Session Handoff [default]: #1523 Settled Through #1541 and #1545, Promotion #1542 Ready for Merge #1546

Next steps, in priority order

1. Implement AGENTS.md Session Scope has no shape for a drive-pr to-main session #1286's answer in AGENTS.md "Session Scope". Carried from Session Handoff [default]: #1522 Settled and Released as 2.0.614, Four Parked Decisions Answered #1535 and still first: a to-main drive ends when the promotion pull request is reported ready, a trigger Session Scope does not yet carry. This round's drive ran under the same gap again. Done when Session Scope carries that trigger and its "one branch" and "the branch changes" halves are reconciled against the branches drive-pr step 6 creates.
2. The #1540 Fix's D1.2 Hook Route and the Release Skill's Caller-Input Sentence Overreach #1544, since it ships with Name the Validate and Docker Hooks, and Point the Release Skill at Section 3 #1545. Three statements Name the Validate and Docker Hooks, and Point the Release Skill at Section 3 #1545 wrote are wrong, left on the maintainer's call to stop editing after a final round: D1.2's hook route misses that the validator's validate job is fixed at ubuntu-latest with contents: read, and the release skill's caller-input sentence both overstates which callers need docker_image and the project-path inputs (only the hub defaults do) and states the requirement only in the skill rather than in WORKFLOW.md section 3's curation list. Name the Validate and Docker Hooks, and Point the Release Skill at Section 3 #1545 settled WORKFLOW.md's #1523 Rewrites of D1.2 and the Build Layer Miss the Validate and Docker Hooks #1540 and The Release Skill's Override-Seam Section Carries Statements the Tree Contradicts, Found Settling #1523 #1539 themselves.
3. Land the four decisions answered in Session Handoff [default]: #1522 Settled and Released as 2.0.614, Four Parked Decisions Answered #1535's round. Unchanged from Session Handoff [default]: #1522 Settled and Released as 2.0.614, Four Parked Decisions Answered #1535: The 72-Character Subject Rule Cannot Survive the (#N) Suffix a Squash Merge Appends #1154 first (the 72-character limit covers the authored title only), then CODESTYLE.md Mandates Python for Every Program While the Hub Itself Ships Nine PowerShell Ones #1153, .markdownlint-cli2.jsonc is verbatim, but a repo with a committed data root needs its own globs/ignores #1118, and Agents moved a repo's version floor four times under a retired cadence rule; prose alone did not hold #1124.
4. Carried from Session Handoff [default]: handoff.py Ships Without adopt, and #1501 Is on develop #1502, unchanged and still open: the Three divergence-ledger entries say a decision is owed and nothing records who owes it or when #669 tracking values, the Promotion candidates and two interface gaps found resyncing NxWitness #1116 pending-adoption class, and recording Decide whether merge-and-release's branch cleanup should use compare-and-delete #946's permanent decline.
5. handoff.py Verifies a Resolved Head When Writing and Not When Reading #1500, then Design adopt Before Rebuilding It: the Measurement That Removed It From handoff.py v1 #1499, in that order.
6. The remaining WORKFLOW.md defect issues: WORKFLOW.md Sections 3 and 4 Carry Further Statements the Tree Contradicts #1524, WORKFLOW.md Sections 4 and 6 Carry Further Statements the Tree Contradicts, Found Settling #1522 #1527, WORKFLOW.md D2 Does Not Describe the Release Gate's Branch-Name Refusal #1531, WORKFLOW.md Sections 3, 4 and 6 Carry Further Statements the Tree Contradicts, Found Settling #1523 #1536, WORKFLOW.md and the Release Skill Carry Further Statements the Tree Contradicts, Found Settling #1540 #1543, and tracker Tracker: WORKFLOW.md > 4. Behavioral Contract: Expected Outcomes #1369 items 55 and 9. WORKFLOW.md Sections 3, 4 and 6 Carry Further Statements the Tree Contradicts, Found Settling #1523 #1536 and WORKFLOW.md and the Release Skill Carry Further Statements the Tree Contradicts, Found Settling #1540 #1543 hold this round's pre-existing findings across sections 3, 4 and 6 and the release skill.

