D3's preflight and install recording become the toolchain step: a
bounded run of the item's driver model that makes the build VM and the
project's own files (pins, setup docs, CI configuration) agree, with
the repository as the record. The harness starts it when the VM isn't
set up for the project (and then it edits nothing in the repository);
the driver requests it once work is agreed, and its edits land in the
current milestone. Versions stay facts the harness reads itself; a
rebuilt VM's new host key is trusted only on the operator's word.
D1 gains the rule that until the go-ahead the agent only looks:
anything that changes something is refused by the fast path, so what
the work needs goes in the restatement.
The Development Plan's M4.2 follows: the toolchain step, in place of
recording installs.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PPQ14L3LikyefCMFBqEbKE
claude-haiku-4-5 is being replaced by claude-haiku-5-5 in LiteLLM: the
integration tests' roles and the example config's expert move to it.
Its profile keeps the predecessor's benchmark figures, marked as such
until it's measured. The plan's models-by-role line also gains the
local classifier (M3.2). Results measured on 4.5 stay as they were.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PPQ14L3LikyefCMFBqEbKE
A model works out and sets up what a project needs on its build VM;
code makes sure that happens, bounds it and checks the result (D3).
- Before each driver run on a project, one round trip checks the build
VM: the harness's own baseline (missing: the item waits, a template
problem), the workspace clone (missing: cloned again and said; the
item resumes from what it pushed) and a per-project marker.
- No marker (a new project, a new or wiped VM): the item's driver model
runs a bounded preflight first, with its own prompt, the execution
tools (screened as ever) and toolchain_ready. The harness runs each
reported version command itself (version-shaped commands only, even
from the marker, which the model's commands could edit) and writes
the marker. Gaps and an unfinished preflight are facts and work goes
on; the thread hears only of installs and gaps. A rebuilt VM starts
from the last toolchain.
- Later runs check the versions again; a change is a fact and a thread
line. The PR body says what the work was tested with.
- A changed host key is its own failure (HostKeyChanged): the item
waits for the operator's `trust new host key`, which drops the pin;
then the VM is set up again.
- A prompt line: install what the work needs on the build VM, say why,
and put lasting needs in the project's own pins.
- tuning.preflight: max_turns, command_timeout_s.
- The property walk gains a VM wipe and ready_before_work (checked
against a mutant that skips preflight); parked_work_safe accepts that
a wipe loses what wasn't pushed (D3).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PPQ14L3LikyefCMFBqEbKE
The local driver sometimes ran `git commit` itself instead of calling
finish_milestone, then told the operator a PR was waiting when none had
been opened. A commit still runs (it's contained, and publishing takes
whatever is there), but when the driver's command commits anywhere in
its line, the harness adds to its result: committed locally only;
nothing is published until finish_milestone, and there is no PR until
then. Structural, at the moment the model would draw the wrong
conclusion (P6), rather than left to it noticing.
Closes#129
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PPQ14L3LikyefCMFBqEbKE
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
What the fast path calls unknown is judged by an independent model call
on the item's classifier role (L4), before it runs.
- nisse_dev.loop.classifier: it sees the action and the agreed scope
(project, repository, issue number, the restatement the operator said
go to), built in code; never the transcript, the issue's text, tool
output or the driver's reasoning. Its verdict is a tool call: safe
runs; in_scope runs and is reported in the thread; needs_discussion
asks, as a dangerous action does. An error, no verdict or an unknown
one fails closed. Verdicts are cached per item, agreed revision and
action. A helper is refused what needs discussion.
- action_verdict gains source, model and the classifier's exact input;
details shows the source. An allow after the classifier asked is an
override. scripts/classifier-evals.py exports the judgements from a
store, read-only; tests/integration/classifier_cases.yaml is the seed
set, run per model with --capability-models.
- The fast path's delete rule: deleting on the build VM is contained;
only what breaks the host (system and home directories) stays
dangerous, since in tests the build VM is the test machine.
- The classifier role is the local model in the example config.
- The property walk gains a classifier answering at random, junk and
failures included; dangerous_only_when_allowed now covers its
verdicts (checked against a mutant that runs them all).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PPQ14L3LikyefCMFBqEbKE
Every execution tool call, the driver's and a helper's, gets a verdict
from code before it runs (P3, P4, D6).
- nisse_core.actions, nisse-core's first code: Action and Verdict, and
reading shell commands statically, segment by segment (cd, wrappers,
sh -c). What can't be read that way is unknown; a line is as bad as
its worst command.
- nisse_dev.loop.actions, the rule table: reading, checks and tests are
harmless; workspace edits, local git and installs on the build VM are
contained; pushing, other hosts, uploads, publishing, the forge's own
tools, deleting outside the workspace and wrecking the VM are
dangerous; changing branches by hand is refused (the harness owns
branches) with a pointer to the milestone tools.
- A dangerous call isn't run. The item waits on the operator with a
question rendered from the action, and `allow` lets exactly that
action run once. A helper can't ask, so it is refused and told to
hand back. Unknown actions run, logged, until the classifier (M3.2).
- Every verdict is an action_verdict event, which no model sees, and an
oplog line; `details` shows the counts and every action not simply
run.
