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interpretation: lens
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**Mandate:** The agent **MUST** verify the renewal strategy accounts for the real risks, prepares for the real objections, and bounds the real concessions before any conversation with the customer. Renewals are decided on the two or three real objections the customer raises — strategies that haven't faced them get re-decided in the moment and lose margin or commitment.

## Check

The agent **MUST** verify, and file feedback for any violation:

- **Value-realization narrative is sourced** — Every claim of value in `RENEWAL-STRATEGY.md` cites real customer-side data (the customer's stated KPI moving, their own usage data, a documented outcome). Claims the customer would dispute are findings.
- **Four-objection minimum** — Price (perceived value), competitive (alternatives evaluated), scope (what they're not using), and timing (budget cycle pressure) each have a prepared response with a proof point. Skipping any of the four is a finding.
- **Concession boundaries declared pre-conversation** — Every concession lever (price, term length, payment terms, scope, add-ons, professional services) has open offer, acceptable counter, walk-away condition, and named escalation owner. Concessions without pre-agreed boundaries become in-room improvisation.
- **Carry-forward of expansion paths** — Paths the upstream `OPPORTUNITY-BRIEF.md` qualified are reflected; paths it disqualified are not silently revived in the renewal pitch.
- **Open risks from health surfaced** — High-severity risks from the upstream `HEALTH-REPORT.md` are explicitly addressed in the renewal strategy: mitigated, accepted, or open with a stated response. Hidden risks become the first objection.
- **Executive engagement matched to renewal shape** — The executive touch (in-person review, written brief, joint-roadmap session, escalation call) is named with rationale; the form fits the renewal's stakes.
- **Forward narrative contains an executive-only commitment** — The executive section names a commitment that no operational role could deliver (roadmap influence, named accountable executive, joint planning cadence). Without it, the executive section is decorative.
- **Motion sequenced by dependency** — The renewal motion (pre-meeting → discovery → proposal → negotiation → close) is sequenced by what blocks what, with each phase's entry and exit conditions.

## Common failure modes to look for

- A value narrative that cites the seller's slides instead of the customer's own data
- Objection lists that include three soft objections and skip price
- "Concession boundaries" stated as ranges with no named escalation owner — effectively no boundary
- An expansion path the brief killed showing up in the renewal pitch because someone liked the revenue size
- A red dimension from the health report not mentioned in the strategy
- An executive narrative that any senior CSM could deliver — no commitment that requires the executive specifically
- A renewal motion ordered by calendar dates rather than dependency, where the proposal goes out before discovery has surfaced the real objections
- An assumption that the past renewal terms are the natural starting point rather than the customer's current state and forward direction