External blockers

• 16 parked decisions wait on the maintainer. None of the steps above is blocked on them. backlog-burndown: Promotion Boundary step 5 dispatches a worker under the freeze step 6 forbids #1273 and P2 (decision): Decide backlog-burndown's Shape Before Its 23 Open Defects Are Worked One at a Time #1323 still block any attempt to work backlog-burndown's own defect list.
• CodeRabbit allows one review per hour on this repository, and on this repository it reviews only when prompted with @coderabbitai review.

Internal dependencies

• AGENTS.md Session Scope has no shape for a drive-pr to-main session #1286 before the next to-main drive, because that drive has no permitted session-end trigger until the answer lands.
• The #1540 Fix's D1.2 Hook Route and the Release Skill's Caller-Input Sentence Overreach #1544's caller-input item before WORKFLOW.md and the Release Skill Carry Further Statements the Tree Contradicts, Found Settling #1540 #1543's "Per-target subsetting" item, since both decide what the release skill says a caller curates.
• handoff.py Verifies a Resolved Head When Writing and Not When Reading #1500 before Design adopt Before Rebuilding It: the Measurement That Removed It From handoff.py v1 #1499, and The 72-Character Subject Rule Cannot Survive the (#N) Suffix a Squash Merge Appends #1154 before any other rule edit in step 3.

State

Re-derive all of this rather than trusting it.

• Branches: feature/1523-workflow-contract-statements merged as squash 09971b8 (Correct Section 3, 4 and 6 Statements the Tree Contradicts #1541), with its worktree, local branch, and remote branch deleted. feature/1540-validate-and-docker-hooks merged as squash fd53763 (Name the Validate and Docker Hooks, and Point the Release Skill at Section 3 #1545), with its worktree, local branch, and remote branch deleted. No branch is held.
• Promotion: Correct Section 3, 4 and 6 Statements the Tree Contradicts #1542 (develop into main, head fd53763) is open, carrying Correct Section 3, 4 and 6 Statements the Tree Contradicts #1541 and Name the Validate and Docker Hooks, and Point the Release Skill at Section 3 #1545, and meets every Merge Gate item except the maintainer's permission to merge: Copilot reviewed the head with full coverage, every thread is resolved, CI is 8/8, and it closes WORKFLOW.md Sections 3, 4 and 6 Carry Statements the Tree Contradicts #1523, The Release Skill's Override-Seam Section Carries Statements the Tree Contradicts, Found Settling #1523 #1539, and WORKFLOW.md's #1523 Rewrites of D1.2 and the Build Layer Miss the Validate and Docker Hooks #1540. One suppressed Copilot finding on the head, the skill's caller-input sentence, is answered in the pull request conversation against The #1540 Fix's D1.2 Hook Route and the Release Skill's Caller-Input Sentence Overreach #1544, and pr_review.py counts it as on_head=1 on this head regardless. CodeRabbit was rate-limited on Correct Section 3, 4 and 6 Statements the Tree Contradicts #1542 both times, having reviewed Correct Section 3, 4 and 6 Statements the Tree Contradicts #1541 and Name the Validate and Docker Hooks, and Point the Release Skill at Section 3 #1545 themselves with no actionable comments. Not merged, and no release dispatched.
• WORKFLOW.md Sections 3, 4 and 6 Carry Statements the Tree Contradicts #1523: closed at 16:27 on 2026-09-11 when Name the Build Jobs That Do Not Opt Out of the Smoke Skip in D2.2 #1534 merged, although Name the Build Jobs That Do Not Opt Out of the Smoke Skip in D2.2 #1534 only named it as filed. Its closingIssuesReferences listed it, and the cause was not established. Correct Section 3, 4 and 6 Statements the Tree Contradicts #1542 carries Closes #1523, which changes nothing on a closed issue.
• Primary checkout: clean and on develop, not fast-forwarded past c4ecc46.
• Worktrees: four resync worktrees are present, and none is this session's.