- The property walk gains dangerous_only_when_allowed (checked against
a mutant that doesn't use the allow up); the slice e2e checks every
call was judged and none needed an allow.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PPQ14L3LikyefCMFBqEbKE
Workflow-level concurrency, per PR or branch, with cancel-in-progress.
The earlier attempt (job-level, on the e2e job) didn't cancel anything;
Gitea documents the workflow-level form. A label other than e2e:full
starts a run whose jobs all skip, so it gets a group of its own and
can't cancel the real run.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PPQ14L3LikyefCMFBqEbKE
nisse-dev now runs only the conversational loop. The gated state machine
it was built alongside is gone:
- Removed control.py, planner.py, executor.py, approvals.py, gates.py
(command_form moves to loop/reader.py), publish.py and poller.py, the
old assembly in agent.py (its shared helpers move to loop/build.py),
the store's state-machine view (get_state, transition), their tests,
the old end-to-end and live planning/milestone/gate tests, and
specs/orchestrator.qnt with its scenarios.
- Roles are driver, helper, expert and classifier; driver is required.
loop:, roles.planner, roles.executor and tuning.executor are refused
with what to use instead; tuning.driver takes the turn cap and failure
limit.
- The benchmark and the capability matrix measure the driver: the
loop's own system prompt and tools, the task's plan as the agreed
restatement. Task plans end with finish_milestone, so earlier runs
show as (old); stored runs' executor tuning reads as the driver's.
- A delegation on the loop records what its helper's alias resolved to
(L9), as the old path's did.
- The dump shows a work item's revision and what it waits for.
- Behaviour the old tests covered and the loop shares stays covered:
driver runs that fail on a model call, stop mid-turn, reset the
failure count; go-aheads ignoring case and punctuation; a request too
big to fit is never sent; the assembly tests, now on build_loop_agent.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PPQ14L3LikyefCMFBqEbKE
- A near miss for abandon ("abort", "cancel", "drop it", ...) in an item's
thread is asked about, and changes nothing.
- The driver is told only the operator stops or closes an item, so it
doesn't claim to have done either.
- An issue assigned again after its item closed starts a new item that
notes the one before (Gitea's timeline gives the assignment time);
item_for_issue returns the latest item.
- Abandoning an issue Gitea won't close because of open dependencies says
so, naming them.
- An agreed item isn't offered restate.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PPQ14L3LikyefCMFBqEbKE
Found live on 2026-10-07 (bring-up on nisse-testing-operator/nisse-bringup,
Opus as driver):
- The driver's prose nudge went into the system prompt, so the retry ended
on the model's own reply. Opus 5.5 refuses that ("does not support
assistant message prefill. The conversation must end with a user
message"). The nudge is now a harness fact in the conversation. The
delegation harness's prose path did the same and is fixed likewise.
- A helper's first request ended with its own delegation_started event,
rendered as an assistant message: every delegation would have failed on
Opus. The helper now sees it as the harness handing over its task.
- model_contract checks that every request ends on the user's side, so
scripted tests catch this from now on (each fix is mutation-checked).
- `status` (and `details`) in an item's thread were taken as replies: they
woke the driver and cancelled a bug's countdown. They now answer at once
and change nothing.
- The driver had no way to answer a remark without changing the item, so it
answered in prose. Every run woken by a message (or a review comment) now
offers `reply`, which answers where asked and returns to the very wait
that was interrupted.
Also: scripts/bringup-repo.sh makes the bring-up's test repository
(make_repo/delete_repo, split out of fresh_repo), and made repositories get
the agent's labels (bug, discuss, design).
Tests: test_loop_live_fixes.py (one per finding); the walk sends `status`
into threads (status_changes_nothing) and its scripted driver sometimes
answers remarks with reply.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PPQ14L3LikyefCMFBqEbKE
- The Dockerfile's test stage stacks on TEST_BASE: this build's agent by
default, or a published image. It adds only the test tools (uv export
of the dev group into the image's environment), never reinstalling the
agent, so the suite tests the image as published.
- scripts/e2e.sh --image passes NISSE_E2E_MODEL into the container.
- The plan marks M1.5 done: v0.1.0's published image passed the whole e2e
suite (9 of 9, 11m37s), with the release's own tests over it.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PPQ14L3LikyefCMFBqEbKE
The e2e roles move to qwen3.8-27b-nothink, a LiteLLM alias for the same
model with chat_template_kwargs enable_thinking false. With thinking, a
growing share of answers ran to 2-8k tokens (two hit the 8192 cap), which
took one test from 3.5 to 20 minutes.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PPQ14L3LikyefCMFBqEbKE
archive.ubuntu.com has been crawling (a few KB/s), taking the sshd install
in every job from 8 seconds to 3.5-9.5 minutes (another agent measured it;
the runner and inference-4090 were healthy). scripts/ci-sshd.sh skips the
install when the image has sshd, and otherwise points apt at
mirrors.edge.kernel.org first (both source layouts, 22.04 and 24.04).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PPQ14L3LikyefCMFBqEbKE
- Every PR: lint, unit tests across the runner's cores (pytest-xdist), 16
property walks from a seed that moves with the run number, integration
tests, and the end-to-end smoke tests (the slice, a conversation filed
as work, a question; `smoke` marker).
