Founder Batch Lean Execution Flow

Planning to merge, with exact-head gates and edge cases

Current Lean Rule

Lean does not remove correctness gates. It removes repeated and unnecessary gates by classifying the task first and pinning every claim to the exact head.

1 Selected tracker item or live blocker at a time
3 Risk classes: FAST, STANDARD, CRITICAL
1x Full final verification on immutable candidate
0 Old-head receipts accepted for moved heads

The practical slogan: classify first, dispatch narrowly, verify locally while building, run final gates once, then merge only through principal-merge.sh.

Macro Flow

The recent lean execution path from planning to merge.

01

PICK

Select one tracker row or live blocker. Confirm dependencies and owner.

02

CLASSIFY

FAST, STANDARD, or CRITICAL. This decides gates, model effort, and reviewers.

03

AUTHOR

Principal writes the brief with source of truth, layer, scope, and acceptance.

04

ARCH or CURATE

Use only if required by class or axis. Curator enrichment for non-trivial work.

05

BUILD

Owning pane implements smallest scoped diff and preserves unrelated dirty state.

06

VERIFY

Focused checks during edits. Full lane-required verification once at final head.

07

PR

Open or reuse a PR. Pin base, head, changed paths, rollback, and hosted state.

08

STEWARD

Track exact head, checks, reviews, threads, Codex, AGY, and stale receipts.

09

FREEZE

Final candidate recheck: no head change, no duplicate writer, required gates present.

10

MERGE

Principal runs principal-merge.sh. Deploy remains a separate gate.

Risk Class Gate Matrix

Use this before dispatch. The class controls how much review and verification is actually needed.

Class Typical Work Dispatch Verification Review Merge Readiness
FAST Copy, icon, spacing, config, one constant, narrow test, doc nudge. Owning pane only. Curator can be skipped if truly trivial. Focused check and changed-file hygiene. Skip Architect, Curator, AGY, Codex, kk unless a real risk appears. Exact head, clean focused evidence, hosted gate if repo requires it.
STANDARD Bounded product behavior with clear owner and no critical boundary. Owning pane plus relevant specialist axis only. Focused checks while building, one full final verification. One final independent review, usually kk. Architect or Curator only if impacted axis requires it. Exact head, current final review, no open current blockers.
CRITICAL Auth, tenancy, money, migrations, irreversible data, concurrency, production infra, cross-platform lifecycle. Principal routes Architect and Curator as applicable before implementation. Full applicable evidence set on final candidate, including DB, device, release, or rollback proof where needed. Architect, Curator, kk, CI, Codex, AGY as required by axis. Findings are reproduced independently. Full exact-head gate matrix passes. No stale clean verdict carries.

Dispatch Lane

Principal owns authorship. Conductor owns transport. Pillars own implementation only inside the brief fence.

Principal Before Dispatch

  1. Read tracker row, dependencies, and open PRs.
  2. Suppress stale reports and false repository identities.
  3. Run duplicate and coalescence checks.
  4. Pick source of truth, correct layer, and touch point.
  5. Classify FAST, STANDARD, or CRITICAL.
  6. Write one-screen brief unless contract work needs more.

Brief Must Carry

  • Goal and non-goals.
  • Audit-first paths or symbols.
  • Exact source of truth and allowed files.
  • Forbidden actions: no tracker, deploy, merge unless authorized.
  • Acceptance commands and report path.
  • Trace id and handoff rules.

Conductor and Pane

  • Conductor routes only. It does not author scope.
  • Inbox may move to processed immediately.
  • Pane-state cache is advisory.
  • Animator and live session evidence can override stale cache.
  • Worker reports back with exact evidence.

Micro Flow by Role

Who does what at each stage. Horizontal scroll is intentional on small screens.

Role
Plan
Dispatch
Build
Review
Freeze
Merge
Principal
Pick and classify.
Resolve dependencies, owner, layer, and duplicate lanes.
Author brief.
Route Curator or Architect only when needed by class or axis.
Do not implement product source except orchestration scope.
Collect exact-head reports and suppress stale receipts.
Recheck head, base, checks, threads, reviews, and rollback.
Run merge gate.
principal-merge.sh only.
Worker Pane
Read brief and audit existing work before edits.
Accept pointer from Conductor. Preserve dirty state.
Implement scoped diff.
No magic literals, no unrelated refactor.
Run focused proof and final lane proof. Write report.
Stop if head or scope changed. Report blocker.
Never self-merge or deploy unless explicitly assigned deploy lane.
Architect
Used for contract, UX spec, auth, security, payments, money, concurrency.
Can seed invariants before implementation.
No source mutation in audit turn.
Attest impacted axis.
Delta only if fix touched routed axis.
Exact head only. Old PASS carries only for allowed scopes.
Provides report, not merge authorization alone.
Curator
Enrich non-trivial brief. Validate evidence and source-of-truth anchors.
Blocks bad brief before pillar dispatch.
No product source mutation during audit.
Checks scope, copy, receipts, invariants, and release facts.
Exact-head enrichment or validation only when needed.
Feeds Principal. Does not merge.
PR Steward
Continuously watches all open PRs.
Does not dispatch implementation work.
No source edits.
Tracks exact head.
Threads, checks, Codex, AGY, opener approval.
Reports stale evidence and missing gates.
Never merges. Principal decides.

