| name | overnight-plan-artifact-placement-drift-reconciliation |
| description | Reconcile overnight planning waves where Claude workers advance GitHub issue state but the expected plan/review artifacts are missing from the designated external worktree because the worker wrote from a sandbox/in-repo worktree and pushed directly to the branch. |
| version | 1.0.0 |
| author | Hermes Agent |
| category | workspace-hub-learned |
| tags | ["overnight","planning","claude","worktree","github","artifact-drift"] |
Overnight plan artifact placement drift reconciliation
Use when:
- overnight Claude planning workers were launched from an external worktree
- the worker claims success and GitHub labels/comments advanced
- expected
docs/plans/... or scripts/review/results/... files are missing from the original worktree
- you suspect the worker used a sandbox worktree or pushed directly to the remote branch
Symptom pattern
Typical signals:
- worker output says an issue is now
status:plan-review
- GitHub issue comments contain plan/review summaries
- local external worktree does not contain the claimed plan/review artifacts
git status in the external worktree does not reflect the worker's claimed changes- a branch tip exists on origin that your local worktree has not incorporated
What happened
Claude may execute from an in-sandbox checkout (for example under .claude/worktrees/...) rather than the external /mnt/local-analysis/worktrees/... path you launched from. It can still push a valid commit to the intended branch and update GitHub issue labels/comments, leaving the original external worktree stale.
This is not necessarily worker failure. It is artifact-placement drift.
Verification order
Do NOT trust only local file existence. Verify in this order:
- GitHub live state
gh issue view <issue> --json labels,comments,url,title- confirm whether
status:plan-review or status:plan-approved actually changed
- confirm the latest issue comment references the claimed plan path and review verdicts
- Remote branch state
git ls-remote --heads origin <branch>- capture the branch SHA the worker claims to have pushed
- Remote commit contents
git show --stat <sha>- confirm exact plan/review artifact paths in the pushed commit
- if needed:
git show <sha>:docs/plans/<file> and git show <sha>:scripts/review/results/<file>
- Local external worktree state
- only after steps 1-3, check whether the files exist locally
- if they do not exist locally but do exist in the remote commit, classify as placement drift
Decision rule
Classify outcomes as:
- Clean success: GitHub + remote commit + local worktree all agree
- Artifact-placement drift: GitHub + remote commit agree, local worktree missing/stale
- Worker failure: GitHub did not advance and no remote commit contains the claimed artifacts
- Governance drift: labels advanced but artifact evidence is incomplete or inconsistent
Recovery actions
If placement drift is confirmed:
- Do not rerun the planning worker immediately.
- Record the remote SHA and exact artifact paths.
- Reconcile the external worktree by fetching/resetting, cherry-picking, or rebuilding the worktree from the updated branch.
- Only after reconciliation should you launch implementation from those plans.
- In status reporting, say: "GitHub state verified; artifact placement drift detected; local worktree reconciliation required."
Why this matters
Without this check, you can mistakenly conclude:
- the worker failed when it actually succeeded remotely
- the plan is missing when it exists on the branch
- the next implementation wave can start from a stale worktree
Minimal command bundle
gh issue view 2463 --json labels,comments,url,title
git ls-remote --heads origin nightly/2460-2465-planwave
git show --stat <sha>
git show <sha>:docs/plans/<expected-plan>.md | sed -n '1,40p'
Notes
This pattern was observed in a workspace-hub overnight 4-worker planning wave where:
- issues moved to
status:plan-review
- comments were posted correctly
- some artifacts existed only in a remote branch commit from a sandbox worktree
- the original external worktree remained stale
