continue

name

continue

description

Continue autonomous Telegram Desktop development from the shared ai-tdesktop repository. Use when the user invokes $continue or /continue, asks Codex to keep working through the AI queue, or wants one command to resume the active task at the head of a frozen startup batch, drain matching queued work, or process the local inbox only when startup has no task work, while including and consolidating follow-ups discovered from the batch but deferring unrelated tasks added mid-run.

Continue AI Work

When running in Grok Build, read .grok/ai-workflow-adapter.md completely before any other host-specific delegation rule and apply its substitutions.

Act as the checkout-level scheduler. Choose one invocation mode at startup, freeze its task batch, and keep looping only through that batch and follow-ups discovered from its results. Do not drain unrelated tasks added while the run is in progress. After routing new follow-ups, consolidate compatible unclaimed work in a fresh leaf worker. Delegate inbox planning and one-task execution; do not plan or implement Telegram changes in this scheduler session.

This is the default development command and the successor to the old task and implement workflows. Inbox processing may bootstrap an otherwise idle invocation exactly once and owns request splitting and project routing; perform-task owns context, planning, implementation, review, Debug build, test-loop, evidence, and final publication.

Resolve the workspace

Run from a Telegram Desktop checkout. Read AGENTS.md, then use the shared helper with the host's Python 3 command:

python3 .agents/skills/process-inbox/scripts/workspace.py queue

Use python or py -3 when appropriate. Save checkout_tag, ai_main, slot_worktree, and source_root from its JSON. Read ai_main/AGENTS.md.

Stop before mutating anything when violations is nonempty or AI master is dirty. Dirty task-scoped AI files are the active checkout's local resumable phase state and are expected; resume from them, never discard them. Other uncommitted slot changes under tasks/, projects/, or receipts/ are disposable leftovers of an interrupted worker; the ignored inbox snapshot and published task results retain every durable input needed to redo them. Restore those exact tracked paths to the slot branch head, delete their untracked files, and continue. Stop instead of cleaning when any other slot path changed, and never clean the main worktree or stash anywhere. Unpublished clean AI slot commits are incomplete publication; run the helper's publish command before selecting work. It recognizes a consolidation commit and revalidates its aliases and complete dependency graph after every rebase before pushing; never publish such a commit manually.

The canonical lifecycle is deliberately small:

• todo with claimed_by: null is ready shared work;
• in-progress with this checkout_tag is this checkout's one active task;
• blocked with this tag is a rare published unfinished boundary;
• split-required with this tag is a published performer result awaiting one scheduler-owned split transaction;
• approved is the only completed terminal state.

After routing, the retired source has no live state: its sealed split.yaml records all successors and the optional implementation carrier. This is terminal history, not another runnable status.

Start atomically assigns an unclaimed task and changes it to in-progress. Normal phase artifacts remain local and uncommitted in the slot worktree. Approve publishes all final AI artifacts and state in one commit. Block is permitted only for a genuine exhausted task blocker, not for an interrupted agent session. Split-required publishes the proposal and seals any retained source work for the scheduler transaction. Never publish Claim, phase checkpoint, or Resume commits. Existing claimed todo records from the older workflow remain startable but do not justify creating new reservations.

Never infer ownership from an inbox receipt. Do not steal work from another checkout. Moving an unfinished task to another checkout is a rare explicit human reassignment that may restart the task and discard checkout-local phase artifacts; it is never automatic scheduler behavior.

Before freezing a new invocation batch when no task is in-progress, handle each entry in the queue JSON's pending_consolidations once. These durable markers mean discovery routing published new tasks but its separate consolidation pass did not finish. Spawn the consolidation worker described below with the source task and batch ids recorded in the marker, then refresh the queue. A repeated pre-commit race may remain pending for the next invocation; record that marker as attempted and do not spin. Consolidation publishes through the checkout's routing worktree (route-ensure, consolidate-publish --routing), so an active task's slot phase files do not defer recovery: recover pending markers whenever no other routing or consolidation transaction is in flight.

