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Merge pull request 'Playbooks 07 and 08: the five rules from the delivery-time audit' (#375) from playbooks/07-08-time-sinks into main

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Reviewed-on: #375
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jschoubben
2026-10-16 12:24:07 +00:00
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00-META/glossary.md
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@@ -434,6 +434,9 @@ planner, the rollout). **Downstream of** Module, Core, Health and repair and Dat
- **delivery group** — two or more deliveries sharing a pull request head branch name across the mesh's
repositories, delivered as one unit in an order declared (`after:`) or inferred by the planner. One
level: a group holds deliveries, never groups. Its state is derived from its members, never set.
- **release branch** — a branch other than `main`, shared by name across repositories, that collects a feature's
merged work and is brought into `main` as one delivery (design 57's `feat/57-config-and-provisioning`). While it
is in flight, a change that touches its files waits for it (playbook 07, *Is the coast clear?*).
- **delivery plan** — what a delivery does to the mesh: its **build plan** (the modules it moves and
their dependents, in tiers), its **deploy plan** (per node, what it receives and what waits for a
person) and its verdict (the composed nodes, the replays). Computed by the controller's planner from a
@@ -752,6 +755,7 @@ renaming one sense, the old sense moves to a *Not:* line and becomes mechanical.
| release | a person letting a held delivery go on | **release** | Change and delivery |
| | taking a consumer off a licence | **unbind** (verb `release`, to rename) | Identity and access |
| | a copy of a work an engine can fetch | **media release** | Media |
| | a branch brought into `main` as one delivery | **release branch** | Change and delivery |
| gate | the judgement on a delivery's first node | **first-node gate** | Change and delivery |
| | the pull request status | **merge gate** | Change and delivery |
| | a failed step stopping its module's later steps (ADR 0136) | *a failed step holds its module* | Placement |
00-META/process/07-feature-branches.md
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@@ -21,6 +21,16 @@ A small fix (one repository, one issue, about an hour of work) follows
undelivered for a day: an issue done at 21:09 was still not on the machines at 15:00 the next day.
- **Work that waits and nobody notices.** Most lost time was not work at all, but a check, a delivery plan
or an agent waiting on something that had stopped, unseen.
- **Review that keeps hardening.** One fix went through seven review rounds in five and a half hours, each
asking for more hardening than its issue asked (issue 704, 2026-10-14). A round is for what makes the
change wrong; everything else is an issue of its own.
- **The first check after the whole branch is written.** A feature's catalogue branch, pushed once after
hours of local work, met its first check on 2026-10-16 and failed on 29 problems, TypeScript errors among
them, that a unit suite run continuously while working finds at once.
- **A green pull request nobody marks.** An approved, green pull request that was not marked ready waited
12 h 17 min for someone to merge it (mesh-catalog #300, 2026-10-14).
- **A module proven only after it reached the machines.** The mail modules were delivered with unit tests
only, then failed live three times (issues 859, 865, 868) and took five more hours of fixes.
## The shape
@@ -104,13 +114,40 @@ never into the running one, unless it blocks the running one.
It says which round it is in ("round 1 of at most 3").
3. **The report goes to the same fixing agents** that wrote the code, continued by their ids, so they fix
with the context they already hold. Each answers the reviewer: what it changed, per finding, or why not.
4. **The reviewer reads the answers and the new commits**, and approves or reports again. From round 2 it
asks changes only for a finding that makes the feature wrong; smaller points become issues of their own.
After round 3 the lead stops and brings the operator what is left, with a recommendation.
4. **The reviewer reads the answers and the new commits**, and approves or reports again (step 5 says what a round
may ask). After round 3 the lead stops and brings the operator what is left, with a recommendation.
5. **A finding outside the issues' done-when is never a change asked, in any round.** More hardening, a
further case, a nicer form: the reviewer opens it with `issue-tracker.open` and names the number in its
report, and the round does not wait for it. What a round asks is only what makes the change wrong against
its issues and its decisions.
## Is the coast clear?
Before the push of phase 3 (and of a small fix, playbook [08](08-small-fixes.md) step 5), the lead checks, for every
repository the change touches, whether a **release branch** is in flight there: a branch other than `main` that
collects a feature's merged work to bring it into `main` as one delivery.
1. **Look for one.** A pull request into `main` whose head is a release branch (`gitea.gitea_open_pulls`), a
release branch holding merged work that `main` does not have yet (`git log origin/main..origin/<branch>`), or
a delivery plan of that release branch still running (`mesh-controller.plans`).
2. **Compare the files.** `git diff --name-only origin/main...origin/<release branch>` against the files the
change touches.
