Consolidation Review (Periodic, Mechanism-Backed)

What: A scheduled review whose work-list is generated, not remembered. scripts/consolidation-census.sh <project-root> (this repo) emits: the feature-flag census with born-dates, modules over 3,000 lines, and ADR-register integrity. The review runs monthly, piggybacked on the project's existing re-verification cadence, and carries a standing mandate: each cycle retires at least two rollout flags (bake in the default, delete the else-branch) or merges one duplicated code lane — or records in the census report why not.

Why: The methodology mechanizes addition (gates fire when things are created) but, before v3, had no subtraction mechanism — the 2026-06-11 assessment (finding AF-1) showed the predictable result: flags and per-incident guard lanes accrete without bound. Subtraction left to willpower does not happen.

How: The census is the work-list; the 30-minute session is the review; the retirement mandate is the gate. A census run that produces no retirement and no written justification is an unfinished review.

Evidence: zol-rag, 2026-03→06: feature flags grew 26→87 with no retirement-after-rollout path; the documentation re-verification sweep — the one scheduled, generated-worklist review that existed — caught a real safety-doc fail-open/fail-closed inversion on 2026-06-09, demonstrating the pattern works when the work-list is generated (assessment finding AF-8).

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