After recovering pending consolidations and before freezing a new batch, route this checkout's own_split_required task, when any, through the dedicated split worker below. Refresh the queue afterward and freeze the resulting replacement tasks at the front of the initial batch regardless of a scope hint; they replace checkout work that hints cannot exclude. Record that startup split for the invocation summary. A split-required task is exclusive checkout work: do not start, retry, or resume another task while it remains unrouted. If its retained source state cannot be transferred safely, stop with that state intact rather than skipping it.

Interpret scope hints

Treat text after $continue or /continue as optional natural-language guidance for new shared work. Its own wording decides its strength. A preference such as "payments tasks first" reorders the shared tasks recorded in the startup batch; it does not exclude the others. A restriction such as "only the payments tasks" or "all tasks except projects X and Y" records only matching unclaimed shared tasks. Hints never exclude this checkout's active, split-required, blocked, or legacy-reserved work. A restrictive hint that matches no shared task does not make an existing queue look idle or permit inbox processing.

The recorded batch is invocation-local bookkeeping, not a reservation. Start only one shared task at a time, finish or exceptionally block it, refresh canonical state, then select another recorded id. Always resume this checkout's in-progress task and previously blocked work before applying a priority hint to new shared work, unless the user expressly asks to stop or reassign it.

The presence of active work changes ordering, not batch scope. Unless the user expressly asks to run only the current task, freeze the same matching startup queue behind the active task that would have been recorded without active work.

Freeze the invocation batch

Use the first clean, refreshed queue snapshot to choose exactly one mode before starting, retrying, resuming, or performing a task. Create and record these invocation-local values in the scheduler plan:

• invocation_mode;
• ordered initial_batch_task_ids;
• ordered batch_task_ids, initially equal to the initial batch;
• empty discovered_task_ids;
• empty consolidation_mappings and consolidation_receipts;
• empty attempted_blocked;
• split_records, initialized with any startup split transaction and otherwise empty.

Do not write a batch file, claim the whole batch, or publish reservations. Queue refreshes update task state but never add ordinary task ids to the frozen batch.

Source-lineage gate

Before freezing the batch, inspect every prospective initial task's task.md and dependencies. For every approved task whose shipped code is a prerequisite, run:

python3 .agents/skills/process-inbox/scripts/workspace.py source-lineage \
  --task <task-id> [--require <explicit-source-task-id> ...]

depends_on requirements are included automatically. Pass --require for an explicit source prerequisite named in task.md that old routing failed to put in depends_on. Unfinished dependencies remain a readiness concern and appear separately; this gate checks the history of approved source work.

If any prospective task reports current_satisfies: false at this startup gate, pause before freezing, starting, retrying, resuming, or switching branches. Report the current branch, missing source task ids, unavailable commits, and compatible local branches, then ask the human whether to rebase, bring the commit, switch the checkout, or change scope. Never create or route an integration task, and never cherry-pick, rebase, merge, or switch branches at this startup boundary. The exception is an already-active task whose saved artifacts prove Phase 1 completed: it has crossed the task boundary, so resume the performer and let the after-Phase-1 rule publish the task-local Block.

After the batch is frozen, rerun the same gate immediately before each Start, Retry, or pre-Phase-1 resume. A mismatch first found here is recoverable queue routing, not a task blocker: while the selected task has not completed Phase 1, switch this checkout to a compatible existing local branch and continue the same frozen batch. Require a clean source checkout and submodules, no owned or disposable task overlay, no exact checkout executable, no source recovery refs for work already begun, and verify with git worktree list --porcelain that the branch is not checked out elsewhere. Prefer a compatible branch appearing for the most remaining batch tasks; preserve recorded batch order. Do not create a branch or cherry-pick, rebase, or merge. After git switch, refresh queue, rerun source-lineage and source-preflight, then Start/Retry or resume. If no safe compatible local branch exists, stop and ask the human.

Mode 1: resume active work, then drain the selected snapshot

If own_in_progress contains this checkout's active task, choose active mode and record that task id first. Then append the same queue tail that Mode 2 would record from the startup snapshot:

• every own blocked and legacy-reserved task, regardless of the hint;
• every unclaimed task under no hint or a preference, ordered with preferred matches first;
• only matching unclaimed tasks under a restrictive hint.