3. **Overlap: hold.** If the release branch touches a file the change touches, nothing is pushed into that repository
until the release branch's delivery plan is done. Then the feature branch is brought up to the new `main`, the unit
tests run again, and the push follows. The hold is on the wait list (its bound: the release branch's delivery plan),
and is said to the operator with what the change waits for.
4. **No overlap: go on.** A release branch in another repository, or one that shares no file with the change, does not
hold it; its merge joins the merge window as any other (ADR 0276).
Merging beside a release branch still in flight would make its lead resolve someone else's conflicts in the
middle of it, and could send part of the change with its delivery (2026-10-16: the file module's
controller part touched four files feature 57's release branch also changed).
## Phase 3 — Check (no review)
1. **Push every feature branch and open one pull request per repository, together.** Pull requests in two or
1. **Push every feature branch and open one pull request per repository, together, once the coast is clear**
(above). The integration tests
run only in the merge check (the operator, 2026-10-16), never before. Pull requests in two or
more repositories that share the branch name are one delivery group (ADR 0239 §2).
Where a session pushes through the forge tool `gitea_commit` (one commit on the forge's current base), the
reviewer first confirms that commit's tree equals the reviewed one.
@@ -118,8 +155,14 @@ never into the running one, unless it blocks the running one.
second review: phase 2 reviewed this tree.
3. **A check that fails** goes back to the reviewer with the failure, for **one more cycle** of phase 2 with
the same fixing agents; then push once again.
4. **Mark each pull request ready** (`mesh/ready` and a comment `ready at <full sha>`) once the operator's word
for the feature is given; mesh-delivery merges it when its checks pass (ADR 0364).
4. **The step's acceptance is proven before it is marked ready.** A step that adds or changes a module
carries an integration test that starts the module whole, its process against the real bus and store, and
shows the step's acceptance sentence; the forge's checks run it (ADR 0391 §1, §6). Unit tests alone are not
that proof; the mesh has no end-to-end tests yet, and the lab is not used (the operator, 2026-10-16).
5. **The reviewer marks each pull request ready as soon as the acceptance is shown** (`mesh/ready` and a
comment `ready at <full sha>`, the head it approved); mesh-delivery merges it when its checks pass
(ADR 0364). The operator's word is waited for only when the step changes what the operator sees, removes
data, or needs a step only the operator's terminal can take; the lead says which before the step starts.
**One exception: a catalogue change that uses a new manifest word.** The catalogue's merge check reads
manifests with the controller the mesh runs, so the controller's pull request is merged and delivered first;
@@ -127,7 +170,8 @@ then `mesh-delivery.recheck` the catalogue's and merge it on the new verdict. Pl
## Phase 4 — Deliver
The merge starts the delivery plan: build, publish, send. The lead follows it to done
The merge starts the delivery plan: build, publish, send. A merge into a branch other than `main` is not a
delivery: no machine receives it (issue 889 while it still starts one). The lead follows it to done
(`mesh-controller.plans` with `wait` and `until: done`), then resolves the feature's issues with `fixed-by`
naming its pull requests, and removes what is left: no `feat/<slug>` branch and no `.work/<slug>` worktree
survive.
@@ -156,6 +200,8 @@ on, with when it started and its bound.
| a fixing agent's issue | 30 minutes | ask it where it stands; split or take over |
| the review | 15 minutes a round | ask the reviewer; stop at round 3 |
| a merge check | 15 minutes | read the build queue (`mesh-controller.queue`) and the check's log |
| the ready mark | 15 minutes after the acceptance is shown | the reviewer marks it, or the lead does |
| a release branch in flight that shares files | its delivery plan done | report it every ten minutes; bring the branch up to `main` after |
| a merge after ready | 5 minutes after the checks pass | read `mesh-delivery.show` for the delivery |
| a delivery plan | its class's budget (`mesh-delivery.times`), at most 30 minutes | read `mesh-controller.plans`, then `mesh-delivery.stalled` |
@@ -200,6 +246,13 @@ lead prepares a `/clear` as the mesh's instruction "prepare before clear" says:
feature's phase, its branches and heads, the context files' paths, the agents' ids, the wait list and the
next action; then the prompt the operator pastes. The context files make the feature resumable after a clear.
## Issues that stop
An issue stays in `fixing` only while an agent works on it. A step that stops, for a wait past its bound, a
hand-over, or the session's end, moves each of its issues not delivered back to `open` with
`issue-tracker.move` and a note saying how far it got (its branch, its last commit, what is left). A list of
issues in `fixing` that nobody works on reads to the operator as stuck work.
## How it is checked
- A feature's issues show their commits on the feature branch (`git log --grep 'issue <n>'`), and no pull
@@ -209,6 +262,14 @@ next action; then the prompt the operator pastes. The context files make the fea
- After a feature's delivery, `git branch -r | grep feat/<slug>` and `git worktree list` return nothing for it.
