path: root/.ai/workflows/sentry.org

#+TITLE: Sentry — Overnight Hygiene Supervisor
#+AUTHOR: Craig Jennings
#+DATE: 2026-07-19

* Overview

Sentry is an interval loop that keeps a project's hygiene current while Craig is away. Each fire walks a fixed list of passes — roam pull, inbox zero, triage (no mail or messengers), todo cleanup, task audit, working-files hygiene, spec board, link integrity, git health, prep freshness, bug and refactor finding, and (opt-in) solo-task implementation — and commits each pass's writing to a throwaway daily branch. Nothing pushes. In the morning Craig reviews the branch, squash-merges what he wants, and deletes it.

The design goal is a project that greets the morning already tidy, with every judgment call and every destructive action parked in an approval queue rather than executed unattended. Sentry does the mechanical sweeping; Craig does the deciding.

This file is the engine. It owns the entry gates, the branch mechanics, the lock model, the per-fire pass runner, the digest and approval queue, the skip semantics, and the stop-sentry shutdown. The =agent-lock= helper (=.ai/scripts/agent-lock=) provides the locks. The passes reuse existing workflows (=inbox.org=, =triage-intake.org=, =clean-todo.org=, =task-audit.org=) under sentry's unattended contract.

* When to Use This Workflow

Craig arms sentry at the end of a session, with the machine left running, to have overnight hygiene done by morning.

Triggers:

- "start sentry", "run sentry", "arm sentry", "sentry mode"
- "let sentry watch this overnight", "keep this tidy overnight"
- "start sentry hourly", "start sentry every <interval>" (sets the loop interval)

Stop trigger (see Stop Sentry below):

- "stop sentry", "stand down sentry", "sentry off"

Sentry is deliberately *not* auto-armed. Running it in a project is a per-project grant (the =:COMMIT_AUTONOMY:= marker) plus a deliberate launch with Craig at the terminal for the entry gates.

* Prerequisite — the autonomy ticket

Sentry commits unattended. =commits.md= gates commits on Craig's approval, so sentry needs standing, per-project authorization to run at all. Before anything else, read the project's =.ai/notes.org= Workflow State block for:

: :COMMIT_AUTONOMY: yes

If the marker is absent or not =yes=, decline to start and name the marker:

: Sentry needs ":COMMIT_AUTONOMY: yes" in .ai/notes.org Workflow State to run — it commits unattended. Add it to grant, or run the hygiene passes by hand.

No half-running mode: a project without the grant doesn't run sentry's read-only passes either. The grant is one line away, so this is a deliberate opt-in, not a barrier.

A second, *independent* marker gates the solo-task implementation pass (pass 12):

: :SENTRY_MAY_IMPLEMENT: yes

=:COMMIT_AUTONOMY:= lets sentry commit its hygiene sweeps to the branch; =:SENTRY_MAY_IMPLEMENT:= additionally lets it implement solo, decision-free backlog tasks on the branch. The split exists because the two carry different morning costs: hygiene is a two-minute merge, implemented code is a review session. A project can run hygiene-only sentry without the implement pass, and most should until sentry has quiet weeks behind it. Absent =:SENTRY_MAY_IMPLEMENT:=, pass 12 skips; sentry still runs every other pass. Requires =:COMMIT_AUTONOMY:= alongside it — implementing implies committing.

* Entry — interactive, with Craig present

Craig types the sentry trigger, so the first moves run with him at the terminal. Do them in order; each gate that fails stops entry until Craig answers.

1. *Autonomy ticket* — the prerequisite above. Absent → decline and stop.

2. *Dirty-tree gate.* =git diff --quiet HEAD= (tracked modifications only; untracked and gitignored files never block — an inbox drop or scratch file is not in-progress work). If the tracked tree is dirty, describe what's dirty and offer, inline-numbered per =interaction.md=:

   1. Finish the job — commit the in-progress work first (recommended if it's a coherent unit)
   2. Stash it — =git stash= and start sentry on a clean tree
   3. Roll back named changes — discard specific files (names them)

   Wait for an answer. Sentry can't start unattended from a dirty state; that's the point.

