M3.3: the trust dial (the agent merges approved PRs)

A project's trust.merge is operator (the default) or approved (L3, D5,
#65). Set to approved, the harness, never the model, merges a PR in the
PR watch once an approving review from a gitea.operators account is on
its current commit, its checks pass (none at all counts; pending
waits) and it's mergeable; the item then goes on as after any merge.
Each reason to hold off (failed checks, conflicts, a refused merge) is
said once per commit.

Gitea enforces it: protection requires approvals from an operators-only
whitelist and dismisses stale ones. At start, for each approved
project, the agent checks by behaviour that its own unapproved merge is
refused, with a throwaway branch and PR made through the API (never the
workspace); if it isn't refused, the operator merges until a restart.

- gitea: approvals, combined check status, a PR's head commit and
  mergeability, API-made branches and their deletion.
- Test and bring-up repositories get the protection.
- Tests: the decision (unit), the hard wall on a real Gitea
  (test_trust_live), an e2e test where the operator only approves, and
  a walk property, merges_only_approved, checked against a mutant that
  ignores which commit was approved.

Closes #65

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PPQ14L3LikyefCMFBqEbKE

docs/Architecture.md

@@ -726,9 +726,12 @@ Installing on any other host is dangerous.
 - **The PR may have moved on meanwhile.** After pushing a fix, the agent checks the
   PR: if it merged before the fix landed, the fix goes out as a new PR; if it was
   closed, the agent says so and asks.
-- **Merging follows the trust dial** (L3). Today the operator merges. If the dial
-  lets the agent merge its own PRs once checks pass, branch protection must require
-  an approval the agent's account can't give, so Gitea enforces the rule.
+- **Merging follows the trust dial** (L3), set per project (`trust.merge`). By
+  default the operator merges. Set to `approved`, the agent merges a PR once an
+  operator has approved its current commit and its checks pass; branch
+  protection requires that approval from an operators-only whitelist and
+  dismisses stale approvals, so Gitea enforces the rule, and the agent checks at
+  start that its own unapproved merge is refused.
 
 ### D6. Action classes
 

docs/Development-Plan.md

@@ -25,7 +25,7 @@ Only `nisse-dev` has real code; `nisse-core` and `nisse-ops` are placeholders.
 |---|---|---|
 | **L1** Work model | mostly done | Work items with an active pointer (M1.1); issue intake (M2.1); queue, parking and blocked items (M2.2) on the new loop; no grace period yet |
 | **L2** Agent loop | mostly done | The loop (Phase 2), the only one since the switch-over (M2.8): driver runs, waits, `stop`, `abandon`, question runs |
-| **L3** Authority | partial | Go-aheads bound to the restatement's revision, on the issue and its conversation (M2.1); action classes and the fast path, with `allow` bound to one dangerous action (M3.1); no trust dial yet (M3.3) |
+| **L3** Authority | partial | Go-aheads bound to the restatement's revision, on the issue and its conversation (M2.1); action classes and the fast path, with `allow` bound to one dangerous action (M3.1); the trust dial, `trust.merge` (M3.3) |
 | **L4** Classifier | mostly done | On the classifier role (the local model), for what the fast path doesn't know; fails closed; overrides export as an evaluation set (M3.2). Promoting its verdicts into rules is by hand |
 | **L5** Conversation | partial | Matrix transport, mentions, lenient commands; on the new loop, a thread per item, named and ambiguous commands, plain-language go-aheads (M2.3); little explanation |
 | **L6** Context | partial | Context fitting, per-role views and orchestrator facts (M1.2); no scope or agent memory |
@@ -355,8 +355,25 @@ fail-closed verdicts, overrides as an evaluation set.
 - Deferred: promoting verdicts the classifier keeps agreeing on into rules (by
   hand, from exported cases); the trust dial (M3.3).
 
-**M3.3 The trust dial.** *Needs discussion.* Per project (D8); agent merging behind
-protection it can't satisfy, verified by a test (D4, D5, #65).
+**M3.3 The trust dial.** *Needs discussion.* **Done** (this PR). Per project (D8);
+agent merging behind protection it can't satisfy, verified by a test (D4, D5, #65).
+- `trust.merge` per project: `operator` (the default) or `approved`: the harness
+  (never the model) merges a PR in the PR watch once an approving review from a
+  `gitea.operators` account is on the PR's current commit, its checks pass (no
+  checks at all counts as passing; pending waits) and it's mergeable; then the
+  item goes on as after any merge. Each reason to hold off is said once.
+- Protection, verified at start per `approved` project: a throwaway branch and
+  PR made through the API (never the workspace), whose merge must be refused;
+  if it isn't, the operator merges until a restart. Real Gitea is tested too
+  (`test_trust_live.py`): refused unapproved, merged once approved, refused
+  again after a commit lands on the approved PR.
+- Test and bring-up repositories get the protection: approvals from an
+  operators-only whitelist, stale approvals dismissed, the agent on the merge
+  whitelist.
+- Decided: two levels only (no merging on checks alone, D5); verification by
+  behaviour, since a collaborator can't read protection and must never set it.
+  Deferred: a project-setup script for the operator (protection, labels) and a
+  label check, #130.
 
 ### Phase 4 — The environment