- More than one open pull request in a repository that share no feature name, or a feature step whose issues
stay in `fixing` for more than a working day, is the smell: stop and bring it to the operator.
- A review report that asks a change outside the issues' done-when, or a fourth round, is the failure of the
review rules; `issue-tracker.list` with `flag: abandoned` lists issues left in `fixing` with nobody on them.
- A pull request reviewed and green but not marked ready for more than 15 minutes is a lead that did not
mark it.
- A pull request opened into a repository whose release branch was in flight and shared a file with it is the failure of
*Is the coast clear?*; the lead's report names the check it made before the push.
- A step that adds or changes a module marked ready with no integration test that starts the module whole is
the failure of phase 3's fourth step.
- A bed run from `.work/<slug>/mesh-lab` that fails naming a `.work/<slug>/<repo>/…` path it cannot find is a
missing sibling worktree, not a mesh fault.
00-META/process/08-small-fixes.md
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@@ -31,22 +31,34 @@ one delivery**. Everything before the push is local and fast.
Commit, naming the issue. For a playbook or design edit, run the repository's own checks (in hq,
`sh merge-check.sh`).
4. **One review of the local commit, before anything is pushed** (a reviewer that did not write it, larger
model; at most 3 rounds, as playbook 07; from round 2 only what is wrong). The reviewer's findings go back to the same agent that wrote the fix, continued by
model; at most 3 rounds, as playbook 07; from round 2 only what is wrong; a finding outside the issue's
done-when is opened as an issue of its own, never asked as a change). The reviewer's findings go back to the same agent that wrote the fix, continued by
its id, so the fix keeps its context. A playbook or design edit of a few lines may skip the reviewer: the
operator's word on the pull request is its review.
5. **Push once and open the pull request.** The forge's merge checks run the integration tests. A failed check
operator's word on the pull request is its review, and the lead marks it ready on that word.
5. **Push once and open the pull request, once the coast is clear** (playbook [07](07-feature-branches.md), *Is
the coast clear?*: no release branch in flight in the repository that shares a file with the fix). The forge's merge
check runs the integration tests, the only
place they run (the operator, 2026-10-16). A failed check
goes back to the same agent with the failure, and the reviewer reads only the change it makes.
6. **Mark it ready** (`mesh/ready` and `ready at <full sha>`) once the operator's word is given; mesh-delivery
merges it when its checks pass.
6. **The reviewer marks it ready at once** (for an edit that skipped the reviewer, the lead, on the
operator's word) (`mesh/ready` and `ready at <full sha>`, the head it approved);
mesh-delivery merges it when its checks pass. A fix to a module that changes how it runs carries an
integration test starting the module whole against the real bus and store, run by the forge's checks
(ADR 0391 §1, §6); unit tests alone are not that proof, and the lab is not used. The operator's word is waited for only when the fix changes what the operator sees, removes data,
or needs the operator's terminal.
7. **Follow its delivery plan to done** (`mesh-controller.plans` with `wait` and `until: done`), prove the fix on
the mesh (the symptom gone, measured), and resolve the issue with `located-in` and `fixed-by` the same hour.
A fix that stops before its delivery moves its issue back to `open` with a note saying how far it got
(branch, last commit, what is left), as playbook [07](07-feature-branches.md) says.
## Bounds
| Waiting on | Bound | Past the bound |
|---|---|---|
| building the fix | 1 hour | it is a feature: stop and plan it under playbook 07 |
| the review | 15 minutes | ask the reviewer where it stands |
| the ready mark | 15 minutes after the review approved | the reviewer marks it, or the lead does |
| the merge check | 15 minutes | read `mesh-controller.queue` and the check's log |
| the merge after ready | 5 minutes after the checks pass | read `mesh-delivery.show` for the delivery |
| the delivery plan | its class's budget (`mesh-delivery.times`), at most 30 minutes | read `mesh-controller.plans`, then `mesh-delivery.stalled` |
@@ -63,3 +75,8 @@ reading itself and uses one subagent only for the review.
- A small fix has one pull request with one or few commits naming its issue, opened after its review: a pull
request with many heads is a fix reviewed after its push.
- Its issue moves to `resolved` within the hour its delivery plan ends.
- A pull request reviewed and green but unmarked
for more than 15 minutes, a fix to a module's running marked ready with no integration test of the module whole, or a review report
asking a change outside the issue's done-when, is the failure of steps 4 to 6.
- An issue in `fixing` with nobody on it shows in `issue-tracker.list` with `flag: abandoned`; a stopped fix
moves it back to `open` with its note.