Progress witness: PR-aware per-attempt record and the K=3 park #402

Merged

toasterson merged 1 commit from claude/wi-019fa59b-progress-witness-pr-aware-per-attempt-re into main

2026-07-28 17:34:22 +00:00

toasterson commented

2026-07-28 14:20:13 +00:00

Owner

Anima work item 019fa59b-6834-72a3-b552-8539e5b57846.

What to build

The no-progress detector, end to end: a witness value computed and recorded for every attempt on a Work Item, a comparison against the previous attempts, and a park when three consecutive attempts yield an unchanged witness. Demoable by driving a Work Item through three no-op turns and watching it park with the trail.

The witness is composed from the resulting revision, PR state, artifact id, and verdict — whichever apply to the phase.

Pushed context

ADR 0029 (docs/adr/0029-cannot-complete-safety-three-layers.md), layer 1.
The witness must be PR/revision-aware, not diff-aware. This is not a preference: the operator's own live monitor for this exact signal had to be reissued mid-session as "PR-aware progress" because a diff-only witness reported NO-DIFF TURN for Work Items that had in fact opened a PR. A diff-only witness generates false parks.
The incidents this must catch: tecton's denied edit sandbox (turn completes, no diff, re-dispatch forever, 84 of 193 sessions); the 2026-07-25 silent failure (38 hours); the merge-loop demotion trap (the same stale PR re-dispatched ~70× in 24 hours).
K = 3.
A park is terminal until a human acts — "parked means it's an issue" (ADR 0030). Nothing may auto-clear it.
This layer consumes the empty-vs-failed turn distinction; if that distinction is not yet available, do not fake it — depend on it.

Acceptance criteria

Three consecutive unchanged witnesses park the Work Item with the witness history in the trail
An attempt that opens a PR without changing the diff counts as progress and resets the counter
A long, legitimately multi-phase flow never trips the detector
The park is visible in the Attention feed and is not auto-cleared

Blocked by

None to start; the empty-vs-failed turn distinction (ADR 0025 Plan) is required before the detector is trustworthy in production.

Anima work item `019fa59b-6834-72a3-b552-8539e5b57846`. ## What to build The no-progress detector, end to end: a `witness` value computed and recorded for every attempt on a Work Item, a comparison against the previous attempts, and a park when **three consecutive attempts yield an unchanged witness**. Demoable by driving a Work Item through three no-op turns and watching it park with the trail. The witness is composed from the resulting **revision, PR state, artifact id, and verdict** — whichever apply to the phase. ## Pushed context - ADR 0029 (`docs/adr/0029-cannot-complete-safety-three-layers.md`), layer 1. - **The witness must be PR/revision-aware, not diff-aware.** This is not a preference: the operator's own live monitor for this exact signal had to be reissued mid-session as "PR-aware progress" because a diff-only witness reported `NO-DIFF TURN` for Work Items that had in fact opened a PR. A diff-only witness generates false parks. - The incidents this must catch: tecton's denied `edit` sandbox (turn completes, no diff, re-dispatch forever, 84 of 193 sessions); the 2026-07-25 silent failure (38 hours); the merge-loop demotion trap (the same stale PR re-dispatched ~70× in 24 hours). - **K = 3.** - A park is terminal until a human acts — "parked means it's an issue" (ADR 0030). Nothing may auto-clear it. - This layer *consumes* the empty-vs-failed turn distinction; if that distinction is not yet available, do not fake it — depend on it. ## Acceptance criteria - [ ] Three consecutive unchanged witnesses park the Work Item with the witness history in the trail - [ ] An attempt that opens a PR without changing the diff counts as **progress** and resets the counter - [ ] A long, legitimately multi-phase flow never trips the detector - [ ] The park is visible in the Attention feed and is not auto-cleared ## Blocked by - None to start; the empty-vs-failed turn distinction (ADR 0025 Plan) is required before the detector is trustworthy in production.

toasterson added 1 commit

2026-07-28 14:20:14 +00:00

Progress witness: PR-aware per-attempt record and the K=3 park be28324db2

Anima implementation session.

toasterson force-pushed claude/wi-019fa59b-progress-witness-pr-aware-per-attempt-re from be28324db2 to eb3de82137

2026-07-28 15:42:11 +00:00

Compare

toasterson changed title from ~~WIP: Progress witness: PR-aware per-attempt record and the K=3 park~~ to Progress witness: PR-aware per-attempt record and the K=3 park

2026-07-28 17:31:49 +00:00

toasterson merged commit 31eceec3c0 into main

2026-07-28 17:34:22 +00:00

toasterson referenced this pull request from a commit

2026-07-28 17:34:23 +00:00

Merge pull request 'Progress witness: PR-aware per-attempt record and the K=3 park' (#402) from claude/wi-019fa59b-progress-witness-pr-aware-per-attempt-re into main

toasterson referenced this pull request from a commit

2026-07-28 18:23:02 +00:00

chore(fmt): format the workspace under the pinned toolchain

toasterson referenced this pull request from a commit

2026-07-28 19:01:40 +00:00

feat(server): distinguish an empty turn from a failed turn end to end (WI 019fa59c)