3. *Green-suite gate.* Run the project's full suite (=make test=, or the project's equivalent — detect it). Read the output. If anything is red, describe the failures and offer to investigate before arming. The loop starts only on a green baseline, because every unattended fire measures itself against "did I break this?" and a pre-existing red poisons that check.

4. *Prior sentry branch.* =git branch --list 'sentry/*'=. An unmerged =sentry/*= branch from a previous night means the morning review didn't happen. Surface it and offer to squash-merge or delete it now (Craig is present); don't stack a second sentry branch on the first.

5. *Reconcile the project branch.* Fetch and fast-forward-only against upstream — the same reconcile =startup= runs:

   : git fetch --all --prune
   : git rev-list --left-right --count @{u}...HEAD

   Zero-behind → continue. Behind-only and clean → =git merge --ff-only @{u}=. Diverged → surface to Craig (he's present); don't auto-resolve.

6. *Create the daily branch.* From HEAD:

   : git switch -c "sentry/$(date +%F)-$(uname -n)"

   The host suffix (=uname -n=) stops a same-date collision between the two daily drivers. The working tree now sits on this branch overnight — the launch hands the repo to sentry until the morning merge. Reclaiming it mid-night means stopping sentry first (see Stop Sentry). Note the Emacs buffer-revert caveat to Craig if he has the repo open: files change on disk under him overnight, so buffers want reverting after the morning merge (see =emacs.md=).

7. *Arm the loop.* Start =/loop= at the interval (default hourly; Craig's "every <interval>" phrase overrides) with the per-fire body being one sentry fire (the Pass Runner below). Confirm the arming in one line: interval, branch name, project.

* The lock model

Two locks, both served by =.ai/scripts/agent-lock= (names only; the helper owns the paths, which live on tmpfs under =$XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/agent-locks/=, host-local and cleared on reboot).

*Single-runner lock* (=sentry-<project>=, where =<project>= is the repo-root basename: =basename "$(git rev-parse --show-toplevel)"= — the same derivation =wrap-it-up.org='s guard uses, so the two agree on the lock name). Each fire acquires it at fire start and releases it at fire end, and refreshes it between passes (the heartbeat, so a live fire's lock never ages past one pass). If =/loop= fires again while a previous fire still holds it, the new fire's acquire fails and the fire skips with one digest line — no two fires run at once. The bounded wait is short (a few seconds); a live fire means defer, not queue.

*Roam-write lock* (=roam-write=). A pass that edits a file under =~/org/roam= acquires it, runs =capture-guard --wait= (the human-capture layer stays underneath), edits the working tree, triggers =systemctl --user start roam-sync.service=, and releases. The lock spans only edit-plus-trigger. Sentry never runs =git= against =~/org/roam= — roam-sync stays the repo's only committer (the 2026-06-24 one-git-owner rule). Pass 1's =pull --ff-only= is the sole, read-only exception.

Every reclaim of a stale lock surfaces in the digest — the helper prints the reclaim note, and the fire records it. A reclaim during a genuinely slow pass is possible, so it's never silent.

* The Pass Runner — one contract per pass

Each fire, after acquiring the single-runner lock and verifying branch state (below), walks the pass list in order. Every pass follows the same four-step contract:

1. *Probe* — a cheap existence check for the pass's target (named per pass below). Absent → the pass is one skip line in the digest and nothing more. This is what makes the pass list portable: passes self-activate where their target exists and stay silent elsewhere, with zero per-project configuration.

2. *Work* — run the pass under the unattended contract. Quick, solo, already-agreed mechanical actions execute. Anything destructive or requiring judgment does *not* execute — it appends to the morning-approval queue (what, why, the exact command or edit that fires on approval). A pass runs fully or not at all; there is no reduced-form pass.

3. *Session-context entry* — a pass that does or queues work appends its digest line to the =session-context.org= Session Log (path resolved via =.ai/scripts/session-context-path=) before its commit, so a crash between them still leaves the trail. Per-pass lines for an all-quiet fire (every pass probe-skipped or no-op) are not written one by one — the fire collapses to a single heartbeat at fire-end (below), so an idle fire doesn't spray one skip line per pass.

4. *Commit* — if the pass wrote to disk, commit it: =chore(sentry): <pass> — <what changed>=. One commit per writing pass. A probe-skip or a no-op pass writes nothing and commits nothing.