- A PR labelled e2e:full, a push to main, or a manual run: all 48 walks and
the whole end-to-end suite. Adding e2e:full to a PR runs it; any other
label runs nothing.
- A published release runs the full set before its image is built.
- The walk's seeds come from NISSE_WALK_SEEDS / NISSE_WALK_FIRST (48 from 0
by default).
Measured here: the unit tier on 2 workers took 3m49s against 6-8 minutes
serially.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PPQ14L3LikyefCMFBqEbKE
A 502, 503 or 504 from the LiteLLM proxy, or a dropped connection, is
retried after 5, 15 and 45 seconds before the call fails. Twice on
2026-10-07 a short burst of 502s stopped work outright: the integration
tier at 16:39 and an e2e conversation at 20:43, where the item waited on
the operator after one refused call.
Not retried: a 500 (it may be the request's fault), a timeout (it already
had its request_timeout_s), or a budget refusal. Rate limits keep their
single 20-second retry. The time spent waiting is reported with the rate
limit's (last_rate_limit_wait_s), so it isn't counted as the model's.
Tests: an outage waited out, one that outlasts the backoff, a dropped
connection, a 500 and a timeout not retried, a budget refusal not waited
on. The offline agent in test_agent_build skips the backoff (its proxy
doesn't exist).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PPQ14L3LikyefCMFBqEbKE
- on: release (published), not on any v* tag: only a deliberate release
builds an image; the version is its tag without the v, plus latest.
- docker/login-action, setup-buildx and build-push-action, as the runner
already serves them for inlaw_outlaw; the version as a build argument
and image label.
- Comments on why the registry needs a personal token (the job token's
empty package scope) and that packages belong to the repository owner.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PPQ14L3LikyefCMFBqEbKE
- Dockerfile: built with uv into /opt/nisse (installed, not editable),
run on python:3.12-slim with openssh-client as user nisse; stateless,
with state in a /var/lib/nisse-dev volume, config mounted at
/etc/nisse-dev/nisse-dev.yaml, secrets as environment variables, keys
mounted read-only. 202 MB. Its `test` stage adds the tests and their
tools over the installed package (UV_NO_SYNC, so `uv run` never swaps
in the source tree); the default target is the agent.
- scripts/e2e.sh --image REF runs the suite inside an image's test stage,
on its own sshd.
- CI builds both images on every PR (nothing pushed); release.yml pushes
gitea.dongar.net/dongar/nisse-dev:<tag> and :latest on a v* tag, with
the REGISTRY_TOKEN secret.
- scripts/bringup.sh builds the code under test into an image and runs it
in the systemd unit (root, $E2E mounted at its own path); `plan` prints
what it would run; the build-VM set-aside reads the projects: config.
Checked: the image refuses to start without a config, runs as uid 10001;
one e2e test passed from the test stage (2m45s, $0).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PPQ14L3LikyefCMFBqEbKE
- Questions never change state (L5, #77): a message ending in "?" to a
waiting project item starts a question run (reply and look-only tools,
an instruction to change nothing), and the item goes back to the very
wait it was in: a restatement up stays up and a go binds to it; the
agent's own question stays open.
- Explanations: a restatement gives its reasons and the main alternative;
a revision says what changed (restate(changed), sent back without it);
a milestone's summary says what was done, verified and left open.
- Progress in prose (#42): the driver's and a helper's own words for a
turn are posted, trimmed, at most once a minute per item; `details`
shows the last tool calls; a message arriving mid-run is acknowledged at
once ("Noted; ...").
- CI: the e2e job's comments and the plan no longer claim a newer push
cancels the run it supersedes (Gitea here doesn't); the concurrency
block goes.
Tests: conversation unit tests (questions in a go-ahead and an answer wait,
an unanswerable question, revisions, progress rate and trimming, details,
mid-run notes), the helper's progress, the walk asking questions in every
state with a questions_change_nothing property (routing questions the old
way fails 32 of 48 seeds), and an e2e question while a restatement is up.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PPQ14L3LikyefCMFBqEbKE
- roles.driver (unset: the planner's model) and roles.classifier (unset:
the expert's); the mapping is pinned when an item opens, and the driver
and the go-ahead reader run on the item's own (L9).
- profiles: in configuration (tools, strengths, weaknesses), used in
briefings: the driver's instructions say what its helper and expert are
good at, the helper's brief who reads its handback; never a model name.
- delegate(task) and ask_expert(question) for the driver. A helper works
on a branch off the milestone's; on a handback its work comes back as
uncommitted changes, otherwise it is discarded, so harness branches
never hold commits only the clone has. ask_expert keeps its budget.
- Triggers: failure_limit failed commands in a row (Driver's new "stuck"
outcome) or the turn cap, mid-milestone, call a helper in once per
milestone; if it fails too, the item waits on the operator. A
delegation cut off by a crash is discarded at boot.
- Evaluation capture: delegations and ask_expert as before, and the
reader's verdicts as classifier pairs.
