diff --git a/standards/persona-standards.md b/standards/persona-standards.md
index 43a3688d8..5991d2476 100644
--- a/standards/persona-standards.md
+++ b/standards/persona-standards.md
@@ -195,7 +195,6 @@ A persona that enables the `mention` surface MUST declare an `address` block
```yaml
address:
handle: petry-projects/qa-lead # an org TEAM — mentioned as @petry-projects/qa-lead
- aliases: [] # additional handles that route here (renames)
```
**The handle MUST be an org team, never a user account.** This is not a style
@@ -226,10 +225,39 @@ two things a bare convention cannot:
3. **The team MUST set `notification_setting: notifications_disabled`.** The
handle exists to route a webhook, not to page humans. Membership should be
empty or bot-only.
-4. **Handles and aliases MUST be unique across all personas.** Cross-file, so
- JSON Schema cannot see it — enforced by `validate-personas.py`.
-5. **A rename keeps the old handle as an `alias`.** Roles outlive their spelling;
- in-flight threads must not break.
+4. **Handles are unique across all personas — by construction, not by check.**
+ The org is pinned by the pattern, the slug equals `id`, `id` equals the
+ persona's directory name, and directory names are unique. Two personas
+ therefore *cannot* claim the same handle, so there is deliberately no
+ cross-file uniqueness check: it could never fire.
+
+### 4.1.1 Renames — and why there is no `aliases`
+
+An earlier draft of this standard let a persona declare `address.aliases[]` so a
+**renamed** role kept routing (`qa-lead` listing `petry-projects/murat`). That
+field is gone. Two reasons, one structural and one measured:
+
+- **Index-free routing could never have honoured it.** The router resolves
+ `@petry-projects/murat` to `personas/murat/persona.yml` — a 404 after the
+ rename. The alias is declared *inside the renamed persona's own manifest*,
+ which the router never opens, because it does not know to look there.
+- **There is nothing live left to route.** GitHub stops rendering a renamed
+ team's old handle as a mention at all — it becomes plain text. Measured:
+
+ ```text
+ before rename: @petry-projects/probe
+ after rename: @petry-projects/probe please review
+ ```
+
+ So the old handle is not a silently-broken mention that looks live — the
+ reader sees grey text and knows instantly it did not resolve. The fix is
+ obvious and local: mention the new handle.
+
+**To rename a role:** rename the persona directory, `id`, `name`, `canary.agent`,
+`opt_out_label`, `evals.path`, and the org team (its slug must keep matching
+`id`). In-flight mentions of the old handle stop resolving, visibly — which is
+the correct signal, not a regression. See
+[`.github#755`](https://github.com/petry-projects/.github/issues/755) finding 1.
The **live** properties (rules 2 and 3 — does the team exist, is it closed, are
notifications off?) need the network, and `validate-personas.py` is hermetic
diff --git a/standards/personas/TEMPLATE/persona.yml b/standards/personas/TEMPLATE/persona.yml
index 03adfaeb0..e23280e67 100644
--- a/standards/personas/TEMPLATE/persona.yml
+++ b/standards/personas/TEMPLATE/persona.yml
@@ -81,7 +81,6 @@ definition:
# live properties — the schema cannot.
address:
handle: petry-projects/change-me # slug MUST equal `id` above
- aliases: [] # old handles kept routing after a rename
# --- Capabilities the persona can invoke (advisory index) -----------------
skills: []
diff --git a/standards/personas/persona.schema.json b/standards/personas/persona.schema.json
index 8628caaa1..7a946bb00 100644
--- a/standards/personas/persona.schema.json
+++ b/standards/personas/persona.schema.json
@@ -128,21 +128,13 @@
"address": {
"type": "object",
"additionalProperties": false,
- "description": "How a human addresses this persona from a comment (`@`). REQUIRED when the 'mention' surface is enabled. See persona-standards.md §4.1.",
+ "description": "How a human addresses this persona from a comment (`@`). REQUIRED when the 'mention' surface is enabled. See persona-standards.md §4.1. There is deliberately NO `aliases` field — see §4.1.1 'Renames'.",
"required": ["handle"],
"properties": {
"handle": {
"type": "string",
"pattern": "^petry-projects/[a-z0-9]+(-[a-z0-9]+)*$",
- "description": "The addressing handle in 'org/team-slug' form, mentioned as '@org/team-slug'. MUST be an org TEAM, never a user account: GitHub's user namespace is global and first-come, so a bare '@qa-lead' resolves to an unrelated real account and notifies a stranger on every mention (verified: qa-lead, dev-lead, scrum-master are all live accounts). An org team slug cannot collide. The slug MUST equal `id`, so routing is a prefix-strip. Team must be privacy 'closed' (secret teams are unmentionable) with notification_setting 'notifications_disabled'; those are live properties CI verifies, not shape this schema can check."
- },
- "aliases": {
- "type": "array",
- "items": {
- "type": "string",
- "pattern": "^petry-projects/[a-z0-9]+(-[a-z0-9]+)*$"
- },
- "description": "Additional handles that route here — the migration path when a role is renamed. Same org/team-slug rules as `handle`. Every alias must be unique across ALL personas' handles and aliases (cross-file, enforced by validate-personas.py)."
+ "description": "The addressing handle in 'org/team-slug' form, mentioned as '@org/team-slug'. MUST be an org TEAM, never a user account: GitHub's user namespace is global and first-come, so a bare '@qa-lead' resolves to an unrelated real account and notifies a stranger on every mention (verified: qa-lead, dev-lead, scrum-master are all live accounts). An org team slug cannot collide. The slug MUST equal `id`, so routing is a prefix-strip — which also makes handle uniqueness a theorem rather than a check (org is pinned, slug == id, id == the persona directory name, directory names are unique). Team must be privacy 'closed' (secret teams are unmentionable) with notification_setting 'notifications_disabled'; those are live properties CI verifies, not shape this schema can check."
}
}
},