chore(tooling): the template ships 31 MB of this repository's own process, and strip does not remove it

[koniz-dev]

Context

Measured on main before this change:

lib/	1.0 MB, 165 files
docs/verification/	31 MB
total docs/	32 MB

So 97% of the documentation this template ships is acceptance evidence about
issues closed in this repository. Someone who clicks "Use this template"
inherits 31 MB of logs about work they never saw.

The same applies to several guards. tool/check_epic_coverage.dart enforces
that every directory maps to an epic:* label; scripts/dev/check_issue_refs.sh
plus .github/workflows/issue-refs.yml require Refs koniz-dev/flutter-starter#N
in every commit and pull request body. A fork has neither epics nor this
repository's issue numbers, so those are not merely dead weight - the issue-refs
workflow would reject every pull request the adopter opens, and the epic tool
shells out to scripts/bootstrap-issue-labels.sh, so a fork's first
flutter test would go red.

The app code itself is not the problem and is not in scope here.

The rule this applies

A starter template proves the mechanism is correct; it does not prove the
product runs, and it does not carry the maintainer's own process. The test,
added to CLAUDE.md by this change:

Would an adopter notice if this were missing?

Yes -> it ships. No -> it belongs to this repository only, and the strip
variants should drop it.

Acceptance criteria

1. dart run tool/strip_sample_features.dart --apply produces a tree with no
   docs/verification/, no tool/check_epic_coverage.dart, no
   scripts/dev/check_issue_refs.sh, no .github/workflows/issue-refs.yml,
   no .claude/agents/, no scripts/bootstrap-issue-labels.sh and no
   docs/issue-workflow.md. The same holds for --remove-tasks and
   --remove-feature-flags.
2. Guards that protect the adopter's own app survive the strip:
   tool/check_env_assets.dart, tool/check_docs.dart,
   tool/doc_signatures.dart, tool/doc_symbols.dart, ci.yml,
   strip-smoke.yml and the git hooks.
3. All three stripped trees pass flutter pub get, flutter analyze and
   flutter test cleanly, and dart run tool/check_docs.dart reports zero
   broken links on a stripped tree - nothing removed may leave a dangling
   reference.
4. strip-smoke.yml asserts the removals actually happened. analyze and
   test stay green if the strip silently stops removing, so the assertion is
   what makes criterion 1 enforceable. Demonstrate it fails on an unstripped
   tree.
5. Sections stripped from inside a file a fork keeps are marked in place
   rather than tracked by a second list that can rot. Unbalanced markers are a
   hard error reported before anything is deleted.
6. Nothing is deleted from this repository - only the stripper learns to drop
   it. This repo keeps its own process.
7. CLAUDE.md carries the scope test above, and it is itself marked
   process-only.
8. ./scripts/dev/audit_template.sh exits 0.

[koniz-dev]

PASS - verification complete

Evidence: docs/verification/issue-259/, committed in 8f33526 (PR #260). The change itself merged earlier as 8b80f2d (PR #258); this was the verification phase only, which is why the issue stayed open.

#	Criterion	Verdict	Artifact
1	Seven process-only paths absent in all three variants	PASS	both-assert.log, tasks-assert.log, flags-assert.log
2	Adopter-facing guards survive	PASS	the same three *-assert.log for presence, c2-guards-run.log for them still executing
3	All three trees pass pub get / analyze / test / check_docs, zero broken links	PASS	both-gates.log, tasks-gates.log, flags-gates.log
4	strip-smoke assertion fails on an unstripped tree	PASS	c4-counterfactual.log, c4-green-but-rejected.log
5	Unbalanced markers are a hard error before any deletion	PASS	c5-counterfactual.log
6	Nothing deleted from this repository	PASS	git diff 8b80f2d^..8b80f2d --diff-filter=D --name-only is empty; the criterion-4 assertion run against this repo independently finds all eight paths still here
7	CLAUDE.md carries the scope test and is itself marked process-only	PASS	c7-scope-test.log
8	audit_template.sh exits 0	PASS	audit-main.log

Measured here, not quoted

Pristine git archive exports of 8b80f2d, tracked files only, with the 21 flutter pub get churn files subtracted:

tree	files	bytes
unstripped	1672	33.3 MiB
--apply	600	3.6 MiB
--apply --remove-tasks	624	3.8 MiB
--apply --remove-feature-flags	635	4.0 MiB

docs/verification/ alone was 31 MB of the 37 MB. Test counts on the stripped trees: 2284, 2471, 2614, all passing, all with check_docs reporting 506 links and 0 broken.

The two counterfactuals

Criterion 4. The strip-smoke.yml assertion step was extracted from the workflow verbatim and run unchanged. On an unstripped tree it names all eight paths plus the surviving markers in CONTRIBUTING.md, CLAUDE.md and tool/README.md, reports "9 process-only artifact(s) survived the strip" and exits 1; on the stripped tree, same script, exit 0. The reason the step exists is the second half: on that identical unstripped tree ./scripts/dev/audit_template.sh exits 0 (format clean, analyze "No issues found!", +2812 ~8: All tests passed!). Format, analyze and test cannot see a strip that silently stops removing; the assertion can.

Criterion 5. Deleting the closing marker at CLAUDE.md:101 makes --apply abort with:

Process-only markers are unbalanced; nothing was deleted:
  CLAUDE.md:104: start marker inside the region opened at line 32
EXIT = 2

Sentinels before and after that run are identical - docs/verification still present with the same 1003 files, tool/check_epic_coverage.dart, .claude/agents and docs/issue-workflow.md still present, both sample features still present. Reported before any deletion, and it names file and line.

Honest notes

• No criterion rests on a golden. This change renders nothing, no PNG was produced or cited, and run_acceptance.sh was not needed, so no standing golden was copied in.
• PR docs(verification): record acceptance evidence for the strip of process-only artifacts #260 is docs-only, so Quality gate and the three Strip jobs reported green in 4-7 seconds without installing the toolchain. Do not read those as a build. The real coverage is the local audit_template.sh run in audit-main.log plus the three per-variant gate logs. Docs check (27s) and Issue refs did do real work.
• One artifact of method, recorded rather than hidden: a git archive export has no .git, so test/tooling/epic_coverage_test.dart fails there with Bad state: listing tracked files failed (exit 128). Not a defect - and a neat illustration of why that test is classified process-only. The criterion-4 pairing was therefore re-run against the real git repository, where flutter test genuinely passes.

Observations, not filed as issues

1. After the strip, ## Acceptance verification in CLAUDE.md is an empty heading immediately followed by ### What this tooling cannot verify, because its body was inside a marked region. Cosmetic; check_docs passes.
2. check_docs validates relative links, so backticked paths are invisible to it. Three surviving prose mentions in the adopter's tree name files the strip deletes: docs/architecture/adr/0006-contract-status-and-slice-shape.md:115 tells the reader to run ./scripts/bootstrap-issue-labels.sh --list-map; docs/api/core/network.md:404 cites docs/verification/issue-89/visible-for-testing-probe.log; test/tooling/import_rules_test.dart:63 mentions the labels script in a comment. The mentions in tool/README.md and fork-and-customize.md are deliberate - they document what the strip removes.
3. The strip is not idempotent: a second --apply on an already-stripped tree throws Bad state: Task Fixtures section not found. Pre-existing and unrelated to 8b80f2d; it did not obstruct this verification.

QA: self-QA, not a separate qa pass. Every row above names an artifact I opened myself after it was committed; nothing routed to status:needs-uat because every criterion was drivable here; commits carry Refs with no auto-closing keyword; the issue carries exactly one status:* label.