Session Handoff [default]: Skills Installer Report Survives a NUL-Byte Path, Released as 2.0.777 #2194

Next steps, in priority order

Re-read each issue and pull request rather than trusting these summaries.

1. Give install-tools.sh a Machine-Readable Report Mode, So a Caller Can Act on It Without Screen-Scraping #1645, a machine-readable --report mode for install-tools and skills_install. It is promoted ahead of the order Session Handoff [default]: Unattended Picker Narrowed and Overview Label Refusal Fixed, Released as 2.0.776 #2190 set. A peer HomeAutomation-Config session reported that its Ship branch rulesets as versioned JSON and add them to the re-sync / drift-check loop #211 is blocked on it: that issue reports host tools that have fallen behind in the MOTD and the weekly summary, and the maintainer chose on 2026-09-30 to wait for Give install-tools.sh a Machine-Readable Report Mode, So a Caller Can Act on It Without Screen-Scraping #1645 rather than scrape the human-readable table. The maintainer accepted this ranking at close. Done looks like a documented, tested JSON report on both tools. When it lands, or if its scope changes, comment on Give install-tools.sh a Machine-Readable Report Mode, So a Caller Can Act on It Without Screen-Scraping #1645, since the peer watches that issue.

2. Deny the Remaining core.hooksPath and no-verify Bypass Routes in the Guard #2177, the guard's remaining hook-bypass routes:

   • a persistent git config core.hooksPath,
   • the GIT_CONFIG_* environment forms,
   • wrapped or aliased git.

   Done looks like the bypass check reusing rule 6's _all_git_invocations walk and its alias resolution. Its heredoc false-positive item overlaps the auto-2112 lane (Session Handoff [auto-2112]: Strip Every Heredoc Body a Line Opens in the Guard per #2112 #2123), so check that lane's state first.

3. Settle Which Surface Owns the Skills Refresh Cadence and Which Flag Each Runs #2191, once the maintainer answers it: which surface owns the skills refresh cadence, and which flag each surface runs. It is recommended to keep the full install in docs/host-setup.md, have skill-lifecycle step 8 point there, and keep --snapshot-only only in check-this-repo.

4. Decide How the Unattended Picker Recognizes an Adopted Lesson #2183's answer, then Close the Unattended Loop's Parking-Comment and Interrupted-Park Gaps #2184. Decide How the Unattended Picker Recognizes an Adopted Lesson #2183 was answered as option 1: the session recording a decision's answer edits the issue body. Both edit the unattended-handoff picker, so take Decide How the Unattended Picker Recognizes an Adopted Lesson #2183 first.

5. Small follow-ups:

   • Pair Nonstandard details Markup Correctly When Blanking the Overview Narrative #2187: nonstandard details markup in the narrative masking.
   • Emit an Unclosed details Block's Preceding Text Once in details_spans #2186: details_spans duplicates the text before an unclosed block.
   • Decide How the Prose Gate Widens Past the Latin Part of the Recorded-Name Rule #2170: answered as option 2, a per-line or per-file allow marker.

6. Exercise the unattended loop's parked-lane half. An attended resume of a lane parked under blocked has still never run.

7. Say the Hub Commits the Report Wherever Done-Means-Audited Is Stated #1826, Carry the code-review skill bootstrap to seven repos whose Copilot reviews never state coverage #1815, and the downstream Fleet Bootstrap resyncs, as Session Handoff [default]: Unattended Picker Narrowed and Overview Label Refusal Fixed, Released as 2.0.776 #2190 describes them. When aiopurpleair resyncs, its handoff (aiopurpleair Update codegen files #177) should drop "commit an audit report".

8. Smaller and older: Copilot Refuses a Pull Request Carrying Only Default-Excluded Files, and No Rule Covers It #2180, Durable Knowledge does not say where a lesson goes when no change is open #1811, audit.py --issue path never prints the no-remote hub-name warning #1810, Skill files hard-wrap while comment-and-doc-style requires one paragraph per line #1814, then the list carried unchanged from Session Handoff [default]: WORKFLOW.md Corrections and the pyproject.toml Decision Released as 2.0.672 #1804, in Session Handoff [default]: Unattended Picker Narrowed and Overview Label Refusal Fixed, Released as 2.0.776 #2190's order.

External blockers

• Settle Which Surface Owns the Skills Refresh Cadence and Which Flag Each Runs #2191 is a maintainer decision. Step 3 waits on it. Nothing else does.
• Downstream promotions listed in Session Handoff [default]: Unattended Picker Narrowed and Overview Label Refusal Fixed, Released as 2.0.776 #2190 (EspDinIoT Update readme and workspace #10, Financial-Modeling, DevKitCIoT's KiCad 10 conflict) were not re-checked this round. Re-verify before acting.
• A native Windows host is still needed for the bootstrap.ps1 check carried from Session Handoff [default]: WORKFLOW.md Corrections and the pyproject.toml Decision Released as 2.0.672 #1804.