Record dependency-waiting tasks too. Finish the active task to an approved, genuinely blocked, split-required, or global-hard-stop boundary, route any split before continuing, then continue through ready recorded tasks one at a time. Only an explicit request to run just the active task produces a one-item active batch.

Mode 2: drain the existing queue snapshot

When there is no active or split-required task but any own_blocked, own_todo, or unclaimed_todo task exists, choose queue mode. Record:

• every own blocked and legacy-reserved task, regardless of the hint;
• every unclaimed task under no hint or a preference, ordered with preferred matches first;
• only matching unclaimed tasks under a restrictive hint.

Record tasks even when their dependencies are not yet approved. They may become ready as earlier batch members finish. The existence of any queue task selects this mode before a restrictive hint filters unclaimed ids; an empty filtered batch stops normally without processing the inbox.

Never invoke process-inbox in active or queue mode, including after the recorded batch drains.

Mode 3: bootstrap from the inbox

Choose inbox mode only when own_in_progress, own_split_required, own_blocked, own_todo, and unclaimed_todo were all empty in the initial snapshot. Work owned by another checkout is not work this checkout can drain and does not enter its batch.

If inbox_nonempty is false, record an empty batch and proceed to normal stop. If it is true, spawn one inbox worker with fork_turns: "none".

Give the worker the source checkout path and instruct it to read and use .agents/skills/process-inbox/SKILL.md completely. It owns exactly one inbox transaction, may use the bounded planner delegation required by that skill, must not implement tasks, and must return the receipt and created ids.

Wait in intervals no longer than 60 seconds. A timeout is not failure. Inspect the saved target after every wake and validate the receipt plus refreshed queue before proceeding. Record as the initial batch exactly the actionable task ids routed by that receipt, whether newly created or reused. Never launch a second inbox worker in this invocation. If it cannot publish durable AI state, stop with the inbox transaction recoverable.

Inbox content that appears or remains after this startup transaction is left untouched for the next $continue or /continue invocation.

Drain only the frozen batch

Refresh queue JSON after every delegated operation and state transition. A task that appears in a later refresh but is absent from batch_task_ids is not eligible in this invocation. Do not substitute it when a batch task is claimed concurrently, blocked by an external dependency, or otherwise unavailable.

Before publishing any new canonical Start commit, require a clean Telegram source checkout with clean submodules and no unrelated untracked files. The one exception is the checkout-owned first replacement whose carried_from field and source split.yaml designate it as the implementation carrier: start it with the retained source state intact, and let the helper revalidate the sealed worktree before transferring task refs. Do not require a Telegram executable, portable account, desktop, Docker daemon, or other instrument before assessment selects it. The performer gates every selected instrument before using it and records an unavailable platform or stage precisely instead of preventing unrelated task work from starting.

1. Resume active batch work

If this checkout has an in-progress task whose id is in batch_task_ids, select it and spawn one performer. Its task-scoped dirty AI artifacts are the resumption handoff. There must be at most one active task. Stop on an active task outside the batch instead of silently expanding the batch or stealing ownership.

2. Start a carried implementation

Otherwise select the first ready checkout-owned todo task in batch_task_ids whose carried_from field names a retired split task. It must be the first replacement and match that task's implementation_carrier. Start it with the normal helper command. The helper verifies the source worktree seal, transfers the old task's base/green/run refs, publishes the carrier's canonical Start, and removes the obsolete refs. If any check fails, hard-stop with both the carrier and retained source state intact; do not start another batch task around it.

3. Retry recorded blocked work

Otherwise select the first ready task in own_blocked whose id is in batch_task_ids and not in attempted_blocked. Readiness means every dependency is approved. Reopen it locally:

python3 .agents/skills/process-inbox/scripts/workspace.py retry \
  --task <YYYY/MM/DD/slug> [--require <explicit-source-task-id> ...]

