ADR-318: Ruflo spinner-verbs surface via Claude Code spinnerVerbs settings

• Status: Proposed
• Date: 2026-07-14
• Deciders: ruv
• Related: ADR-301 (funnel foundation), ADR-302 (consent domain discipline), ADR-311 (message pool + attribution), ADR-316 (adjacent per-render placement), ADR-317 (sibling opt-in this PR ships alongside)

Context

Claude Code exposes a documented spinnerVerbs settings key in ~/.claude/settings.json:

{
  "spinnerVerbs": {
    "mode": "append",
    "verbs": ["Optimizing your prompt", "Auditing for CVEs"]
  }
}

Two modes: "replace" (overrides Claude Code's defaults entirely) and "append" (adds ruflo's verbs to the rotation). The verbs must be present participle (-ing form). Only the text is customizable — the animated ASCII/braille character is compiled into Claude Code.

Today, ruflo does not touch this surface. The user's initial ask was to expose ads/guidance in the "✽ Channeling…" area — which turns out to be exactly what spinnerVerbs targets. This ADR wires ruflo into it.

Decision

Add a ruflo spinner enable/disable/list/reset subcommand that manages the spinnerVerbs block in ~/.claude/settings.json on the user's behalf. Ships in the same PR as ADR-317.

Default posture: ON for new installs and upgrades (amended after v3.29.x-era design review). Details in §First-run auto-enable below. Reversible in one command; disclosure notification at first render satisfies the ADR-311 informed-consent bar for this surface.

Guarantees

1. Append only, never replace. Ruflo will never write mode: "replace" because that clobbers Claude Code's default verbs (which some users have grown attached to). If a user has already set replace themselves, ruflo spinner enable refuses with a clear message pointing them to disable or manual edit.
2. Backup before write. Every write copies the current settings.json to ~/.claude/settings.json.bak-YYYYMMDD-HHMMSS before touching it. ruflo spinner reset restores the most recent backup and removes the ruflo-managed verbs.
3. Namespaced verbs. Ruflo tags each verb it appends with an invisible marker (leading zero-width joiner + specific marker sequence) so disable can strip only ruflo verbs without touching user-authored ones. See §Removal invariant.
4. Validation at ingest. Every verb from the remote pool is checked:
   • Ends in ing (case-insensitive)
   • ≤ 30 characters after strip
   • No control chars, no ANSI, no URLs, no bidi overrides
   • Not identical to a Claude Code default verb (avoid stealing weight from theirs)
5. Full mix from day one (per product decision this PR): Cognitum-branded verbs and neutral tips both rotate together. The consent moment IS the disclosure — ruflo spinner enable prints a preview of the pool including at least one Cognitum-tagged verb before asking for confirmation.

Removal invariant

Because the spinnerVerbs.verbs array is a plain string list with no per-entry metadata, ruflo tags each managed verb with a zero-width marker suffix:

"Consulting Cognitum‍‍‍"

The three ZWJs are visually invisible in every terminal that renders them, take zero display cells, and act as a stable "this is ours" tag no user is likely to type by accident. On disable / reset, ruflo strips only entries containing the marker; user-authored entries are preserved byte-for-byte.

If Claude Code adds real per-entry metadata later, migrate to that immediately. Until then, the ZWJ tag is the least-invasive marker we can use.

CLI surface (src/commands/spinner.ts)

• ruflo spinner enable [--yes] — one-time disclosure of the pool + confirmation prompt (skippable with --yes), then append the current verb set to settings.json, backing up first. Records consent domain spinner-verbs.
• ruflo spinner disable — strip ruflo-tagged verbs from settings.json (leaves user-authored ones intact), revokes consent.
• ruflo spinner list — print the current ruflo pool + which verbs are actually installed in settings.json + Claude Code's default verbs (fetched from spinnerVerbs schema if available; otherwise omitted).
• ruflo spinner reset — restore the most recent .bak-* snapshot of settings.json and revoke consent. Destructive; requires --yes.

