deploy-gate

name	deploy-gate
description	The GATED deploy + cleanup flow for a NexusTrade live book — clone the finalist, preview a delta reconcile, stage UNAPPROVED orders, verify fills. Use ONLY after the human explicitly says "deploy + clean up" and names a finalist. Covers the clone-before-reconcile ordering, the single-tick reconcile expectation, stale-pending-order hygiene, the signal-freshness gate, and why you can never approve orders yourself. Nothing here runs during certification.
license	MIT
metadata	{"author":"Austin Starks","version":"1.0.0","created":"2026-07-03T00:00:00.000Z","last_reviewed":"2026-07-03T00:00:00.000Z","review_interval_days":90}
activation	/deploy-gate
provenance	{"maintainer":"Austin Starks","source":"public-portfolio-challenge episode-10 / episode-11 runbooks"}

Deploy Gate (Stage E — GATED)

Nothing deploys and no orders are placed until the human explicitly says "deploy + clean up" and names the specific finalist. This skill only runs then. Goal: make the live positions equal a fresh deploy of the chosen finalist today via delta trades (don't round-trip overlaps).

Pre-deploy gates (hard)

0. Signal-freshness gate. A finalist whose alt-data series does not extend to the present with a working refresh path may NOT deploy, whatever its cert says — a stale rank series is a dead book.
1. Stale pending orders FIRST. Check the live book for pending/Pending User Approval → Canceled orders — they block new staging. Surface them; the human cancels in the UI. Note automaticOrderApproval state (default: leave as-is unless told to flip it at deploy).

The five steps

1. Clone the finalist onto the live book FIRST — clone_strategies_to_portfolio (source = finalist, target = live book), then field-verify the clone. This IS the "deploy": it sets the live book's strategies that the next step reconciles against. reconcile_portfolio_to_strategy has no strategy_source arg — it reconciles the live book against its own strategies, so the clone must happen first. If the finalist is the already-deployed live book unchanged, no clone is needed — say so.
2. Reconcile preview — reconcile_portfolio_to_strategy({ portfolio_id: "<live>", mode: "delta" }). Preview-only — it never places orders. Returns target, current, orders (already in create_orders shape), estimated cost, realized P&L, and wash-sale flags. Expect a single-tick target — the live strategy accretes the rest over daily rebalances. Say so; don't re-diagnose it as a bug.
3. Show the human the preview and get explicit approval. Sanity-check: orders touch only the delta (overlaps untouched), costs sane, target == a fresh deploy, and — for a participation fix — the target spans multiple names, not just one.
4. Stage the orders — create_orders({ portfolio_id: "<live>", orders: <the orders array from step 2> }). Staged UNAPPROVED; the tool never submits to the broker. The human approves them manually in the NexusTrade UI — there is no approval tool and you cannot approve them. Options auto-stage as LIMIT.
5. Verify after fills — re-run the reconcile preview; the delta orders array should be ~empty. Report fills, any remainder, realized P&L, wash-sale flags, and the resulting live participation (distinct names held).

Rules

• Default mode: "delta". Only use "liquidate_all" if the human explicitly asks for a clean cost-basis reset.
• Never run this without an explicit go for that specific finalist.
• Discover the live target via fetch_portfolios when it isn't already pinned in the run — never hardcode a live portfolio id you haven't confirmed by field/posture.
• On sign-off, re-attach any weekly monitor agent the deploy expects.