This preserves its ownership, source recovery refs, plans, reviews, tests, result, and evidence while changing the slot worktree back to local in-progress. It publishes no Resume commit. Spawn its performer at the first incomplete validated boundary.

Add the id to attempted_blocked only if the performer later publishes a genuine new Block boundary under the validation below. A test-campaign cap, TEST_FLAW, blank/missing evidence, or another recoverable harness failure is not genuine and does not consume this invocation's blocked retry.

4. Start recorded reserved work

Otherwise select the first ready legacy todo task already owned by this checkout whose id is in batch_task_ids, and start it:

python3 .agents/skills/process-inbox/scripts/workspace.py start \
  --task <YYYY/MM/DD/slug> [--require <explicit-source-task-id> ...]

The resulting canonical Start commit changes it to in-progress. Leave legacy reservations with unfinished dependencies untouched and consider later ready batch work.

5. Start recorded shared work

Otherwise select the first ready unclaimed todo task whose id is in batch_task_ids, using the order recorded at startup. Start it with the same helper command. start atomically assigns and activates the task, then publishes its canonical Start commit before source work begins.

A concurrent start may mean another checkout won the task. Never overwrite shared state or replace it with a task outside the batch; refresh and continue with another recorded id.

6. Stop normally

Stop when none of these batch-scoped conditions exist:

• this checkout's active batch task;
• a ready recorded carried implementation;
• a ready recorded blocked task not attempted in this invocation;
• a ready recorded legacy-reserved task;
• a ready recorded unclaimed task.

Recorded tasks still waiting on dependencies outside the batch, tasks won by another checkout, and a blocked task already attempted in this invocation remain visible in the final summary but do not cause a busy loop. Tasks added by another inbox run, checkout, or user after the startup snapshot are outside the batch and wait for the next invocation.

Do not process or wait for the inbox at this point.

Immediately before this normal stop, run the housekeeping command once:

python3 .agents/skills/process-inbox/scripts/workspace.py archive-stale

It publishes one canonical Archive <slug> commit for every project whose tasks are all approved and whose newest task is older than its threshold, after rewriting the project's relative links for the deeper path. Skip this housekeeping on any global hard stop. Only routing new work to an archived project restores it, through the helper's unarchive command; nothing un-archives on a timer.

Spawn one performer

Spawn exactly one performer for the selected task with fork_turns: "none" and a unique tool-valid name. Tell it:

Use .agents/skills/perform-task/SKILL.md completely.
Source checkout: <source_root>
AI slot worktree: <slot_worktree>
Checkout tag: <checkout_tag>
Task: <task-id>
Own this task until it is approved, genuinely blocked, split-required, or
reaches a global hard stop. You may use the bounded leaf delegation required by
the skill. Do not select or start another task.

The performer is stateful. Never duplicate it. Poll at no more than 60-second intervals, distinguish progress from completion using its task artifacts, and follow up with the same target if it becomes idle before a valid boundary.

After it returns, require one of:

• source checkout clean at the recorded run tip and task approved on canonical AI master;
• source checkout clean and task exceptionally blocked on canonical master, with exact unverified behavior;
• task split-required on canonical AI master with work/split-proposal.md and work/carried-work.json, leaving every retained source change and task ref sealed for transfer; or
• a clearly reported global hard stop, leaving the task in-progress and all task-scoped local state recoverable for the next invocation.

A rescope result stops task performance and is not retried, approved, blocked, or routed as an ordinary discovered follow-up. The performer's publication is the durable request for the scheduler-owned transaction below; it is not permission to delete source or flatten several successors into one alias.

Route a split-required result

When a batch performer publishes split-required, immediately spawn one fresh split worker with fork_turns: "none". Give it source_root, slot_worktree, checkout_tag, the source task id, and the current ordered batch. Tell it not to delegate and to read .agents/skills/continue/references/split-required-task.md completely. It may inspect Telegram source and edit/publish AI task, project, dependency, and receipt state; it must not edit, reset, stash, commit, build, or test Telegram source.