Between passes, refresh the single-runner lock (=agent-lock refresh sentry-<project>=) — the heartbeat.

** Branch-state verification (fire start, before the passes)

After acquiring the lock, confirm the fire is safe to run:

- *On the right branch* — HEAD is =sentry/<today>-<host>=. If the loop was armed on a prior day and crossed midnight, the branch keeps the arming date; that's fine, morning teardown handles it. If HEAD is somehow *not* a sentry branch (an interrupted stop, a manual checkout), skip the whole fire with a digest line rather than committing onto main.
- *Clean of foreign changes* — =git diff --quiet HEAD= excluding the spine set (=session-context.org= / =session-context.d/=, resolved via =session-context-path=). Sentry's own spine writes must not trip this; a genuinely unexpected dirty tree (something outside the spine changed and wasn't committed by a prior pass) poisons the fire — skip it with a digest line, the next fire retries.

* Unattended safety — skip, never degrade

With no one at the terminal, any unsafe state makes the affected scope skip with one digest line, and the next fire retries. Unsafe states and their scope:

- *Unexpected dirty tree* (non-spine) → skip the whole fire.
- *Lost or un-acquirable single-runner lock* → skip the fire (another fire holds it, or the helper is missing).
- *A pass's own precondition unmet* (its probe fails, or a dependency is dirty) → skip that pass only.
- *Red suite at fire-end* (see below) → the commits stay on the branch, flagged in the digest for morning review; the fire doesn't roll back.

Skips are never silent and never partial. Inside a *working* fire, a pass line means the pass fully ran and a skip line names why it didn't. An *all-quiet* fire is not a silent skip either: its single =sentry at HH:MM: nothing= heartbeat is the explicit record that every pass found nothing, standing in for a wall of identical skip lines. The anti-silence rule targets a pass that hides work it should have surfaced; a quiet fire has surfaced that there was none.

** Multi-day stall notification

An unmerged prior =sentry/*= branch at fire start (the morning review never happened) skips the fire. After the *second consecutive* fire skipped for this reason, send one persistent desktop notification naming the project and branch:

: sentry stalled: <branch> unmerged — merge or delete to resume

Then repeat at most daily. Persistent notify matches the paging convention — it stays on screen until dismissed. A multi-day stall never stays silent.

* The pass list (v1)

In order. Each names its detection probe. A pass whose probe fails is one skip line.

1. *Roam pull* — =git -C ~/org/roam pull --ff-only=. Probe: =~/org/roam= is a git clone. Skipped when the roam tree is dirty (roam-sync owns that case) or the clone is absent. Read-only and ff-only — the one narrow exception to "don't touch roam git," so later passes read a fresh tree.

2. *Inbox zero* — run =inbox.org= roam mode under the no-approvals contract: quick+solo+agreed items execute, shared-asset and convention proposals park (prepared diff, =VERIFY= task, sender reply) in the approval queue. Edits to =~/org/roam/inbox.org= take the roam-write lock + =capture-guard=. Probe: the roam clone or a project =inbox/= exists. Tidying the shared roam inbox is allowed from *any* project session, work included — it's housekeeping on a shared resource, not a durable KB-node write, so the work-denylist doesn't gate it (=knowledge-base.md=). Never park it as a cross-project boundary crossing.

3. *Triage intake — mail and messenger sources excluded.* Run =triage-intake.org=, loading only its non-mail, non-messenger source plugins (calendar, PR/ticketing). The mail and messenger plugins — cmail, any Gmail variant, Telegram, Signal, chat DMs — are never loaded by a sentry fire: Craig ruled 2026-07-21 that sentry doesn't check email or messengers. A manual "triage intake" still scans everything. Probe: the project has at least one *active* triage source that survives that exclusion — a project-specific plugin (=.ai/project-workflows/triage-intake.*.org=), or a non-empty =:TRIAGE_SOURCES:= declaration naming general plugins that exist. Mere presence of the template-synced general plugins does *not* activate the pass; a project that declares no sources, or whose only declared sources are mail or messengers, probe-skips (see =docs/specs/2026-07-20-triage-source-activation-spec.org=). Destructive actions (deleting, archiving, sending) queue; they never fire unattended.

