Adopt the semantic model across Ghost starter packages

[awinther1]

Why

ghost init should give authors a coherent semantic starting point rather than requiring every package to invent its own placement vocabulary and node-body structure. The same model should hold across Ghost's first-party reference packages without making their brand-local kinds runtime-special.

What

• Make the starter use standard, foundation, and context, with Usage / Rules / Never bodies and optional final Skeleton guidance.
• Rename the measured median floor to standard.model-defaults, frame its rules as overridable Defaults, and keep ghost checks init compatible with legacy cliche.median packages.
• Converge vessel-light on the same model, including its glossary, checks, demo asks, release payload, and all node bodies.
• Align both vessel-react packages, preserving defensible local kinds while adopting context/default semantics and the common body shape.
• Teach the vocabulary and body model in the installed skill bundle; include a minor changeset.

Risk Assessment

Medium. This intentionally changes the files and node IDs emitted by fresh ghost init and the vessel-light body. Legacy median check scaffolding remains supported, and all first-party packages validate with zero warnings.

Verification

• pnpm test — 212 passed
• pnpm check — passed
• Fresh ghost init + ghost checks init + ghost validate — zero errors/warnings
• vessel-light, vessel-react workspace package, and vessel-react shipped package — zero errors/warnings

References

• ~/Briefs/2026-08-19_default-node-schema.md
• thoughts/shared/research/2026-08-19-semantic-model-adoption.md (local research artifact; intentionally not committed)

Generated with Goose

[nahiyankhan]

directionally right and almost there! I'll leave some comments and nits

[nahiyankhan]

the vessel-light index.md did not show up in the diffs because it didn't get touched, but it has stale guidance now due to the renames. rewrite with new vocab would be right. would suggest to do as a followup. (likely on me)

[nahiyankhan]

the rephrases missed skill-bundle/references/steering-audit.md: the file mentions "anti-goals" and anti-goal.* nodes. but with this PR no package this repo ships declares an anti-goal kind. an installed skill would send agents looking for nodes that won't exist anymore. ask the agent to do a pass on this!

[awinther1]

rewrite with new vocab would be right

Good catch, let's do this next!

[awinther1]

an installed skill would send agents looking for nodes that won't exist anymore.

I found stale conceptual guidance in nodes.md and ground.md, a stale signature.shape reference in the median check, plus the separately noted vessel-light cover and README. I’m updating the whole live authoring surface so the installed skill teaches the new model consistently. Update incoming!

[awinther1]

🤖 Addressed the semantic-vocabulary follow-up in the latest commit. The pass covered more than steering-audit.md: it replaced stale anti-goal guidance in steering-audit.md, nodes.md, and ground.md; fixed the lingering signature.shape example in the median check; rewrote the vessel-light cover and README for foundation / context / standard.model-defaults; and removed the stale anti-goals wording from the vessel-react shipped cover. A repository-wide scan of live shipped guidance now finds no anti-goal.*, grammar.*, signature.*, register.*, or cliche.* references. pnpm test (212 passed) and pnpm check both pass.