Tests: help tests (merge-back, discard, needs a milestone, the stuck
trigger and its once-per-milestone limit, the expert and its budget,
pinning, briefings by profile, boot discarding a cut-off delegation),
config tests for roles and profiles, and the walk delegating with a
scripted helper that sometimes fails, with a delegations_settle property.
The walk found helper commits stranded on a merged PR's branch, fixed by
returning a helper's work uncommitted.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PPQ14L3LikyefCMFBqEbKE
Found by the first local e2e run: qwen3.8-27b put a new project's code in
the same PR as its ARCHITECTURE.md, with no build plan. D1 says a `design`
item agrees its design before any code, and that rested on wording only.
- Until a PR of a `design` item has merged, finish_milestone is sent back
if the milestone changes anything but ARCHITECTURE.md and docs/, naming
the paths to take out. The merge is recorded (design_merged) and code
may follow.
- The label's instruction and the new project's brief say so plainly:
documents first, in a PR of their own; code after it has merged.
Tests: a design milestone with code is sent back and only the documents
are published, then code after the merge; the walk's model follows the
rule.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PPQ14L3LikyefCMFBqEbKE
- propose_project(name, purpose, decisions) in a conversation goes up for
a go-ahead (checked: a slug, not an existing project, no trailing
question).
- On go, the provisioning checklist (D1): a repository with a README,
protection on its default branch, the agent as a collaborator, a build
VM, a deploy key, and the project entry as YAML with <...> to fill in.
- On "done", the agent reads its configuration again and adds the new
project live (build_loop_agent(load=...); only additions), then checks
what was provided (D4, verified, not assumed): permissions and
protection as it sees them, then on a throwaway branch with an empty
commit, a branch push must succeed and a push to the default branch and
merging its own PR must be refused. The check's PR is closed and its
branch deleted. Failures are said per item; nothing starts.
- Checked: the tracking issue (the distilled decisions, carrying the new
item's ID), and the project's item, agreed and labelled `design`, whose
first milestone is ARCHITECTURE.md and the build plan. A conversation
waiting on provisioning doesn't close as idle.
- The walk replays exactly from its seed (item IDs too), and event IDs
stay unique across simulated restarts, as a server's are.
- The test config holds output to 8192 tokens, under the test key's
per-request cost cap.
Tests: new-project unit tests (checklist and its YAML parse as config, done
before the entry, what isn't set up, a checked project's record and first
PR, an existing name), protection enforced by a hook on the fake forge,
the walk proposing projects and saying done, and an e2e new project in a
repository the test operator provisions from the agent's checklist.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PPQ14L3LikyefCMFBqEbKE
- Every e2e role runs on qwen3.8-27b on the RTX 4090 (e2e_roles();
NISSE_E2E_MODEL overrides, e.g. claude-haiku-4-5). The first full run
passed 7 of 8 in 26 minutes for $0.0000; the eighth was a real finding,
fixed with the new-project PR.
- scripts/e2e.sh reports a run's spend on the test key and the day's total
against its budget: above $0 on the local model means a paid fallback.
- CI runs the suite as its own job on pull requests (not pushes to main),
on a throwaway sshd (--local), cancelling a run a newer push supersedes,
so the checks job still reports in minutes.
- The plan says so: e2e on every PR; locally only -k / --lf.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PPQ14L3LikyefCMFBqEbKE
Every live test that touches a repository gets one of its own from
e2e_support.fresh_repo, made by the test operator as an operator makes a
project's (D4, D8): seeded from tests/integration/seed/ (the sandbox's
package, without past runs' leftovers), the agent's account a collaborator
with write access, main protected (pushes only by the owner, an approval to
merge), and a deploy key generated for the run. It is deleted afterwards
(NISSE_E2E_KEEP_REPOS keeps it); scripts/e2e-cleanup.sh deletes leftovers.
- Both e2e fixtures use it; per-run base branches are gone. The merge
helper approves first, as the protection now requires.
- test_gitea_live uses it, so CI needs NISSE_OPERATOR_TOKEN and no longer
writes the sandbox deploy key (NISSE_PUSH_KEY).
- A live test of the helper: seeded, shared with the agent, protected
against it, deleted.
- nisse-test.yaml's project entry is a placeholder; pytest and ruff skip
the seed.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PPQ14L3LikyefCMFBqEbKE
- A top-level message that isn't a command is a conversation: an item in
the `general` scope (L1), threaded under the operator's message, with
`reply`, `ask_human` and `propose_work` and no workspace or execution.
`general` is reserved as a project name.
- propose_work(project, title, summary) goes up as a revision for a
go-ahead (or a plain yes). On go, under a file_issue intent (L8), the
record issue is opened in that project, assigned to the agent and
carrying the new item's ID; its item starts agreed, with the summary as
its brief. Intake skips any issue carrying an ID (D1); boot adopts a
filed issue or puts the proposal up again.
- A conversation closes after tuning.loop.general_idle_s (default a day);
a reply in its thread then starts a new conversation that continues it.