4. *Todo cleanup* — the =clean-todo.org= mechanics (hygiene pass + =--archive-done= + =--convert-subtasks=). Probe: a root =todo.org=. Note that =--archive-done= is not purely an org-file pass on its first run in a project: it creates =archive/task-archive.org= and appends a =.gitignore= entry, so it produces a real tracked-file commit and correctly trips the fire-end conditional suite. (archangel, first live run 2026-07-21.)

5. *Task audit* — the *mechanical subset* of =task-audit.org= hourly (staleness counts, structural checks, cookie recomputation); the judgment half (priority regrades, consolidations, merge candidates) runs *once per night* and queues its findings rather than repeating them every fire. Probe: a root =todo.org=. A full audit every hour is too heavy and re-surfaces the same judgment calls all night. (takuzu, first live run 2026-07-21.) Factual staleness fixes that are unambiguous still execute.

6. *Working-files hygiene* — flag =working/<slug>/= directories whose backing task is closed (a filing candidate per =working-files.md=). Probe: a =working/= directory exists. The filing itself queues (it's a judgment move).

7. *Spec status board* — the =docs-lifecycle= grep for spec keywords, surfacing any =DOING= spec whose bound build parent is closed. Probe: =docs/specs/= exists.

8. *Link integrity* — broken =file:= links in the project's org files, via =lint-org.el=. Probe: =lint-org.el= present. Report-only into the digest; no unattended rewrites.

9. *Git health* — uncommitted drift, unpushed commits on other branches, stale branches, main-behind-origin. Probe: =.git=. Report into the digest.

10. *Prep + symlink freshness* — stale daily-prep docs, broken symlinks. Probe: the prep dir / symlinks exist (work and home only, in practice).

11. *Bug and refactor finding* — hunt for real bugs and worthwhile refactoring opportunities in the project's codebase: static analysis (=shellcheck= for shell, the project's own linters for its languages), config sanity checks, plus one targeted code-reading area per fire. Rotate the area across fires and name it in the digest, so coverage accumulates over a night instead of re-reading the same corner. Randomized property sweeps (generate-and-verify against an engine's own invariants) are good quiet-fire work here, reaching past a frozen test corpus. Expect the pass to go honestly quiet after the first few fires find the standing defects; a quiet hunt is a result, not a failure. (takuzu, first live run 2026-07-21: three real fixes in the first four fires, then quiet.) This pass does *not* run the test suite — the entry baseline already ran it, and re-running it hourly is anti-pattern 5; read the entry result instead. Probe: the project carries a codebase — source under version control beyond its org and tooling files. File each verified bug as a graded task in =todo.org= per the severity × frequency matrix (=todo-format.md=), and each refactoring opportunity as a =:refactor:= task, deduped against existing tasks; an unverifiable suspicion is a digest line, not a task. *Find, never fix in this pass* — the finding files a task and stops. A fix happens only in the opt-in implementation pass below, and only after the finding is a filed task that pass then re-verifies from scratch (see the premise rule there). A freshly-found "bug" can be a misread — one was filed and retracted two fires apart on 2026-07-23 — so the file-then-verify-then-fix pipeline is deliberate: the task is the checkpoint, not a same-breath fix. (Added at Craig's order 2026-07-21, first dogfooded in dotfiles; refactor-finding added 2026-07-24.)

12. *Solo-task implementation (opt-in — =:SENTRY_MAY_IMPLEMENT:=)* — work the backlog's solo, decision-free tasks on the branch. Probe: =.ai/notes.org= Workflow State carries =:SENTRY_MAY_IMPLEMENT: yes= *and* the project holds =:COMMIT_AUTONOMY:= (the implement pass commits). Absent the marker, skip — this pass is off by default, because it turns the morning from a two-minute merge into a code review, and that's the project owner's call. When on: invoke =work-the-backlog.org= under its unattended-loop contract (no pre-flight Q&A — there's no Craig overnight), eligibility =TODO= + =:solo:=, with the defer checklist deciding act-vs-file. The overnight-only tightening: only the *ready* bucket implements (clears every checklist item with zero open decisions); a task needing even one quick decision defers to a =VERIFY= rather than guessing, exactly as the loop caller already does. Commit each logical change to the sentry branch; *never push* — the morning review and merge is the gate, same as every other pass. The full quality bar holds (TDD, suite green before each commit, =/review-code=, =/voice=), and =/review-code= here runs the *premise check first*: reproduce the bug or confirm the problem is real before judging the diff. The review is the fact-checker that a filed claim never got, and it is what makes fixing-on-a-branch safe (Craig, 2026-07-24). A task that fails its premise check is not implemented — the finding was wrong, and that outcome is a digest line, not a commit. (Added at Craig's direction 2026-07-24: overnight implement-on-branch, gated and never-pushed.)

