instar 1.3.460 → 1.3.461

package/package.json

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 {
   "name": "instar",
-  "version": "1.3.460",
+  "version": "1.3.461",
   "description": "Coherence infrastructure for self-evolving AI agents — on the Claude Code or Codex subscription you already have.",
   "type": "module",
   "main": "dist/index.js",

package/skills/instar-dev/SKILL.md

@@ -173,11 +173,19 @@ If any check fails, the commit is rejected. This is not a warning — it's a blo
 
 The pre-push gate (`scripts/pre-push-gate.js`) re-verifies at push time: any release commit whose upgrade notes claim a fix or feature must have a matching artifact in `upgrades/side-effects/`.
 
+### Phase 7 — Auto-merge on green (EVERY tier — never pause to ask)
+
+When the PR is open and CI goes green, the agent **merges it** — it does NOT pause to ask the operator "ready to merge?" / "want me to merge?". By the time CI is green, the change has already cleared every quality gate this skill enforces: the converged + approved spec (Tier 2) or the staged ELI16 + side-effects artifact (Tier 1), the side-effects review (plus the second-pass review for high-risk changes), the full instar-dev pre-commit + pre-push gates, and the complete CI suite (unit shards + integration + e2e). **Green CI = mergeable. Full stop.** Asking the operator to merge a green PR is redundant ceremony that stalls autonomous delivery — a *Structure-over-Willpower* regression this phase exists to prevent.
+
+Perform the merge with `node scripts/safe-merge.mjs <PR#> --squash --admin`. That wrapper re-imposes the requirement `--admin` removes: it waits for every check to finish, REFUSES if any check is red (and specifically confirms an e2e check ran and passed), and only then merges — so the branch-protection safety is preserved even on a behind / hot branch (no separate `update-branch` + full CI re-run needed). After the merge lands, narrate the ship via `POST /telegram/post-update` (the Agent Updates channel) — never a "ready to merge?" question in the working topic.
+
+The ONLY thing that stops the merge is a genuinely-red check **on this change**: fix it and re-run. An unrelated environmental flake (a different test failing run-to-run, a tmux/server-boot timeout, a CDN 504) is re-run (`gh run rerun --failed` or a fresh push) — never escalated to the operator as a "should I merge?" question. (Source: operator directive 2026-06-09, topic 23178 — "never pause and ask me to merge; we have enough infra in place to ensure it's good to merge by the time it gets there.")
+
 ## Tiered development (tier signal → you decide → audited)
 
 Not every change is the same size or risk, so not every change pays the same process cost. The commit gate (`scripts/instar-dev-precommit.js`) prints a **tier SIGNAL** — a suggested tier from the change's size (LOC + files) and a **risk floor** raised by any safety-invariant, irreversibility, migration/fleet-rollout, or new-capability signal (`scripts/lib/classify-tier.mjs`). The signal **informs**; it never decides. **You DECLARE the tier** in the trace via `write-trace.mjs --tier <1|2|3> --tier-reasoning "<why>"`. This is the constitution's **The Body and the Mind** made executable (`docs/STANDARDS-REGISTRY.md` → The Substrate): the gate (body) informs, the agent (mind) decides, the decision is audited.
 
-- **Tier 1 (small / low-risk):** lighter requirement set — a staged **ELI16** + a staged **side-effects** artifact, no pre-approved converged spec. Declare it with `--tier 1 --eli16-path <path> --side-effects-path <path>` (`--spec` is optional at Tier 1). The PR is the review surface, and **Echo auto-merges a clean Tier-1 on green CI** with operator spot-check.
+- **Tier 1 (small / low-risk):** lighter requirement set — a staged **ELI16** + a staged **side-effects** artifact, no pre-approved converged spec. Declare it with `--tier 1 --eli16-path <path> --side-effects-path <path>` (`--spec` is optional at Tier 1). The PR is the review surface. (Auto-merge-on-green is **not** a Tier-1 privilege — per Phase 7 it applies to EVERY tier; Tier 1 differs only in the lighter pre-merge gate, never in the merge behavior.)
 - **Tier 2+ (everything else):** the full chain above — converged + approved spec, ELI16, side-effects, fresh trace. A **Tier-3 project step** is just a Tier-2 spec; nothing extra is enforced at the gate. **No declared tier → Tier-2** (back-compatible).
 