Validate its canonical Split <source-id> result and refreshed queue. Replace the source id in batch_task_ids at its existing position with the ordered replacement ids, removing duplicates; leave initial_batch_task_ids unchanged. Append the source, replacements, carrier, and receipt to split_records. The replacements are part of this invocation because they replace an existing batch member, not because later queue refreshes normally expand the frozen batch.

When a carrier exists it must be first, checkout-owned todo, and name the source in carried_from; select it through the carried-implementation step before any blocked, reserved, or shared task. Starting it performs the sealed source-ref transfer. When no carrier exists, all replacements are ordinary unclaimed todo. A split publication race is retried normally. A semantic conflict, unavailable remote, changed worktree seal, or incoherent carrier is a global hard stop with the source result and implementation left recoverable.

Before accepting a canonical test block, read work/result.md and work/test.md. It is genuine only when the verdict is not TEST_FLAW, does not cite MAX_TEST_RUNS or a missing/blank capture as the blocker, and work/test.md contains ## Recovery exhaustion; the separately documented Computer Use infrastructure-unavailable verdict is the only exception to the section requirement. If an older or concurrently finishing performer published a boundary that fails this check, immediately retry it in this same invocation, keep it out of attempted_blocked, and spawn one fresh performer at the focused test-recovery boundary. Preserve all positive evidence and rerun only unmet checks. New performers cannot normally publish such a boundary because workspace.py finish enforces the same rule; this is defense for legacy state.

An interruption or environment stop never becomes a convenience Block. After a genuine Block, add the task id to attempted_blocked and continue with independent work. A source-lineage mismatch first proven after Phase 1 is such a genuine task-local Block: continue with batch tasks that do not depend on it and whose own lineage gates pass. A pre-Phase-1 lineage stop is not a Block or global hard stop; apply the safe mid-queue branch-switch rule above and resume the same performer. A dirty source checkout, a file-lock build failure that remains after perform-task exhausts the shared exact-checkout recovery, missing test account, unsafe publication conflict, or comparable global safety failure stops the loop. The first lock signature never stops the batch.

The missing test_TelegramForcePortable golden account is the only portable-folder global stop. All live/real folder combinations must be reconciled by perform-task according to the shared test-loop protocol. Computer Use being unavailable because macOS is locked is never a scheduler stop; the performer must continue with the in-binary overlay driver and artifact-based assessment.

Route discovered follow-ups

After every canonical Approve or Block, read work/result.md. Route whenever it lacks work/discovered-routed.md and either says Discovered: present or carries a non-none Unverified: value. Routing runs beside task selection, not before it: spawn the worker, then continue selecting and starting recorded batch work immediately. Keep at most one routing worker in flight, and never reach the invocation's normal stop while any routing or consolidation is unlanded. Both are unfinished work leaving the pipeline; the only difference is that Discovered: names work nobody has started and Unverified: names behavior that already shipped without proof. An approved task whose unverified behavior was never routed is exactly how coverage debt becomes invisible, so the marker file gates both.

Spawn one disposable routing worker with fork_turns: "none". Tell it to read the routing, splitting, task-path, artifact, validation, and publication rules in .agents/skills/process-inbox/SKILL.md, but not to call prepare, finalize, or abort. Its immutable input is the result, not the inbox. It must not edit Telegram source, start tasks, or implement work. Give it the current ordered batch_task_ids for the pending consolidation marker.

The worker edits and publishes through the checkout's routing worktree, never the slot: it starts from workspace.py route-ensure (which creates and syncs the routing/<tag> worktree), writes every artifact there, and publishes with workspace.py route-publish --source-task <id> --path <path> ..., which stages exactly the named paths, commits Route follow-ups from <id>, and rebases onto canonical master before pushing. The slot worktree stays untouched, so an active performer's local phase state never conflicts. After a crash, an unpublished routing commit is resumed by rerunning route-publish --source-task <id> with no paths.

