docs(comms): TL;DR prologue for README (comms-etiquette v1.0)

README.md

@@ -5,6 +5,29 @@
 > it through the Terraform adapter, and applies it. Every deployment is
 > reproducible from the shell, not just in CI.
 
+**TL;DR** — Nova Platform turns a small YAML contract into AWS
+infrastructure: declare modules and inputs, and the platform resolves the
+contract, compiles Terraform, and applies it. The last tagged release
+(v0.1.6) predates CoreCI adoption; nothing has shipped under CoreCI yet.
+
+**What** —
+- One contract file per deployment: module names and versions,
+  environment, and module-specific inputs.
+- The platform resolves the contract to a stack, compiles it through the
+  Terraform adapter, and applies it.
+- Offline checks ship in the repo: `bash scripts/run_ci.sh` runs lint,
+  tests, and a check-only pass — no AWS required.
+
+**Why** — Contract-driven deploys are reproducible and auditable; a
+consumer never writes infrastructure code.
+
+**Action** — No action — FYI. Consumers start at
+[`docs/consumer-guide.md`](docs/consumer-guide.md); the product owner is
+coreci-nova-po.
+
+**Details** — Design: [`docs/architecture.md`](docs/architecture.md);
+runbook: "How to run" below.
+
 Nova Platform is the **infrastructure-delivery core** of the Nova model.
 The DevSecOps, identity, audit-ledger, and central CI-pipeline-contract
 machinery of the reference are intentionally removed. What remains: a