when a change actually crosses authority boundaries (e.g., a patent-adjacent paper touches both NEXUS and PHOENIX). Always check cross-coverage.
Bumping last_updated without substantive change — this erodes trust in the field. Reserve the bump for non-cosmetic edits.
Allowing Open items to accumulate without release tags — items without tags lose accountability and drift into perpetual-open state.
Over-editing the authority-role prose — rewriting paragraphs that have not drifted is low-leverage and risks introducing new ambiguity.
Missing the companion-doc update (landing README, topology diagram, alignment status, MkDocs nav) when a record changes structurally.

Constraint-driven pitfalls¶

The composite role inherits constraints from all three anchor personas. Violating any is a governance signal:

Constraint (TLDR): Precedence order (ROADMAP > SAR > AGENTS) must be preserved when reconciling across layers; applied here as: handoff-artifact table > cross-repo contract table > prose in Authority role when three claims disagree.
Constraint (PHV): Every cited upstream pattern MUST have a SHA-anchored reference; applied here as: every record claim about a partner-repo state must cite a SHA or URL.
Constraint (RHL): Confidentiality tier MUST be stated explicitly per handoff lane; applied here as: no track in the PHOENIX record may leave confidentiality implicit.
Composite constraint: Every record MUST conform to the shared format template; structural deviation requires an ADR.
Composite constraint: last_updated MUST reflect actual state-of-the-world changes, not cosmetic edits.

Discernment-trait pitfalls¶

Pitfalls anchored in the Discernment Matrix — each corresponds to a trait where the role must hold a high bar:

Humility drift: Escalates ambiguous coordination-record claims to the owning persona rather than inventing a resolution.
Professional Background drift: Deep cross-repo idiom; understands the difference between owner-approval and counsel-ack gating.
Curiosity drift: Probes every release note for uncaptured coordination patterns; asks "what crossed a boundary that the record does not mention?"
Taste drift: Prefers structured tables over prose, parallel structure across sibling records, sparse explicit confidentiality notes over sprawling exception lists.
Inclusivity drift: Welcomes amendments from partner-repo maintainers; maintains a welcoming PR review style even when declining structural changes.
Responsibility drift: Owns record integrity across every release; audit-ready cross-reference graph.

Escalation Points¶

When the steward role reaches the edge of its charter, handoffs flow along the composite collaboration graph.

Composite collaboration graph¶

Upstream (the steward receives from):

TLDR — Silent-drift signals from three-layer doc reconciliation that affect coordination records.
PHV — Harvested cross-repo patterns that imply record amendments.
RHL — PI-window sync outputs that need to be reflected in the NEXUS record.
IHL — Patent-lane state changes that need to be reflected in the PHOENIX record.
LAR / OTO — Event-shape and observability-shape changes that need to be reflected in the ORCHESTRA record.

Peers (bidirectional):

EDM (Ecosystem Docs Maintainer) — Coordinates alignment-matrix updates with record-cadence updates.
PCT (Patent Coordination Trustee) — Coordinates claim-matrix state with PHOENIX Track 2 state.

Downstream (the steward hands off to):

LPA (Local-Path Auditor) — Flags stale cross-repo paths cited in records for audit.
MDC (Mermaid Diagram Critic) — Escalates rendering failures in the tri-authority topology diagram.
Release Manager — Supplies per-release record-refresh report.

Escalation matrix¶

Situation	Escalate to	Artefact expected
Record claims a path that does not exist in the tree	LPA	audit ticket with path + record section
Record cadence table disagrees with live CI workflow	OTO (if observability) or LAR (if event-shape)	delta + source-of-truth citation
Partner repo reorganises its patent tree	IHL + PCT	amended Track 2 file-migration table
Paper pivots to a different venue	RHL	amended `Queued handoffs` entry with new venue
A fourth authority is being proposed	governance council (GCA) + EDM	new record draft + companion-doc updates
Shared format template itself needs revision	architecture council + ADR author	ADR proposal + record migration plan

Champion promotion. If you find yourself cited by three or more anchor personas' role_collaborators lists and have authored a full new coordination record end-to-end, you may be a Champion-promotion candidate for Cross-Cutting Documentation Champion. See ../evolution-pathways.md#when-to-promote.