Spec Kitty

Data Model: Remove hidden --feature alias

Mission: feature-alias-removal-01KW0N87 Scope: Selector-resolution contract (minimal — this mission has no new persistent entities)

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Selector-Resolution Contract (post-alias-removal)

This mission simplifies the selector-resolution path. The following contract replaces the resolve_selector(alias_value=feature, alias_flag="--feature", ...) pattern in all 8 in-scope files.

Inline Guard — Canonical Form

# Applied in: research, next_cmd, context, lifecycle.plan, lifecycle.tasks, mission_type.current
mission_norm = mission.strip() if isinstance(mission, str) else None
if not mission_norm:
    raise typer.BadParameter("--mission <slug> is required")
mission_slug = mission_norm

Input: mission: str | None — Typer-parsed value of --mission option; may be None if omitted, a non-empty string, or (edge case) a whitespace-only string.

Behaviour: 1. None input → raises typer.BadParameter (Typer maps to exit code 2) 2. Whitespace-only string → normalized to None → raises typer.BadParameter 3. Non-empty string after strip → passed downstream as mission_slug

Exit code on failure: 2 (standard Typer BadParameter exit code)

Message shape: "Error: Invalid value for '--mission': --mission <slug> is required" (Typer default BadParameter format)

accept.py Variant (uses resolve_mission_handle — no resolve_selector)

# accept.py — replaces `raw_handle = mission or feature`
raw_handle = mission.strip() if isinstance(mission, str) else None
if not raw_handle:
    # ... emit error message ...
    raise typer.Exit(2)
resolved = resolve_mission_handle(raw_handle, repo_root, json_mode=json_output)

merge.py Variant (uses _resolve_slug_or_exit helper — no resolve_selector)

# _resolve_slug_or_exit — replaces `(mission or feature or "").strip() or None`
mission_slug_raw = (mission or "").strip() or None

No-selector at merge.py end-of-flow (if not resolved_mission) → raise typer.Exit(2).

implement.py Variant (uses detect_feature_context — no resolve_selector)

detect_feature_context() is updated to remove feature_flag param:

def detect_feature_context(
    mission_flag: str | None = None,
    repo_root: Path | None = None,
) -> tuple[str | None, str]:
    raw_handle = mission_flag.strip() if isinstance(mission_flag, str) else None
    if raw_handle is None:
        raise typer.BadParameter("--mission <slug> is required")
    # ... resolver logic unchanged ...

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Preserved Contracts (out-of-scope, unchanged)

Contract	Location	Status
resolve_selector function signature	selector_resolution.py:123	Retained (C-005)
resolve_mission_handle function	selector_resolution.py:185	Retained
feature_slug JSON field keys	all persisted artifacts	Immutable (C-003)
SPEC_KITTY_SUPPRESS_FEATURE_DEPRECATION env var	selector_resolution.py	Retained but inert after this mission

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No New Entities

This mission introduces no new domain entities, database tables, or persistent data structures. All changes are confined to the CLI surface layer and Python variable names.