/autoresearch:ship — Ship Anything, Anywhere

The 4th subcommand for Claude Autoresearch. A universal shipping workflow that applies autoresearch loop principles to the last mile — taking any artifact from "done" to "deployed/published/delivered."

What's New

/autoresearch:ship — Universal Shipping Workflow

Ship code, content, marketing emails, sales decks, research papers, or design assets through a structured 8-phase workflow:

Identify → Inventory → Checklist → Prepare → Dry-run → Ship → Verify → Log

9 Supported Shipment Types

The 8 Phases

1. Identify — Auto-detect what you're shipping from context (git changes → code-pr, "newsletter" → marketing-email, etc.) or specify with --type
2. Inventory — Assess current state: changed files, test status, missing metadata, broken links
3. Checklist — Generate domain-specific pre-ship gates — every item is mechanically verifiable (pass/fail, no subjective "looks good")
4. Prepare — Apply the autoresearch loop to fix failing checklist items iteratively until 100% pass
5. Dry-run — Simulate the ship action without side effects (draft PR, test email, local build, preview render)
6. Ship — Execute the actual delivery: merge, deploy, publish, send
7. Verify — Post-ship health check confirms the thing actually landed and is working
8. Log — Record shipment to ship-log.tsv with timestamp, type, checklist score, and duration

7 Flags

Usage Examples

# Auto-detect and ship (interactive)
/autoresearch:ship

# Full auto — ship if checklist passes
/autoresearch:ship --auto

# Validate deployment without deploying
/autoresearch:ship --type deployment --dry-run

# Ship with 10-minute post-deploy monitoring
/autoresearch:ship --monitor 10

# Iterate on readiness before shipping
/loop 5 /autoresearch:ship

# Just check if ready (no action taken)
/autoresearch:ship --checklist-only

# Ship a blog post
/autoresearch:ship --type content

# Ship a marketing email
/autoresearch:ship --type marketing-email

# Ship a sales deck
/autoresearch:ship --type sales

# Undo a bad ship
/autoresearch:ship --rollback

Composite Readiness Metric

For bounded loop mode (/loop N /autoresearch:ship):

ship_score = (checklist_passing / checklist_total) * 80
           + (dry_run_passed ? 15 : 0)
           + (no_blockers ? 5 : 0)

• 100 = fully ready to ship
• 80-99 = ready with minor items (can ship with --force)
• <80 = not ready, keep preparing

Safety Features

• Dry-run before ship — simulate without side effects
• Non-reversible action warning — emails can't be unsent, flagged before Phase 6
• Rollback protocol — undo reversible actions (close PR, delete tag, pause campaign)
• Post-ship monitoring — --monitor N checks health metrics every 60s for N minutes
• Ship log — TSV audit trail of every shipment

Domain-Specific Checklists (50+ Items)

Each shipment type generates a tailored pre-ship checklist:

• Code: tests pass, lint clean, no secrets, PR description, version bumped, changelog updated, dependency audit
• Content: no broken links, images have alt text, meta description present, no placeholder text, grammar check
• Marketing Email: subject line, preview text, UTM tracking, unsubscribe link, CAN-SPAM compliance, responsive rendering, plain text fallback
• Sales: pricing current, branding consistent, CTA clear, contact info accurate, file format appropriate
• Research: citations complete, methodology documented, data sources linked, abstract present
• Design: all formats exported, WCAG contrast, responsive variants, brand compliance

Design Philosophy

The same 7 principles from the autoresearch core loop:

1. Constraint = Enabler — domain-specific checklists bound the problem
2. Mechanical verification — every checklist item is pass/fail
3. Automatic rollback — failed preparations revert
4. Git is memory — ship log tracks what shipped and when
5. Simplicity wins — 8 phases, universal pattern, works for any domain
6. Iteration cost shapes behavior — preparation loop is fast per iteration
7. Honest limitations — non-reversible actions are flagged, not hidden

Files Changed

• SKILL.md — Added ship subcommand (version 1.0.4 → 1.1.0)
• references/ship-workflow.md — Complete 8-phase protocol (393 lines)
• README.md — Commands table, decision guide, flag examples, full Ship section

Full Changelog

New:

• /autoresearch:ship subcommand with 8-phase workflow
• 9 shipment types with auto-detection
• 7 flags (--dry-run, --auto, --force, --rollback, --monitor, --type, --checklist-only)
• Domain-specific checklists (50+ mechanically verifiable items)
• Composite readiness metric for bounded loop mode
• Rollback protocol for reversible ship actions
• Post-ship health monitoring
• Ship log (TSV) for audit trail
• references/ship-workflow.md reference documentation

Updated:

• Version badge 1.0.4 → 1.1.0
• Commands reference table (+7 ship commands)
• Quick decision guide (+7 ship use cases)
• Flag combinations examples (+6 ship examples)
• Domain adaptation table (+1 shipping row)