Review Lifecycle

The full lifecycle still exists. Lean invokes only the pieces required by the class and impacted axis.

Lifecycle Stage What Happens Lean Interpretation Edge Trigger
Pre-PR Freeze Architect, Curator, and kk can audit final local commit before PR. Required for full lifecycle or CRITICAL work. Not automatic for FAST. Sensitive axis touched or task contract requires it.
Build Loop Open PR, run CI, Codex, AGY as required on exact head. Codex and AGY are not automatic for every lean task. Risk class or repo rules require external review.
Fix Loop Reproduce findings, fix real defects, reply with evidence. No blind bot fixes. No full re-review churn on unchanged commit. Any verified P1, P2, or task-relevant defect.
Impact Delta Architect or Curator re-attests only impacted axes. Docs-only, mechanical-only, and test-only can carry prior PASS with kk current-head scope receipt. Fix touches architecture, contract, UX, security, money, release, or data axis.
Close Immediately After exact-head approval, resolve approved threads, recheck, merge. No parking a fully ready PR. Head changes during recheck reopen applicable gates.

Merge Gate Checklist

Merge is still exact-head, script-gated, and separate from deploy.

1
PR identity pinnedRepo, PR number, base SHA, head SHA, open, non-draft, mergeable.
2
Current exact-head evidenceNo branch name, timestamp, or old head substitutes for full SHA.
3
Checks terminalSUCCESS if required. Zero-step failures are external holds, not source proof.
4
Review threads dispositionedCurrent unresolved roots need source fix, opener confirmation, or explicit blocker.
5
Codex and AGY current if requiredStale clean verdicts never carry across head movement.
6
Impact-routed receipts presentSensitive deltas need exact-head Architect or Curator attestation.
7
Hygiene gates cleanNo added U+2014, no secrets, diff check clean, rollback identity known.
8
Merge command guardedPrincipal uses agents/tools/principal-merge.sh. GitHub rulesets still apply.

After Merge

Merge closes source integration only. Release and production movement use separate gates.

Post-Merge Reconcile

  1. Verify PR merged and target branch advanced.
  2. Record merge SHA.
  3. Mark old-head reports stale.
  4. Close or supersede dependent PRs only with proof.
  5. Update status without claiming production state.

Deploy or Release Gate

  • Production backup and restore receipt.
  • Migration order proof if schema changed.
  • Package tarball digest if publishing.
  • Health and smoke receipts.
  • Rollback plan and rollback candidate.

Never Conflate

  • Tracker DONE is pickup progress.
  • Merge-ready is exact-head source readiness.
  • Release-ready is deploy evidence readiness.
  • Production-live is verified runtime state.

Edge Case Playbook

Filter by severity. These are the cases that most often create false green or duplicate work.

Head Changed

All exact-head receipts become stale unless they explicitly cover the new full SHA. Reopen applicable gates.

Base Changed

Re-run mergeability, diff, and sometimes synthetic merge or migration proof. Old base receipts may not carry.

Sensitive Delta

Auth, money, tenancy, migration, production, or concurrency makes a small diff CRITICAL.

Duplicate Writer

Same branch or same owned lane means stop and coalesce. Different repo with same PR number is not a duplicate.

Zero-Step CI Failure

Billing or account holds are external. They do not prove source failure, but they still block hosted-gate readiness.

Codex Finding

Do not inherit severity. Reproduce the path, judge severity, fix only real defects, then use targeted handshake.

Old PASS Report

Can carry only for allowed docs-only, mechanical-only, or test-only scopes with current-head kk scope receipt.

Consumed Inbox

Conductor can move inbox files to processed immediately. Missing live file is not automatically a failure.

Pane Cache Contradiction

Pane-state is advisory. Animator, session evidence, fresh reports, and exact process evidence override stale cache.

Thread Approval Missing

Source-fixed is not opener-approved. Keep thread open until required opener confirmation exists at unchanged head.

Trigger-Gated Verifier

If no new head appeared, a verifier can correctly hold. Report watched head and trigger condition.

Deploy Assumed

Merge does not deploy. Production movement needs its own proof, rollback, and health receipts.