The parked decision queue

16 open issues carry decision. None was put to the maintainer this round. The three decisions this round raised were answered in the session and need no issue: a third edit round on #1541, fixing #1540 and #1539 before the promotion rather than shipping them, and a third edit round on #1545.

The remaining 16, longest-waited first: #1155, #1164, #1182, #1200, #1204, #1217, #1227, #1238, #1270, #1273, #1280, #1285, #1298, #1302, #1323, #1447.

What the last round did

• Settled WORKFLOW.md Sections 3, 4 and 6 Carry Statements the Tree Contradicts #1523 in Correct Section 3, 4 and 6 Statements the Tree Contradicts #1541: WORKFLOW.md sections 3, 4 and 6 now name the caller's real add/drop surface, the gh release view check, the validator's detection shapes, the release task's release-asset-* cleanup scope, and the deploy hook's path and inputs, among the rest. The no-build stub gained the Codecov comment and the release skill's override-seam reference was corrected alongside.
• Filed what the whole-unit passes found and this change did not write as WORKFLOW.md Sections 3, 4 and 6 Carry Further Statements the Tree Contradicts, Found Settling #1523 #1536 and The Release Skill's Override-Seam Section Carries Statements the Tree Contradicts, Found Settling #1523 #1539, and what the final passes found on text it did write, after the maintainer capped editing, as WORKFLOW.md's #1523 Rewrites of D1.2 and the Build Layer Miss the Validate and Docker Hooks #1540.
• Opened promotion Correct Section 3, 4 and 6 Statements the Tree Contradicts #1542, whose Copilot threads were all WORKFLOW.md's #1523 Rewrites of D1.2 and the Build Layer Miss the Validate and Docker Hooks #1540 and The Release Skill's Override-Seam Section Carries Statements the Tree Contradicts, Found Settling #1523 #1539 again. The maintainer chose to fix those before promoting, which Name the Validate and Docker Hooks, and Point the Release Skill at Section 3 #1545 did: D1.2 routes other-shape tests to the validate hook except where D1.6 coverage needs the token, section 3 names the Docker hooks and the docker_matrix bypass, both stubs say a tokenless Codecov upload can skip silently, and the release skill's override-seam section became a pointer to section 3. Pre-existing findings from those passes went to WORKFLOW.md and the Release Skill Carry Further Statements the Tree Contradicts, Found Settling #1540 #1543, and Name the Validate and Docker Hooks, and Point the Release Skill at Section 3 #1545's own final-pass findings to The #1540 Fix's D1.2 Hook Route and the Release Skill's Caller-Input Sentence Overreach #1544.

What not to repeat

• Do not enumerate where a category is the rule. Three times this round a precise list drew the finding its omission earned: D3.2's three default-branch literals missed the Docker task and two leaves, the Build bullet's three hooks missed Docker's two, and D1.2's detection shape missed pyproject.toml. What converged was naming the category, as D3.2 ended up doing.
• Do not add a sentence while cutting a restatement down to a pointer. Both sentences Name the Validate and Docker Hooks, and Point the Release Skill at Section 3 #1545 kept or added beside the release skill's new pointer drew findings, the kept hub-default sentences being false for Docker and the added caller-input sentence overreaching, while the bare pointer came back clean. A pointer that needs a sentence beside it is a sign the canonical source is missing that sentence, which is where it goes.
• Do not write a rationale you have not checked. The hugo row's "a composite action rejects an undeclared input" was carried into a rewritten sentence and is false, the runner only warning. Deleting the reason closed the finding.

New learnings

• Putting the files that restate a changed rule on the diff pass's Paths: floor is what caught the stub contradicting docs/reusable-workflows.md, which no whole-unit pass read. This is an observation about this round, not yet a rule.