Tests: conversation unit tests (threading, filing, the marker, an unknown
project, changes, idle close and continuation, a plain yes, both crash
cases, commands at top level); the walk with conversations, proposals and
idle time, and records_have_one_item / conversations_do_no_work; an e2e
conversation that becomes filed work.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PPQ14L3LikyefCMFBqEbKE
- Config: `projects: {name: entry}` with repo, base_branch, workspace,
build_host, push credential, labels (defaults added to every issue),
secrets by ${VAR} reference with visibility (commands | harness), and
egress (recorded, not enforced). Every problem in every entry is
reported at once; an inline secret, a bad visibility, a repeated repo or
a non-slug name is an error.
- The old loop runs exactly one project (only_project) and refuses more.
- The new loop is per project: each its own clone, workspace (with its
commands-visible secrets, redacted on return), push credential and
milestones; intake polls every project's repository; items are scoped
to their project for every run, publish and PR watch. Issues are named
project#14 when there is more than one project, and a bare #14 that
matches two is asked about. Switching projects parks the one worked on
last (all others after a boot).
- A restatement that ends in a question is sent back to the driver, not
posted: the e2e driver kept asking "Is this the right interpretation?",
which a plain yes can't answer.
Tests: config entries and errors, two-project assembly, two-project loop
tests (intake, own workspaces and repos, #14 in both, do-next, label
defaults, parking across projects), the property walk over two projects
with a new own_repository_only property (an item using the first
project's repo fails 15 of 16 seeds), and the restatement check.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PPQ14L3LikyefCMFBqEbKE
- L1: `general`, the scope of conversation not (yet) about a project: an
item per thread, no repository, build VM or execution; closes after a day
idle, a later reply starting a linked item.
- L5: every conversation is an item from its first message; chit-chat is
answered, only work gets a Gitea issue.
- D1: a conversation's record issue is opened once it's work on a project.
The new-project sequence: proposal, a provisioning checklist in Matrix,
verified when the operator says done, a tracking issue carrying the
distilled decisions (not the raw chat), then the architecture PRs.
- Q: a scratch build VM for general replaces the answered question about
records for pure conversations.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PPQ14L3LikyefCMFBqEbKE
- Every milestone branch is cut from the latest default branch: the next
milestone builds on the merged previous one, and a redo after a closed PR
drops the rejected work. Uncommitted work comes along.
- While the item's PR is open, start_milestone is refused, with the PR's
state read from Gitea at that moment, not the last watch round.
- finish_milestone(final): earlier PRs say "Part of #N", the last "Closes
#N"; unsaid, it's final, as before.
- close_item with the item's PR still open waits for the merge (L2: a
closed item leaves nothing open).
- The driver's instructions cover ARCHITECTURE.md and build plans under
docs/plans/ (D2); the harness never parses a plan.
- Parking stashes uncommitted work and pushes it to <item>-parked, put back
on resume, instead of committing it onto the item's branch. The walk
found a half-done review fix parked onto a PR that had merged meanwhile,
where it was lost. Architecture D4's parking line says so.
Tests: unit tests for fresh milestone branches, the merge wait (including
a merge not yet watched), redo after a closed PR, Part of/Closes, close
waiting on an open PR, and the parked-fix regression; the walk's new
milestones_start_fresh property (fork-from-current fails 9 seeds); an e2e
two-milestone feature.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PPQ14L3LikyefCMFBqEbKE
- Commands that name their item ("go #14", "abandon #14", "stop #14")
apply to it wherever they're said; go, approve and abandon alone at top
level are asked about (L5). stop is never taken as an answer.
- A plain-language reply to a restatement is read by GoAheadReader, one
model call that agrees only on a clear yes; questions never reach it. The
agent says "taking that as a go-ahead on rev-N" first, bound to the
revision on screen at arrival (L3, L5, D1).
- Labels steer (D1): `bug` goes ahead after tuning.loop.bug_grace_s
(default 600 s) unless the operator replies; `discuss` isn't offered
restate until the operator has spoken; `bug`, `discuss` and `design` add
to the driver's instructions. A restatement asks no questions.
Tests: label and command unit tests, the property walk with labelled
issues, plain yeses, named gos and time passing (grace_only_unanswered,
discuss_talks_first), and e2e tests for a bug proceeding after its grace
period and a plain-language go-ahead.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PPQ14L3LikyefCMFBqEbKE
Several work items on the new loop (L1, D4):
- Switching parks the item on the workspace: its work is committed and its
branch pushed; resuming checks the item's branch back out. Branches of
open items are never set aside by a fresh workspace.
- Next item: the operator's "do #N next" first, otherwise the oldest.
- Issues with open Gitea dependencies are blocked until they close, checked
at intake and on every round; status shows blocked items and the line.
Tests: queue unit tests, the property walk over several issues with
dependencies and a new parked_work_safe property (it catches parking
disabled), and an end-to-end test with two issues where B depends on A.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PPQ14L3LikyefCMFBqEbKE
From the new loop's first live run (sandbox #255, PR #256):
- A question asked on the PR is answered on the PR (an inline one quoted
with its file and line, since the API can't reply in its thread), with
a pointer in the item's Matrix thread; one asked in Matrix stays there.
