| name | governed-autonomy-loop |
| category | orchestration |
| description | Turn any work-queue + any enforcement pipeline into a self-driving, self-healing, human-minimal autonomy loop with a control-systems safety envelope. A prose-defined governor closes a feedback loop over the queue, drives isolated worktree arcs to Done, is metacognitive (defers when the runtime can't support the act, escalates only when genuinely blocked, self-heals when the block clears), and NEVER performs the irreversible act itself — it delegates every merge/deploy/publish to an isolated arc gated by adversarial review + a policy gate + a server-side aggregate check. The controller is a markdown prompt interpreted fresh each tick; a thin tested shell (tick.sh) only schedules, locks, and logs. The skill SCAFFOLDS + GOVERNS a new loop instance: the invariant spine stays fixed, four adapters (tracker / irreversible-act + enforcement / runtime / partition) are per-instance, the deterministic core (scheduler, in-flight fold, reseed gate, config + denylist validation) is extracted into tested scripts, and the latent decisions stay prose with scenario evals. Generalizes the proven broomva ticket-dispatch governor (BRO-1740 + BRO-1833). USE WHEN setting up an autonomous ticket/PR/deploy loop, standing up a governor that drives a queue unattended, building a self-merging arc pipeline, adding a metacognitive control loop over background agents, or the user says "governed autonomy loop", "autonomy loop", "self-driving loop", "ticket-dispatch governor", "loopcast", "loop-caster", "set up an autonomous governor". NOT FOR a single in-session autonomous task (use /autonomous), a one-shot background watcher (use P9 wait), or a cross-session single-agent restart loop with no queue (use P12 persist) — this is the external-trigger, across-session, queue-driven, irreversible-act-gated quadrant. |
governed-autonomy-loop
Verbal incantation ("be autonomous", "merge when green") is open-loop control.
A governed autonomy loop is the closed-loop version — a controller whose
verification signals are causally independent of the agent (h ⟂ U), so
"autonomous" becomes a machine-checkable behavior instead of a hope.
This skill packages a demonstrated controller, not a described one: the reference
loop ran in production, hit two real runtime failures, degraded gracefully without
paging a human, and self-healed to close its arc — all observable in
loop-log.jsonl (broomva BRO-1740 + BRO-1833, first fully-autonomous merge
2026-07-10). It generalizes that instance into a recipe.
The latent-vs-deterministic split (the load-bearing idea)
Deterministic → tested code (scripts/) | Latent → prose (templates/runner-prompt.template.md) |
|---|
tick.sh — durable scheduler: fire-timing, flock, run-counter, quiet hours, mode decision, watchdog, child-guard | reconcile classification (merged? dead? stale?) |
loop_state.py — in-flight fold, reseed gate arithmetic, busy-guard, arc-status contract | dispatch selection (which candidate, trust-bounded) |
validate_config.py — fail-closed kill switch, DRY_RUN, num_or, partition guard | the govern/escalate judgment |
denylist_check.py — tracker write-surface coverage | the adversarial (P20) review verdict |
mine_loop_log.py — taxonomy + fixtures + drift-check from a running loop's log | the reconcile_skip reason classification (which reason to record) |
The rule: precision work with one right answer per input lives in tested code; the
model's intelligence builds the constraint that then constrains the model. The
scripts are pinned by 65 unit/integration tests + an E2E smoke.
The invariant spine vs the swappable adapters
Keep the spine verbatim (references/invariant-spine.md): the loop shape (outer
A–E + inner F), the ten binding invariants, the metacognitive gate, the
irreversible-act delegation, resumability + rot-reseed, comment-first attribution,
the trust boundary. Fill four adapters (references/adapters.md):
| Adapter | What you provide | Reference |
|---|
| Tracker | list/read/comment/transition/read-answer + the write-surface denylist | linear-server MCP + templates/denylist.linear.json |
| Irreversible-act + enforcement | the act (merge/deploy/publish) + the 3-layer gate | PR-merge + P20 + .control/policy.yaml + merge-gate.yml |
| Runtime | what pokes tick.sh on a cheap interval | launchd / systemd / cron / k8s CronJob |
| Partition | the disjoint label discriminator (N governors, one queue) | agent-ok vs life-agent-ok |
Procedure — instantiate a new loop
- Scaffold the instance dir: copy
scripts/ verbatim; copy
templates/runner-prompt.template.md and fill every {{SLOT}} for your
adapters; copy + edit templates/config.env.template (starts DRY_RUN=1).