 **The decision is audited.** Every in-scope commit appends one line to `.instar/instar-dev-decisions.jsonl` (signal, declared tier, risk floor + reasons). When you declare **under** the risk-signaled floor, the gate prints a loud `belowFloor` notice and records `belowFloor:true` — it does **not** block (you hold authority), but the override is now a reviewable record. Per **Close the Loop**, those `belowFloor` rates get reviewed on a cadence so the risk-floor list grows.

package/src/data/builtin-manifest.json

@@ -1,8 +1,8 @@
 {
   "$schema": "./builtin-manifest.schema.json",
   "schemaVersion": 1,
-  "generatedAt": "2026-06-10T03:11:13.813Z",
-  "instarVersion": "1.3.460",
+  "generatedAt": "2026-06-10T03:19:26.946Z",
+  "instarVersion": "1.3.461",
   "entryCount": 199,
   "entries": {
     "hook:session-start": {

package/upgrades/1.3.461.md

@@ -0,0 +1,30 @@
+# Upgrade Guide — vNEXT
+
+<!-- assembled-by: assemble-next-md -->
+<!-- bump: patch -->
+
+## What Changed
+
+Adds **Phase 7 — Auto-merge on green** to the `instar-dev` skill: once an instar-dev PR's CI is fully
+green, the instar-developing agent merges it via the existing `scripts/safe-merge.mjs` wrapper (which
+waits for every check, refuses on any red, and confirms the e2e job ran and passed) and narrates the
+ship via the Agent Updates channel — it no longer pauses to ask the operator "ready to merge?".
+Auto-merge-on-green now applies to **every tier**, not just Tier-1; the Tier-1 wording is corrected so
+it no longer reads as a Tier-1-only privilege. No runtime code changes — the merge mechanism and CI
+gates it relies on are unchanged. Structure-over-Willpower fix for an operator directive (never pause
+to ask for merge; the gates already guarantee mergeability by the time CI is green).
+
+## What to Tell Your User
+
+None — internal change (no user-facing surface).
+
+## Summary of New Capabilities
+
+None — internal change (no user-facing surface).
+
+## Evidence
+
+- `skills/instar-dev/SKILL.md` — new Phase 7 + corrected Tier-1 line.
+- Mechanism unchanged: `scripts/safe-merge.mjs` already re-imposes all-checks-green (incl. e2e) before
+  merging. Tier-1 instar-dev gate passed (ELI16 + side-effects + trace); this PR auto-merges on green
+  per the very phase it adds.

