KDE-RFC-019 (rejected): agents do not promote specs to implemented

[emafriedrich]

Records a proposal that was rejected before any implementation, so it is not proposed again without its reasons.

The proposal

Let an agent run knowledge promote <SPEC-ID> --to implemented without a human signature, but only when the spec's acceptance block hashes (acceptance_sha, written when a human promotes the spec to current) to the commands that human approved. Agents would be named --by agent:<name> and refused for every other transition.

Why it was rejected

• It contradicts DR-007 (agents promote nothing), DR-015 (promotion to implemented remains human) and DR-016 (no identity or signature mechanism).
• agent: is declared by the caller, so an agent passing --by <owner> still counts as a human at every destination. The change would add a path for honest agents and stop no dishonest one.
• Closing a spec means a person has reviewed the code and the tests that prove it. That review is the point, not overhead. The remaining risk is the one DR-016 already names: the human-only rule is procedural and is backed by repository protections.

No decision record follows, and DR-007, DR-015 and DR-016 are unchanged. No tool changes, so no version bump.

npm run knowledge:check and npm run knowledge:context -- --check pass.