The worker must deduplicate existing tasks, create independently testable unclaimed todo tasks and justified project updates, write a discovery receipt, and write the source task's routing marker. When it creates at least one task, it must also write work/consolidation-pending.md under the source task, recording the source id, newly created ids, and the post-routing batch: the scheduler's current ordered batch_task_ids followed by the newly created ids in routing order with duplicates removed. The marker is part of the routing commit and makes the separate pass resumable after a crash. It stages only those paths, commits Route follow-ups from <source-task-id>, and publishes with the workspace helper. Retry ordinary concurrent-master races; preserve a semantic conflict or unavailable-remote slot commit and stop.

Never route discovered work whose sole purpose is moving an existing commit to another branch: no backport, forward-port, cherry-pick, rebase, merge, or branch-sync task. Record that request or observation in the discovery receipt only, naming the source task and desired branch when known. A real product follow-up may depend on the source task, but depends_on carries that lineage; do not create an integration companion task.

Use this stable marker shape so a context-free worker can recover it:

# Pending task consolidation

Source: <source-task-id>
Created:
- <new-task-id>
Batch:
- <ordered-post-routing-batch-task-id>

Project assignment has a strong source-project bias. When the source task has a project, assign each discovered task to that same project by default, add it to the project index, and name the source task in depends_on whenever its shipped code or behavior is a prerequisite, even when it is already approved. State that code-lineage requirement in the new task so it is not attempted on a branch without the project changes.

Detach a discovered task to another project or to project: null only when the worker proves it remains coherent, implementable, and independently testable with the source project's changes absent or reverted. Touching shared code, serving another surface, or having a broader title is not proof: projects record feature and code lineage, not exclusive file ownership. The discovery receipt must record the concrete independence evidence. If the source project is archived, restore it before adding the task. When the source task has no project, apply the ordinary project-selection rules from process-inbox.

First apply the scope filter, before any disposition. A coverage follow-up exists to prove the source task's own change, so run the revert test on each entry: if reverting that task's diff could not change the outcome, the entry is about pre-existing behavior and no coverage task is created for it.

The same filter drops a re-run of portable behavior on a second host. An entry naming another platform survives only when the source diff carries one of the non-trivial platform-specific mechanisms pipeline.md lists for Unverified: — #ifdef or platform-API code, filesystem path semantics, process/thread/event-loop ordering, or acceptance criteria stated per platform — and the entry states a concrete reason to suspect that platform gets it wrong. Name that mechanism and that suspicion in the receipt. The bare existence of a platform-specific surface is not a suspicion.

Never route a task whose purpose is to confirm that another platform still builds or links. Every platform is built and tested before anything merges to dev or ships, so a build break surfaces there immediately and for free, while the task costs hours. This covers a dependency or submodule pin that another platform's toolchain consumes, compiler flags and their diagnostics, CMake platform branches, and ABI or symbol resolution — however the source result worded its Unverified: line, and even when a capable host is idle. Record it in the discovery receipt only.

Portable C++, localization values, layout and pure logic are verified once on any capable host: record the entry as out of scope and create no task. One implement task must not spawn a family of verify-on-each-platform successors.

Untested code the run passed on the way, a neighbouring feature, a parameter range the acceptance never named, a pre-existing bug the performer noticed: record the observation in the receipt and stop there. If it deserves work it must earn its own task on its own merits, through the ordinary discovered-follow-up planner and with its own justification — never as coverage debt attributed to a task that did not create it. This filter is what keeps a codebase far larger than the queue from generating coverage work without end.

Entries that survive the filter get exactly one of two dispositions, and the receipt records which and why:

• Routable when an available checkout or capable host can close the gap. Create an ordinary type: implement task naming the exact behavior to establish. It first measures the claim with the adaptive evidence loop. If the behavior deviates, it repairs and re-tests it in the same task. If the behavior already holds and no permanent change is warranted, it may approve as Outcome: already-satisfied with no source commit and with the measurement evidence retained.

  This disposition should be rare. pipeline.md requires a performer to close any gap its own checkout can measure by adding a test run while it still holds the context, the branch, the overlay and the build, rather than deferring it — so a routable entry means that bar slipped. Route it anyway, because the coverage is genuinely missing and the source run's context is gone, but state plainly in the receipt that the source run could have closed it in context. That sentence is the measurable signal that the pipeline is exporting its own test coverage into the queue; read a run of them as a defect to fix upstream, never as normal throughput.