Internal dependencies

• Deny the Remaining core.hooksPath and no-verify Bypass Routes in the Guard #2177 should follow, or absorb, whatever the auto-2112 lane lands on heredoc handling, since both edit the guard's tokenizer path.
• Take Decide How the Unattended Picker Recognizes an Adopted Lesson #2183's answer before Close the Unattended Loop's Parking-Comment and Interrupted-Park Gaps #2184, since both edit the unattended-handoff picker.
• Settle Which Surface Owns the Skills Refresh Cadence and Which Flag Each Runs #2191 decides the cadence text. Do not touch the refresh cadence on any surface before it is answered.

State

• Hub: main is at the Promote develop to main: Survive a NUL-Byte Registered Path in the Skills Installer Report #2193 promotion merge, released as 2.0.777. develop holds nothing main lacks. The primary checkout is clean on develop at origin/develop. This round left no feature branch or worktree behind.
• This machine: the Codex/opencode snapshot reads current at the Promote develop to main: Survive a NUL-Byte Registered Path in the Skills Installer Report #2193 merge. Claude Code's fleet marketplace loads from the primary checkout on develop.
• Unattended lanes still open: auto-2080 (Session Handoff [auto-2080]: Read an eval Argument as a Wait-Loop Payload in the Guard per #2080 #2137), auto-2112 (Session Handoff [auto-2112]: Strip Every Heredoc Body a Line Opens in the Guard per #2112 #2123), auto-2106 (Session Handoff [auto-2106]: Refuse a Dangling Remote-Tracking Target in local_review per #2106 #2120, PR Refuse a Dangling Remote-Tracking Target in local_review #2121) and auto-1634 (Session Handoff [auto-1634]: Narrow Nested timeout Handling per #2056 #2072, PR Deny a Signal-0 timeout as a Wait Bound in the Guard #2117). Local feature/auto-* branches and worktrees for those, and for older lanes, remain. Re-derive with handoff.py tracks, gh pr list and git worktree list before touching them.
• Other open lane: Session Handoff [python-contract]: Escaped and Folded python-directories Values Refused, Released as 2.0.738 #2014 (python-contract).
• No other repository was written to. A HomeAutomation-Config peer session sent the Give install-tools.sh a Machine-Readable Report Mode, So a Caller Can Act on It Without Screen-Scraping #1645 request, and nothing was written there.

The parked decision queue

One issue: #2191, which surface owns the skills refresh cadence. It offers two choices, and option 1 is recommended.

What the last round did

• Fixed Close the Installer Gaps Left After the Marketplace Re-Point Fix #2019 in #2192, promoted in #2193.
  • git_in() catches ValueError, so --report survives a NUL-byte registered path, and it re-raises UnicodeDecodeError so undecodable output is never stamped clean.
  • The installer's message, --report's reason, and scripts/README.md now say "is not a directory" for a gone or file-occupied registered path.
  • The issue's third item, the cadence's --snapshot-only wording, was dropped and filed as decision Settle Which Surface Owns the Skills Refresh Cadence and Which Flag Each Runs #2191.
• Filed Settle Which Surface Owns the Skills Refresh Cadence and Which Flag Each Runs #2191 (decision).

What not to repeat

• Close the Installer Gaps Left After the Marketplace Re-Point Fix #2019's third item took three local passes before it was dropped. Its premise, to say --snapshot-only on every cadence surface, is wrong, because that flag registers nothing. A machine with no install, or with a gone registration, then gets no Claude Code channel, and --report's exit code does not show it. Each round's carve-out drew contradictions on a further surface: docs/host-setup.md, check-this-repo twice, skill-lifecycle step 8, and docs/fleet-map.md twice. Reverting to the develop wording is what converged. Do not reword the cadence before Settle Which Surface Owns the Skills Refresh Cadence and Which Flag Each Runs #2191 is answered.
• This repo's tests are unittest. python3 -m pytest is not installed. Run python3 -m unittest tests.<module>.
• A typing-clean test needs a narrow mock. A side-effect wrapper around subprocess.run drew mypy overload errors. Patching skills_install.marketplace_entry instead kept subprocess real and typed.

New learnings

• No new governance lesson this round. The non-convergence matched the existing "deleting a rule beats re-deriving it" and "one rule on four surfaces regenerates drift" lessons, and the fix was the same: delete rather than re-derive.
• Pre-existing, noted and not filed: the git_in docstring's "None on any failure" is untrue for UnicodeDecodeError, as it was before Close the Installer Gaps Left After the Marketplace Re-Point Fix #2192. source_ref() reading a None status as clean is source_ref() Reads a Failed git status as Clean Rather Than Unknown #1869.