(KB lesson promotion — the pass the original proposal listed eleventh — is deferred to vNext. An unattended judgment pass writing to the shared knowledge base waits until sentry has quiet weeks behind it and a designed detection heuristic. See the filed lesson-detection-heuristic task.)

* Fire-end — conditional suite, then the digest commit

After the passes:

1. *Conditional suite run.* If any pass this fire modified files *outside* the org/spine set (a code-touching pass, rare but possible via fixtures), run the full suite once. A green run confirms the fire's commits are safe; a red run flags the digest for morning review — the commits stay on the branch (nothing is pushed, so the morning gate catches it). No per-pass suite runs: the entry run is the green baseline, and hourly per-commit runs would turn a seconds-long fire into minutes all night. Fires that only touched org/spine files skip this.

2. *Heartbeat or digest, then commit.* Decide quiet vs working. A *quiet* fire — every pass probe-skipped or no-op, nothing added to the approval queue — writes a single heartbeat line to the Session Log, =sentry at HH:MM: nothing= (HH:MM local, from =date=), and no per-pass digest block. A *working* fire — any pass ran, wrote, or queued — writes its full per-pass digest block. Then commit any accumulated spine writes in one sweep: =chore(sentry): digest — <date> <time> fire= for a working fire, =chore(sentry): heartbeat — <date> <time>= for a quiet one, so even a quiet fire leaves a clean tree for the next branch-state check (where the spine is untracked, the mirror-only case, there is nothing to commit and the heartbeat line stays in the working-tree anchor). This is the silent-until-signal policy (see =docs/specs/2026-07-20-silent-until-signal-monitors-spec.org=): an all-quiet night collapses from a wall of no-op digests to a list of one-line heartbeats, while a fire that actually did or queued something still writes the full record.

3. *Release the single-runner lock.*

* The digest and the approval queue

*Digest.* A *working* fire appends its block to the =session-context.org= Session Log (the spine the fire already writes), so it survives a crash, rides the session archive, and is on screen in the running session. One block per working fire: the timestamp, then one line per pass (ran + what, or skipped + why), plus any lock reclaim notes. A *quiet* fire (nothing done or queued) writes no block — just the one heartbeat line =sentry at HH:MM: nothing= (the silent-until-signal policy). The per-pass block is a working-fire artifact; it still carries one line per pass so a real skip inside a working fire is never hidden.

*Approval queue.* Destructive and judgment actions accumulate under one heading in the same file — =* Sentry approval queue (<date>)= — newest last. Each item carries three things: *what* (the action), *why* (what triggered it), and the *exact command or edit* that fires on approval. The morning review is Craig reading this heading top to bottom and running or discarding each item.

* Morning teardown — Craig's, documented not automated

Sentry never merges its own branch. In the morning Craig:

1. Reviews the digest and the approval queue in =session-context.org=.
2. Runs or discards each approval-queue item.
3. Reviews the branch: =git log main..sentry/<date>-<host>= and the diff.
4. Squash-merges what he wants (=git switch main && git merge --squash sentry/<date>-<host>=, then one clean commit) or cherry-picks selectively.
5. Deletes the branch: =git branch -D sentry/<date>-<host>=.
6. Reverts any Emacs buffers still showing the pre-merge on-disk state (=emacs.md= buffer-revert caveat).

A bad night is discarded by deleting one branch — nothing reached main, nothing was pushed.

In a project that gitignores =.ai/=, the whole spine is untracked, so quiet fires produce no commits at all and =git log main..sentry/<date>-<host>= understates the night's activity. There the anchor's heartbeat list is the only record of what fired. Read the anchor, not just the log. (archangel, first live run 2026-07-21.)

