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name: settings-truth-audit type: Skill title: "settings-truth-audit — prove every setting is read, honest, previewable and reachable from where it acts" description: "Audit-and-fix method for one user setting area across every repo. Use when a setting seems ignored, duplicated or confusing, on 'audit the X settings' or 'why doesn't my X setting apply', or as a lane of the settings sweep. NOT for adding a new setting (use build-sub-feature)." tags: [settings, knobs, census, audit, doctrine] timestamp: 2026-09-25T00:00:00Z

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settings-truth-audit

Arman, 2026-09-25, after two wrong answers about voice: "The core problem is no one gives enough fucks to go get the facts." The voice area had five pickers in four stores; three of them were read by nothing, one claimed to apply "everywhere", none played a sample, and the Chrome extension used a hardcoded voice. Worked example — read it once: for-Arman hand-over 2026-09-25 · voice-census.md (deleted in d0e885c98).

Every step ends on a check. The report is the census table plus the fixes, never prose.

1. Census the EXPERIENCES, not the settings screens

Start from where the capability actually happens, in every repo (matrx-frontend, aidream incl. mobile/, matrx-extend, matrx-local, matrx-sandbox, packages). Grep the doers, not the settings: for voice that was speak(, websockets, speechSynthesis, TTS endpoints, realtime clients, TwiML. Group call sites into user-visible experiences. One row each:

experience · route/surface · audience · engine/provider · vocabulary (the allowed values) · value comes from (file:line) · user can change it where · entry UI (has a menu?)

Audience is consumer (the person using AI Matrx for themselves) or builder (a value chosen for something they build that speaks to other people — a podcast host, an agent's voice, a workflow step). Never let one control serve both.

Done when: two independent methods (grep of doers + enumerate routes/clients) add no new row.

2. Trace every control to a reader

For each settings control in the area: the key it writes → grep every reader of that key in every repo. No reader that runs (a reader nothing renders counts as none) = dead control.

Done when: every control row says read by <file:line> or DEAD.

3. Trace every consumer to its source

For each experience: which store it reads, what it falls back to, whether that fallback is a hardcoded constant, and when it resolves (a one-shot read before the organization loads silently takes the fallback — make it reactive).

4. Check the vocabulary before promising "one"

Can one value mean the same thing to every consumer? If the engines' vocabularies differ, there is no single setting — one row per real vocabulary, stated honestly ("each engine has its own voices"). Faking one value across engines is the defect this skill exists to stop.

5. The defect classes — check every one

| Class | Looks like | |---|---| | Dead control | saves a value nothing reads | | Duplicate control | two screens edit one key, one without the good UI | | Rival store | two keys for one idea; consumers split between them | | Ignored setting | a consumer (often another repo/client) reads a constant instead | | Lying copy | "used everywhere", "app-wide", a label naming the wrong scope | | Hidden default | an override screen that does not show what applies when unset | | No preview | a sensory choice (voice, sound, theme, font) you cannot hear/see first | | No door | the place the setting acts has no path to the row that governs it | | Consumer/builder blend | a personal preference rewriting what a builder made, or vice versa | | Timing race | resolved once before org/session loads, so the fallback wins |

6. Fix shape

• One home per capability listing every instance — including a fixed one as "a choice of one", shown and, where possible, playable.
• Each choosable instance is a row on the platform knob ladder (platform.feature_knob, organization → user → device), rendered by the ONE editor (KnobFieldControl); give it a preview when sensory.
• Every place it acts gets a door (SettingDoor → the exact row). A lone icon gets the door in its menu, never a second icon.
• Delete dead controls; point their old links at the home. Correct every lying sentence.
• Resolve reactively; never swap a live session's value mid-session.
• Another client on the same engine reads the same knob (platform.knob_snapshot).

7. Verify from the seat

As the test account in the browser: change the value, hear/see it at each consumer, reload, follow each door and land on the highlighted row. A picker that renders but never plays is not verified.

Report

The census table (step 1), the control table (step 2), the defects found by class, and what changed with file paths — then commit per repo and add the area to the sweep register.