Approved proposal: #2443
Pattern: workflow_fix
Evidence: PR #1513 contained only a single comment line as its entire
diff, yet passed all quality gates (lint, typecheck, tests, coverage)
and was submitted for review, consuming 8 independent reviewer slots.
All quality gates verify code quality, not code existence — a change
that adds only comments passes every gate.
Fix: Add Step 1.5 (Meaningful Change Verification) between the
implementer invocation and test-writing step. This checks git diff
output for functional code changes and rejects attempts that produce
empty, comment-only, or trivially small diffs (< 3 functional lines),
immediately escalating to the next tier without wasting quality gate
and reviewer capacity.
ISSUES CLOSED: #2443
freemo