- wait_for_review: when a review needs no change, or only the operator's
merge is left, the item waits on the merge instead of on an answer.
- finish_milestone takes the PR's title from the driver.
The e2e test's merge waits out Gitea's brief 'try again later' after a
push.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PPQ14L3LikyefCMFBqEbKE
The first live run of the new loop's e2e test found that a fact recorded
while start_milestone was in flight landed between the tool call and its
result; both API formats reject that, so every later request in the run
failed. Views now keep each result right after its call. Scripted test
models check the APIs' ordering rules, so this can't pass unit tests
again.
The e2e tests no longer depend on the sandbox's history: each run asks for
a uniquely named function and works against a base branch of its own,
deleted afterwards. The review step asks for a change that can't already
be there. The scripted operator gives up after five fruitless answers, and
each run keeps its state store for inspection. The driver's prompt says
review fixes stay in the current milestone.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PPQ14L3LikyefCMFBqEbKE
From an issue the scripted operator files and assigns in Gitea, through
the restatement, go-ahead, milestone and PR, a review comment answered
with a pushed fix, to an approved and merged PR and a closed item and
issue. The operator acts in Gitea through its own test account
(NISSE_OPERATOR_TOKEN) and in the item's thread through the in-memory
transport. Runs from scripts/e2e.sh.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PPQ14L3LikyefCMFBqEbKE
test_loop_properties.py walks the new loop with a seeded mix of operator
and Gitea actions (go-aheads, stale go-aheads, answers, comments, merges,
the comment-then-merge race, closes, abandon, a crash and restart) and an
adaptive scripted model, checking every loop.qnt property after every
step. It found two bugs, both fixed with regression tests: abandoning an
item left its open PR open (the model's fix 1, now in code), and after a
review fix became a follow-up PR, the next fix went to the merged branch.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PPQ14L3LikyefCMFBqEbKE
A work item starts from a fresh workspace: fetch, set aside (never
discard) leftover changes, branches and unpushed commits, a clean default
branch, and a branch of its own (D3, #62). start_milestone cuts the
milestone's branch; finish_milestone commits only the work, pushes and
opens a PR that closes the issue, under an intent, adopting an open PR and
treating a closed one as the operator's answer (D4). Between runs the
loop watches each item's PR: operator comments and inline review notes
(#69) reach the item, a merge or close hands back to the driver. A review
fix is checked after it's pushed and goes out as a new PR if the PR merged
first (D5). At boot an interrupted publish is settled against Gitea (L8).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PPQ14L3LikyefCMFBqEbKE
nisse_dev.loop runs alongside control.py, chosen with `loop: new`.
Issues assigned to the agent (by an operator, or filed by one) become work
items, each with a Matrix thread. A driver run is one model with tools
until it calls a waiting tool: restate puts rev-N up for a go-ahead, bound
to the revision on screen when the reply arrived; ask_human waits for an
answer; close_item closes the item and its issue. Before the go-ahead the
driver can look but not change or close anything. One item is active at a
time; replies in an item's thread go to it. On boot, an item cut off
mid-run waits on the operator, and waiting points are put up again.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PPQ14L3LikyefCMFBqEbKE
Transport.post(text, thread=...) returns the event ID, which can root a
thread; a threaded post carries m.thread with the reply fallback for
clients without threads. Inbound messages carry their event ID and thread
root: a message in a thread gives its root, a plain reply joins the
thread of the message it replies to when known, and the quoted lines of a
rich reply are no longer part of the text. The in-memory transport plays
threads for tests.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PPQ14L3LikyefCMFBqEbKE
tests/integration/test_end_to_end.py drives the whole assembled agent
(real models, the Gitea sandbox, a real build host) through a milestone
with a scripted operator, and checks what bring-up run 3 checked by hand:
a PR holding only the work, pushed with the push credential; no
credential in the clone; the planner's view carrying facts, not the
executor's turns. It cleans up after itself on the sandbox and the build
host.
scripts/e2e.sh runs it on the bring-up build VM (or --local). It has its
own marker, e2e, kept out of check.sh and CI since it spends tokens.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PPQ14L3LikyefCMFBqEbKE
The priority is the smallest new loop running live, so M1.4 and M1.5 move
after M2.1. Each milestone is now checked by an automated end-to-end test
(new M1.6) against real resources, not a manual live run; manual runs are
for the new loop's first runs and phase ends.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PPQ14L3LikyefCMFBqEbKE
A failing CI test printed a test key through SSHKey's default repr. Push
credentials, AgentConfig's tokens and MatrixConfig's token are now
excluded from their reprs, so no failure or log line can print them. In
CI's container killed ssh-agents linger as zombies, so the tests count
only live ones.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PPQ14L3LikyefCMFBqEbKE
The clone gets the standard build artifacts in its own exclude file, so
they never show as changes, even to a model's `git add -A`. The
harness's commits leave the same patterns out even when the project
tracks them, as the sandbox's main did. What was left out is reported in
the publish note and the PR description. Found again in bring-up run 3
(sandbox PR #208).