- Author the tracker adapter: point the runner-prompt at your queue's tool
surface; write
templates/denylist.<queue>.json (full write surface + both
denylists) and run python3 scripts/denylist_check.py <that file> — it must PASS.
- Author the enforcement adapter + ship the server-side net: follow
references/server-side-net.md — copy templates/merge-gate.yml, prove it green
on one PR, THEN require it in a branch ruleset with no admin bypass.
- Wire the runtime: fill
templates/launchd.plist.template or
templates/systemd/*.template; set GAL_* env; enable it.
- Validate before arming (all offline, zero side effects):
python3 -m pytest tests/ · bash tests/smoke.sh ·
DRY_RUN=1 FORCE=1 GAL_CLAUDE_BIN=echo bash scripts/tick.sh → assert a
well-formed digest + runner_exit rc=0.
- Arm deliberately: review at least one DRY digest, then flip
DRY_RUN=0. The
first live fire is an operator decision, never an accident (DRY fails toward
observation; the kill switch fails closed).
- Dogfood the generalization: instantiate a SECOND loop (a different queue or
partition) — proving the spine/adapter factoring holds is the real test that you
skillified the pattern, not re-described the instance.
- Keep it learning (once a loop is running): periodically
mine_loop_log.py taxonomy <loop-log> — it grounds the controller in the loop's
observed behavior and exits 3 on drift (a reason the loop emits that the
skill's contract does not yet know), the signal to update loop_state + Step A.
The reference loops mine to ✓ no drift across 1,836 live decisions. See
references/live-telemetry.md.
Key parameters (config.env)
DISPATCH_ENABLED (kill switch, exactly 1) · DRY_RUN (live = exactly 0) ·
WIP_CAP · LABEL (the trust boundary — applying it authorizes code execution) ·
FIRE_INTERVAL_HOURS · RESUME_ENABLED · RESEED_TURN_CAP (context-rot bound) ·
RESEED_MAX_GENERATIONS (runaway guard). Full inline docs in the template.
Anti-rationalization
| Excuse | Reality |
|---|
| "The governor can just merge when it's green." | Then it is a bot, not a controller. The governor NEVER performs the irreversible act (invariant 4) — an isolated arc does, only behind the independent enforcement pipeline. |
| "The prose controller is enough; skip the scripts." | The scheduler + reseed gate + fail-closed config are ARITHMETIC. Latent space doing them is the bug — it silently drops a safety block. They are tested code. |
| "I'll require the individual CI jobs." | Path-filtered CI skips on docs-only PRs and blocks them forever. Require the always-runs aggregate gate instead (references/server-side-net.md). |
| "Admin bypass is fine, I'm the admin." | The arc runs as an admin identity. Admin-bypass = no gate for it. No bypass. |
| "One loop proves it." | One loop proves the instance. Instantiate a second to prove the pattern generalized. |
Validation (skill self-test)
- Deterministic core:
python3 -m pytest tests/ -q (65 tests) +
bash tests/smoke.sh (E2E DRY tick, zero side effects).
- Gate:
python3 <skillify>/scripts/skillify_check.py <this dir> --run-tests
exits 0 (SKILL.md contract + syntax-valid scripts + real unit tests).
References
references/invariant-spine.md — the fixed control-loop core + the 10 invariants.references/adapters.md — the four adapter contracts + the optional Step-F adapters.references/server-side-net.md — the mandatory checklist for autonomous acts.references/scenarios.md — the gradeable latent-decision scenarios (the run-41
defer / reseed-exhaust / merge_not_authorized cases + live-grounded ones).references/live-telemetry.md — what the reference loops actually do (mined from
1,836 live decisions), the drift check, and how to keep the skill learning.- Reference implementation: broomva
scripts/ticket-dispatch/ (BRO-1740 + BRO-1833).
Composes bstack primitives P3/P4/P5/P9/P12/P19/P20; it is the concrete realization
of P19's external-trigger + across-session cube cell.