package/upgrades/side-effects/instar-dev-automerge-on-green.md

@@ -0,0 +1,88 @@
+# Side-Effects Review — instar-dev: auto-merge on green (every tier)
+
+**Version / slug:** `instar-dev-automerge-on-green`
+**Date:** `2026-06-09`
+**Author:** `Instar Agent (echo)`
+**Second-pass reviewer:** `not required (Tier 1 — documentation/process change to the dev skill; the merge mechanism it mandates (safe-merge.mjs + CI) is unchanged and already gated)`
+
+## Summary of the change
+
+Adds **Phase 7 — Auto-merge on green (every tier)** to `skills/instar-dev/SKILL.md`, and corrects the
+Tier-1 description so auto-merge no longer reads as a Tier-1-only privilege. The new phase mandates that
+once an instar-dev PR's CI is fully green, the agent merges it via the existing
+`scripts/safe-merge.mjs <PR> --squash --admin` wrapper and narrates the ship via `/telegram/post-update`
+— it does NOT pause to ask the operator "ready to merge?". Documentation/process change only; no runtime
+code, no new gate, no new merge mechanism (safe-merge.mjs already exists and re-imposes all-checks-green
+before merging, including an explicit e2e-ran-and-passed check). Driven by the operator directive
+(2026-06-09, topic 23178): "never pause and ask me to merge; we have enough infra in place to ensure
+it's good to merge by the time it gets there. Lets fix this via infrastructure."
+
+## Decision-point inventory
+
+- No decision point added/changed. This is a process-doc change to the instar-dev skill. The actual
+  merge safety lives in `safe-merge.mjs` (waits for all checks, refuses on any red, confirms e2e) + CI
+  branch protection — both unchanged.
+
+## 1. Over-block
+
+No block/allow surface — over-block not applicable.
+
+## 2. Under-block
+
+No block/allow surface — under-block not applicable. (The only behavior changed is removing a human
+pause AFTER green CI; the green verdict itself — the actual quality gate — is unchanged. `safe-merge.mjs`
+still refuses to merge anything not fully green.)
+
+## 3. Level-of-abstraction fit
+
+Correct layer. The fix Justin asked for is behavioral: stop pausing to ask for merge. The instar-dev
+skill is exactly where the dev-agent's process is defined, so adding Phase 7 there is the
+right-altitude structural fix (Structure > Willpower — the behavior is now baked into the governing
+process doc, not left to the agent "remembering" not to pause). The merge mechanism it points at
+(`safe-merge.mjs`) already existed; this just makes invoking it the mandated final step for every tier.
+
+## 4. Signal vs authority compliance
+
+- [x] No — this change has no block/allow surface (documentation/process change).
+
+## 5. Interactions
+
+- **Shadowing / double-fire:** none. `safe-merge.mjs` is idempotent-safe (it no-ops / refuses if the PR
+  isn't green or is already merged).
+- **Races:** none introduced.
+- **Existing Tier-1 auto-merge wording:** the prior line implied auto-merge was a Tier-1 privilege;
+  Phase 7 generalizes it and the Tier-1 line is corrected to point at Phase 7, so the two no longer
+  conflict.
+
+## 6. External surfaces
+
+- **Merge behavior:** the agent now auto-merges green instar-dev PRs instead of asking. This is the
+  intended change. It is bounded by CI + `safe-merge.mjs` (refuses on any red, confirms e2e ran+passed),
+  so an unsafe PR cannot be auto-merged. Ship narration moves to the Agent Updates channel
+  (`/telegram/post-update`) rather than a "ready to merge?" question in the working topic.
+- **Migration Parity:** this updates the **instar-dev DEV skill** — used only by the instar-developing
+  agent (Echo / a dev-assigned agent), not an end-user feature skill. Per the known skill-install gap
+  (the root `skills/` dir, including `instar-dev`, is not synced by `installBuiltinSkills()` and has no
+  PostUpdateMigrator path — a separately-tracked issue), the canonical source change here reaches the
+  repo; the installed-copy sync for dev agents rides that pre-existing gap. The authoring agent updates
+  its own installed `.claude/skills/instar-dev/SKILL.md` directly so the behavior is live immediately.
+  A general fix to dev-skill sync is out of scope (it is the standing skill-install-gap project).
+- **No config / CLAUDE.md template / hook / route change.** No persisted state.
+
+## 7. Rollback cost
+
+Pure documentation revert — revert the PR; the skill returns to the Tier-1-only auto-merge wording. No
+data migration, no runtime impact, no agent-state repair.
+
+## Conclusion
+
+A focused Structure-over-Willpower fix for the operator's directive: auto-merge-on-green becomes the
+mandated final phase for every instar-dev tier, removing the redundant "ask to merge" pause while
+leaving the actual merge-safety mechanism (`safe-merge.mjs` + CI) untouched. Tier 1 (doc/process change
+to the dev skill); second-pass not required. It will be auto-merged on green per the very phase it adds.
+
+## Second-pass review (if required)
+
+**Reviewer:** not required — Tier-1 documentation/process change to the dev skill; no block/allow,
+session-lifecycle, sentinel/guard/gate, or recovery-path code is modified. The merge mechanism
+(`safe-merge.mjs`) and CI gates it relies on are unchanged.