Fixes#80.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PPQ14L3LikyefCMFBqEbKE
Live run 3: the executor ran `git checkout -b <task id>` itself, and
publishing then failed, because git can't create '<task>/milestone-1'
while a branch named '<task>' exists. Milestone and delegation branches
are now '<task>-milestone-N' and 'delegation-milestone-N-F'. D4's
harness-owned branches (M2.1) remove the cause; this removes the
collision on the current loop.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PPQ14L3LikyefCMFBqEbKE
The push credential is either a push-only account's token, handed to git
through a credential helper that names environment variables, never
values, or a deploy key in a short-lived ssh-agent. The remote URL
follows the credential. Configured as gitea.push_user and push_token, or
gitea.push_key.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PPQ14L3LikyefCMFBqEbKE
execution.SSHHost.execute is now the only way the agent runs anything
(L13). Commands travel as a script on SSH's stdin, so the secrets handed
to a call are never on a command line, and every value handed out is
redacted from the output. Timeouts kill the remote process group, and
an unreachable host is reported as such, not as a failed command.
Workspace and GitRepo run on the build VM. The clone uses the
repository's SSH URL, so no credential is stored in it (#89); fetches
and pushes get the push key over stdin, in a short-lived ssh-agent,
and PRs are still opened from the agent's host with its API token.
The bench runs on the build host too.
Tests reach "the build VM" through a throwaway local sshd (nisse_dev
.testing); CI installs openssh-server. The live push test now pushes
with the sandbox's deploy key (NISSE_PUSH_KEY).
Fixes#89.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PPQ14L3LikyefCMFBqEbKE
SSH execution and the agent as a container image come first (Phase 1),
then the new loop as a thin end-to-end slice, widened milestone by
milestone with a live run after each. Outline, Vikunja and per-agent VMs
are gone; the vault, the infrastructure repository and the agent host
replace them. The survey and issue map are refreshed.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PPQ14L3LikyefCMFBqEbKE
Name the action classes harmless, contained and dangerous instead of
numbering them; say what escalation doesn't depend on; say when a work
item's Matrix thread starts and how threads route commands; add open
questions for the state store's engine, ops issuing credentials, and
releases.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PPQ14L3LikyefCMFBqEbKE
- abandon closes the item's open PRs
- a PR the operator closed is an answer, never reopened by a retry
- a review fix for a PR that merged meanwhile goes out as a new PR
- redoing a milestone after a closed PR gets a new branch and PR
- a record issue carries its work item's ID from creation
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PPQ14L3LikyefCMFBqEbKE
A Quint model of the design in docs/Architecture.md (PR #90): intake,
restatements and go-aheads, park-and-switch, blocked dependencies,
harness-owned milestones, waiting for merges, review follow-ups, record
issues, crashes and build VM wipes. It found five gaps; the model carries
the proposed fixes, and loop_scenarios.qnt keeps each counterexample.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PPQ14L3LikyefCMFBqEbKE
Ops work lives in one infrastructure repository for both sites, with
site labels; intake, labels and dependencies work as for nisse-dev, and
agent-to-agent requests are cross-repo issues.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PPQ14L3LikyefCMFBqEbKE
Each rule is stated once in its home section and referred to by ID
elsewhere. No decision added or removed; implementation detail moved to
Development-Plan.md section 6, keyed by architecture section. P8 folded
into P1, P5 and X1; the Appendix about the old spec dropped. Section
IDs are unchanged.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PPQ14L3LikyefCMFBqEbKE
Issues assigned to dev-agent are the intake; the agent restates its
understanding and either proceeds (bug label) or waits for a go-ahead.
Labels steer and are never required. Build plans and ARCHITECTURE.md
are working documents reviewed in PRs, not gates; scope is the issue
and its conversation. Work items can be blocked on Gitea dependencies,
each gets a Matrix thread, milestones are started and finished by
control tools, and the next milestone waits for the previous merge.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PPQ14L3LikyefCMFBqEbKE
Agents run as containers on one stable agent host that keeps their
state and secrets and never runs a command a model chose. Model-chosen
commands run on disposable tool VMs over SSH: a build VM per project
for nisse-dev, its own tool VM for nisse-ops. Secrets are a set per
agent, handed out per operation by the harness and redacted from tool
output. MCP servers stay on the agent host as the one exception.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PPQ14L3LikyefCMFBqEbKE
A model no longer reads another role's turns as its own (#78). The log
stays one record per work item; what a role is shown is projected from
it by Transcript.view() (views.py), which the planner, executor and
helper now build their context from:
- own events unchanged;
- operator messages labelled with their channel, e.g.
[operator, Matrix] or [operator, comment on PR #165];
- orchestrator facts (a new `fact` event) as [orchestrator] statements;
- the executor sees a helper's handback as [helper report], not its turns;
- a helper sees the approved plan and the executor's milestone work as
one-line narration;
- the planner sees no other role's work at all.
The orchestrator now writes facts at the points the models must know
about: work item opened, plan approved or rejected, milestone started,
finished or stopped, published (with PR number and URL) or not, review
comment answered, next milestone, task completed or abandoned.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PPQ14L3LikyefCMFBqEbKE
Development Plan M1.1, as discussed.