* Stop Sentry

Trigger: "stop sentry" (and synonyms above). Sentry owns its own shutdown:

1. *Cancel the loop* — stop the =/loop= (=ScheduleWakeup= stop / the loop's stop path). No further fires.
2. *Release the single-runner lock* if this context holds it.
3. *Branch disposition* — offer, inline-numbered:
   1. Squash-merge the day's branch into main now (walk the morning teardown steps 3-5 interactively)
   2. Leave it named for later review (=sentry/<date>-<host>= stays; review at leisure)
4. *Approval queue* — offer to walk the queued items now, or carry them (they stay under the heading for whenever Craig reviews).

Stopping sentry is the only way to reclaim the working tree mid-night. The entry gate fronts the handoff; stop-sentry ends it.

* Wrap-up interaction

=wrap-it-up.org= refuses while sentry is live: it detects the single-runner lock (=agent-lock status sentry-<project>= → held) and stops with "sentry is active — say 'stop sentry' first." The shutdown logic lives here, not in wrap-up; wrap-up carries only the one guard.

* Common Mistakes

1. *Running without the =:COMMIT_AUTONOMY:= grant* — sentry commits unattended; the marker is the entry ticket, and its absence is a hard stop, not a degrade.
2. *Starting from a dirty or red tree* — the entry gates exist because an unattended fire can't tell Craig's in-progress work from a regression. Answer the gate; don't bypass it.
3. *Committing onto main* — every writing pass commits to the daily =sentry/*= branch. A fire that finds HEAD off the sentry branch skips rather than commits.
4. *Running a =git= write against =~/org/roam=* — roam-sync is the only committer. Sentry edits the tree under the roam-write lock and triggers the sync; it never commits or pushes roam.
5. *A per-pass suite run* — the suite runs at entry (baseline) and conditionally at fire-end (only when a pass touched non-org files). Hourly per-commit runs all night is the anti-pattern the suite policy exists to prevent.
6. *Executing a judgment or destructive action unattended* — those queue for the morning with their exact command. The pass did its detection; Craig makes the call. The one sanctioned exception is pass 12's solo-task implementation, and only because it inherits work-the-backlog's full defer checklist (data-loss and irreversible actions defer, never execute) plus a premise-verifying review, and it commits to the branch rather than acting on anything live.
7. *A silent skip* — inside a working fire, every skip writes a digest line naming why; a missing pass with no line reads as "ran clean" when it didn't. The one exception is not a violation: an all-quiet fire collapses to a single =sentry at HH:MM: nothing= heartbeat instead of one skip line per pass — the heartbeat is the explicit "nothing to do" record, per the silent-until-signal policy.
8. *Degrading a pass to a reduced form* — a pass runs fully or skips. No half-passes.
9. *Letting an unmerged branch stall silently* — after two consecutive unmerged-branch skips, the persistent desktop notify fires. Don't suppress it.
10. *Merging sentry's branch automatically* — the morning teardown is Craig's. Sentry creates and commits; it never merges or deletes its own branch.

* Living Document

Sentry ships with eleven finding/hygiene passes, one opt-in implementation pass, and a deferred KB pass. The pass list, the interval default, the =:SENTRY_MAY_IMPLEMENT:= default, and the queue-vs-execute line for each pass are the knobs most likely to move with dogfooding. The implement pass especially is new (2026-07-24) and unproven at scale — watch the corrections signal (work-the-backlog's metric for autonomous commits later reverted or hand-fixed) before widening it past the projects that opt in. Fold in what the live trial surfaces — a pass that queues too eagerly, a probe that misfires, a digest line that wants more detail. Refine as the signal arrives.

* History

Built 2026-07-19 from the sentry spec (=docs/specs/2026-07-14-sentry-workflow-spec.org=, ID f6c51f27-d7a2-4b63-9ff9-5ba005a66dfb) — 10 decisions and 12 review findings resolved before the build. Phase 1 shipped the =agent-lock= helper (commit =a8b6cf4=); this file is Phase 2, the engine. Phase 3 reconciles the roam writers (=inbox.org=, =knowledge-base.md=) to acquire the roam-write lock and adds the =wrap-it-up.org= guard.