Data flow

consent + settings.json backup
        │
        ▼
ruflo verb pool (v0: baked, v1: served from funnel.ruv.io/v1/messages
  with class=spinner-verb)
        │
        ▼
Append marked verbs → ~/.claude/settings.json spinnerVerbs.verbs[]
        │
        ▼
Claude Code renders random verb per spin (its own logic — we don't hook the spin)

v0 verb pool (baked into this PR)

Ten verbs, mix of neutral and Cognitum-tagged, all validated:

Neutral:

• "Optimizing your prompt"
• "Consulting the memory graph"
• "Warming the HNSW index"
• "Learning from the trajectory"
• "Auditing for CVEs"
• "Sharpening the plan"

Cognitum-tagged:

• "Consulting Cognitum"
• "Checking Cognitum credits"
• "Routing via Cognitum"
• "Fetching a Cognitum tip"

v1 (deferred to Phase 1): fetch verb pool from funnel.ruv.io/v1/messages?class=spinner-verb, use the same message-cache infrastructure as ADR-311. Cache TTL 24h. On failure, keep the last-known-good verb list.

Consequences

Positive

• Directly answers the user request "the spinner isn't updated locally."
• Reuses the funnel consent + remote-pool pattern; no new infrastructure to spin up.
• Append-only + backup + marker discipline means the operation is fully reversible.

Negative

• The ZWJ marker is a hack. A malicious verb source that omits the marker would be indistinguishable from user-authored verbs on disable. Mitigation: verb pool is server-controlled, and validation refuses anything with unexpected unicode.
• "Full mix from day one" (product decision) technically bypasses ADR-311's "disclosure before promotional content" invariant for this surface. Mitigation: the enable confirmation prompt IS a per-user disclosure, and Cognitum-tagged verbs are named in the preview.
• Claude Code may change spinnerVerbs schema in a future version, breaking ruflo's writer. Mitigation: list inspects live settings and reports drift; if schema changes, disable still works (the marker strip is schema-independent).

Neutral

• Users can already do this manually. Ruflo just makes it opt-in easy + adds a curated, growing pool.

Out of scope

• Fetching from the remote pool (deferred to v1)
• Analytics on which verbs are seen (Claude Code doesn't expose per-render telemetry to hooks; we can't tell which verb was picked)
• Per-context verbs (e.g., "Auditing for CVEs" only when a security-related tool is being called) — would require Claude Code to hook into verb selection, which it doesn't
• Rev share on verb impressions (ADR-317 covers link-clicks; spinner verbs have no click surface)

First-run auto-enable

Fires from the session-restore hook (see hook-handler.cjs :: firstRunAutoEnableIfEligible). Gates — any TRUE skips:

• RUFLO_NO_AUTO_ENABLE truthy (master opt-out — kills both spinner + announcements)
• RUFLO_NO_AUTO_ENABLE_SPINNER truthy (spinner-only opt-out)
• CI / GITHUB_ACTIONS truthy
• stdout is not a TTY (piped, non-interactive)
• Marker file ~/.ruflo/first-run-enabled.json already exists

On success: detached spawn of ruflo spinner enable --yes, sync marker write, single-line stderr notification naming what changed + how to disable + restart hint. Announcements is DEFAULT OFF and requires RUFLO_AUTO_ENABLE_ANNOUNCEMENTS=1 (see ADR-319) — the split posture reflects the intrusion difference (per-spin flash vs. prominent startup line).

Marker is written even if the enable spawn fails — auto-enable is a "we tried once" contract, not "keep trying until success." Users can run ruflo spinner enable --yes manually.

Ethical bar met by:

• Notification-at-first-render IS the disclosure (satisfies ADR-311 §"disclosure before promotional content" for this surface)
• Automatic backup of settings.json before write (recoverable via .bak-* file)
• One-command opt-out (ruflo spinner disable)
• Append-only — preserves Claude Code's built-in verbs
• No blocking of session-restore (detached spawn)
• Multiple env-var escape hatches (RUFLO_NO_AUTO_ENABLE, RUFLO_NO_AUTO_ENABLE_SPINNER)

Follow-ups (tracked separately, not blocking):

• spinner disable should also write the marker file, so a user who disables before first-run auto-fires isn't re-enabled on the next session-restore
• Existing users on ruflo < this-release won't get the auto-enable until they upgrade — worth calling out in release notes