• Infrastructure-limited when closing it needs something the project does not have — a second account, funded external value, real server-backed cloud state. Record it in the receipt only. Do not create a task that would be unstartable the moment it enters the queue.

Never resolve a surviving entry by deciding the behavior is probably fine. Once an entry is in scope, the disposition is about who can verify it and when, never about whether it is worth verifying. That rule governs the choice between the two dispositions; it does not override the scope filter above, which asks a different question — whether this task is the one that owes the measurement at all.

Every discovered task uses type: implement; assessment, not routing, chooses its review and evidence depth. For a coverage follow-up, write the source task's diff into it as its scope boundary, naming that task and what it changed. Its acceptance criteria must all pass the revert test against that boundary and must not enumerate a parameter range the source task never named. If a prior coverage task already measured a deviation, route only the repair with the measured expected and actual values; do not create another measurement of the same gap.

After the routing lands on canonical master and its discovery receipt validates, append only the task ids created from that result to discovered_task_ids and batch_task_ids, preserving routing order. This is the only way the frozen batch grows. Apply the same rule transitively when a discovered task later reports its own follow-ups. Deduplicated references to pre-existing tasks and unrelated tasks observed in queue refreshes do not join the batch.

Consolidate pending tasks after discovery

Whenever discovery routing publishes work/consolidation-pending.md, run one fresh consolidation pass once that routing has landed; it runs beside the next task, publishing through the routing worktree with consolidate-publish --routing, with at most one consolidation in flight. Do not run it for a receipt-only routing or a routing that only reused existing tasks. Do not reuse the performer or routing worker: spawn one disposable worker with fork_turns: "none", instruct it not to delegate, and give it source_root, slot_worktree, checkout_tag, the pending marker, and effective batch ids. Use the current frozen batch_task_ids when one exists; only recovery before a new batch is frozen uses the marker's Batch list. The marker always supplies the source task and newly created ids after scheduler context is lost.

Tell it to read .agents/skills/continue/references/consolidate-pending-tasks.md completely and own exactly one queue-wide consolidation pass. The worker may edit and publish AI task, project, and receipt state, but must not touch Telegram source, build, test, claim, start, approve, or block work. Wait and validate it like the routing worker; keep its task-description scan and merge reasoning out of the scheduler context.

A no-merge result still publishes work/consolidation-complete.md and removes the pending marker, so it cannot be repeated after a restart. A pre-commit race leaves the pending marker intact; refresh the queue, record it as attempted for this invocation, and continue without treating the optimization as a blocker. If the worker created a commit that cannot be published safely, preserve it and hard-stop exactly as for discovery routing.

Process any older pending marker whenever no consolidation is in flight, then the marker created by the newest routing, in publication order. Attempt each marker at most once per invocation.

For each published old-to-new mapping, rewrite batch_task_ids by placing the replacement at the earliest position occupied by any of its sources and removing the other source ids and duplicate replacement ids. Do not add a replacement when none of its sources was in the batch. Apply the same replacement and deduplication to discovered_task_ids; leave initial_batch_task_ids unchanged as the startup record. Append the mapping and receipt to the invocation-local consolidation records, refresh canonical state, and only then select more work.

Report

Return one compact summary: invocation mode, initial batch ids, discovered ids added to the batch, inbox receipt if processed, tasks approved, exceptionally blocked tasks with exact unverified behavior and retry status, recorded tasks left queued, unrelated new tasks deferred to the next invocation, routed discoveries, split-required sources with ordered replacements and carriers, infrastructure-limited coverage gaps recorded but not routed, consolidation no-merge results or receipts, old-to-new mappings, the net task-count saving, archived projects, any discarded interrupted-worker leftovers, elapsed time, and why the loop stopped. Make any global hard stop or unsafe state unmistakable. Never include source or AI commit hashes; task ids are the only durable locators.