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/neuroflow:ethics

Ethics and IRB workflow — the hard gate before human data collection.

Tracks protocol submissions and amendments, versions consent forms, and keeps the approval status — including the expiry date — visible across the whole project.

Modes

Mode What it does
(none) / --status Approval dashboard — status, dates, consent version, amendments
--protocol Draft or update the ethics protocol; log amendments (append-only)
--consent Create or revise a consent form — always as a new version, never edited in place
--approved Record an approval: committee, reference, approval date, expiry date

Why it matters

  • Consent forms are versioned because participants signed a specific version — it must stay retrievable exactly as signed.
  • Expiry dates go to timeline.md, so /phase shows an approaching expiry without you running /ethics.
  • The gate is checked: if data exists but no approval is recorded (or data predates it), /ethics --status and the sentinel audit both warn.
  • /output --archive reads the consent version in force before letting a dataset go public.

Everything lives in .neuroflow/ethics/ with status.md as the single source of truth.

  • /preregistration — study design registration (scientific commitment; ethics is the legal/administrative one)
  • /data — data intake happens only behind this gate