- Schema v4: a work_items table (id, scope, title, status, outcome,
position, data) and an agent row whose active_item points at one
(NULL: idle). Canonical events and intents carry their work item, and
events their actor. Older stores are refused with a clear message:
there was no production data, so no migration (the mechanism stays).
- The log is reached through a Transcript bound to one work item and
one actor: store.transcript(item, actor) reads only that item and
writes with both. The planner, executor, delegation and expert desk
get one per call from the orchestrator instead of holding the store,
so a component can neither read another task's events (the planner
read every earlier task's, #78) nor write without attribution.
store.all_events() is kept for readers that span items (evaluation
capture, dumps). Intents are begun through the transcript or with
work_item=, so each belongs to its item.
- The orchestrator opens a work item on 'use', closes it with its
outcome (completed or abandoned), and carries what the operator said
while idle into the new item as copies with their origin, so a task
sent before 'use' is still planned from (D1). control.py keeps its
state machine through get_state()/transition(), now over the active
work item, until M2.6 retires it.
- nisse_dev.dump shows work items and each event's item and actor.
Tests: test_work_items.py (scoping, attribution, intent ownership,
restart, outcomes, carried messages, a second task never seeing the
first); the suites updated for the per-call transcript.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PPQ14L3LikyefCMFBqEbKE
Architecture L9's role names, for the two roles with a direct
counterpart: the delegation role is now 'helper' and the ask_expert role
'expert', in RoleMap, configuration (roles.helper, roles.expert),
recorded events and tests. 'planner' and 'executor' stay distinct for
now; they become 'driver' when the new loop merges them (Development
Plan M2.3).
Configurations must rename their keys: nisse-dev.example.yaml and
tests/integration/nisse-test.yaml are updated here.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PPQ14L3LikyefCMFBqEbKE
Development Plan M0.2.
- scripts/bringup.sh: start [REF] sets the previous run aside under
/root/nisse-e2e/runs/, exports the ref under test and starts the agent
as the transient systemd unit nisse-bringup, so it outlives the shell
that started it; stop (SIGTERM, clean shutdown), status, logs, and
collect (the journal log and a readable transcript).
- nisse_dev.dump (python -m nisse_dev.dump STATE_DB [--full]): a readable
dump of a state store's state, pending intents and canonical log. Opens
the store read-only, so it is safe against a live agent.
- The agent runs as root on this development VM, as it will on its own
VM. Architecture D3/D6/D7 corrected to match the operator's intent:
installing packages and toolchains on its own VM is class 2, recorded
so the environment can be rebuilt (it was class 3 with provisioning an
open question); egress names OS package mirrors. The plan's M0.2, M4.1,
M4.2 and bring-up guards follow.
Acceptance: a smoke run started, answered status in the test room,
stopped cleanly, and collect produced the log and transcript.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PPQ14L3LikyefCMFBqEbKE
Development Plan M0.1. Every section reference in code, tests, specs/,
the example config, the tuning guide, and the CLAUDE.md and README files
now cites docs/Architecture.md (P, L, D, O, X, Q) instead of the old
spec's A-H, and docs/Architecture-Build-Spec.md is deleted (git keeps
it). The plan's old-to-new table goes with it.
Mostly mechanical, with a per-site choice where one old section split:
A4 became L2 where it meant stop/abandon/the loop and L3 where it meant
approvals; A10 became L6 in the context-budget code and L7 elsewhere; B2
became D4 for outbound Gitea and publishing and D5 for review intake;
'A3 step N' became the matching step of L8's boot sequence. Comments
describing behaviour the architecture drops (planning always escalating,
thresholds tuned at an old build step) now describe the current code and
point at the Development Plan.
docs/Architecture.md gains one line the rewrite missed: intake outages
delay but never fail work (old B2), now in L5, where the poller and
Matrix code cite it.
Comments and docs only; no behaviour change.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PPQ14L3LikyefCMFBqEbKE
docs/Development-Plan.md: where the code stands against each section of
docs/Architecture.md, the environment today, how we work (plan-first per
milestone, tests, the Quint model, a bring-up run on this box ending
each phase), and seven phases of milestones from housekeeping to
nisse-ops, each marked pre-approved or needs discussion. Every open
issue is mapped to a milestone or marked superseded; an old-to-new
section table serves the reference update in M0.1.
docs/Architecture.md: status now agreed; D7 regains the browser tool
for the internal test network, left out of the rewrite by mistake.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PPQ14L3LikyefCMFBqEbKE
A full rewrite of the architecture, following the outline agreed with the
operator: a threat model of mistakes, injection and crashes rather than a
malicious model; actions classed by their effects; hard walls, a
deterministic fast path and an action classifier; a conversational loop
driven by a local model with frontier helpers; approvals as scoped
permissions with pre-approved milestones and a trust dial; context and
memory, including agent memory; documents as nisse-dev's workflow.
Added beside docs/Architecture-Build-Spec.md, which stays until this is
agreed; the Development Plan and reference updates come after. New
section letters (P, L, D, O, X, Q) avoid clashing with the old A-H
references in the code meanwhile.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PPQ14L3LikyefCMFBqEbKE
dongarandClaude Opus 5.5