Files
gstack/docs/recommended-harness.md
Garry Tanandcapy-ai[bot] 3df7484bc7 v1.91.339.0 ship-queue: stamped merge-train prefixes and train land (GSTA-154 PR B) (#3595)
* feat(ship-policy): changelog_fragments key; restamp folds fragments; tree receipt accepts the fold

Co-authored-by: capy-ai[bot] <230910855+capy-ai[bot]@users.noreply.github.com>

* feat(ship-queue): land, the per-PR merge step; Version Gate enforces fragments

Co-authored-by: capy-ai[bot] <230910855+capy-ai[bot]@users.noreply.github.com>

* feat(ship-queue): land --repair after drift; hook base sha; docs and CHANGELOG

Co-authored-by: capy-ai[bot] <230910855+capy-ai[bot]@users.noreply.github.com>

* test: timeout on the land gh shim's git spawn

Co-authored-by: capy-ai[bot] <230910855+capy-ai[bot]@users.noreply.github.com>

* feat(ship): /ship writes a CHANGELOG fragment under changelog_fragments; land checks the depth-checked receipt (#3567)

Co-authored-by: capy-ai[bot] <230910855+capy-ai[bot]@users.noreply.github.com>

* test(land): keeps the base's four-part package.json (#3557)

Co-authored-by: capy-ai[bot] <230910855+capy-ai[bot]@users.noreply.github.com>

* fix(ship-queue): land waits for CI through runScriptSync (script-invocation tripwire)

Co-authored-by: capy-ai[bot] <230910855+capy-ai[bot]@users.noreply.github.com>

* test: land, fragment and Version Gate cases from /ship's coverage audit

Co-authored-by: capy-ai[bot] <230910855+capy-ai[bot]@users.noreply.github.com>

* test(windows): leave test/ship-queue-land.test.ts out of the Windows-safe subset (gh shim cannot launch there)

Co-authored-by: capy-ai[bot] <230910855+capy-ai[bot]@users.noreply.github.com>

* docs(ship-policy): rollback lands open fragment PRs first; restamp folds only with the key on

Co-authored-by: capy-ai[bot] <230910855+capy-ai[bot]@users.noreply.github.com>

* fix(land): close pre-landing review findings

land without --no-wait now compares the pushed branch head and polls the
stamp commit's checks, refuses a PR whose base is not the stamped base,
releases the lock on a pre-push failure, keeps --break-lock off drift
locks, resumes from a lost journal via the stamp commit's pin, honours
history merge-only, and refuses a fragment whose text is already released
on the base. Version Gate stops applying open claims to a fragments stamp.

Co-authored-by: capy-ai[bot] <230910855+capy-ai[bot]@users.noreply.github.com>

* fix(land): close adversarial and outside-voice findings

land reconciles a merge GitHub completed behind an error reply, refuses
--break-lock against a holder that just entered a push or a merge, keeps
a repair takeover on the lock itself (any checkout can land the repair
PR), resumes --repair after a failed PR create, releases the lock on
QUEUE_LAND_BASE_BUSY, never writes through a symlinked release file,
keeps a package.json version source's other edits, and refuses an empty
object id instead of pushing a deletion. A carried-back fragment is
matched on whole released lines. Under changelog_fragments Version Gate
accepts a stamped head only as a [pin, base] merge-step commit with valid
fragments.

Co-authored-by: capy-ai[bot] <230910855+capy-ai[bot]@users.noreply.github.com>

* feat(land): refuse a pin without a READY receipt; symlinked release files refuse before restamp

Under changelog_fragments, gstack-ship-queue ready records a READY receipt
(refs/notes/gstack-trains) once its pregate, full_e2e and /ship receipt
checks pass, and land refuses a pin without one (fix: run
gstack-ship-queue ready --pr N), --dry-run included (GStack Minder ruling,
2026-10-29). The merged tree's release files may not be symlinks, so
restamp never writes outside the scratch worktree. --repair adopts an
existing branch only when it holds land's repair commit.

Co-authored-by: capy-ai[bot] <230910855+capy-ai[bot]@users.noreply.github.com>

* fix(pregate): clear's stamp-only substitution applies the changelog_fragments fold; docs match land and ready

gstack-pregate clear and gstack-tree-receipt now classify through one
classifyFiles, so under changelog_fragments a receipt for the fragment head
clears the stamped head when the stamp is exactly the fold. The ship-policy
reference names ready's receipt push, land's own check polling, the key-off
refusal and the /ship changelog_fragments line.

Co-authored-by: capy-ai[bot] <230910855+capy-ai[bot]@users.noreply.github.com>

* docs(pregate, ship-policy): the fragment fold's two receipt rules, and clear applies them too

Co-authored-by: capy-ai[bot] <230910855+capy-ai[bot]@users.noreply.github.com>

* feat(ship-queue): stamped train prefixes S_i with the self-check (PR B)

Co-authored-by: capy-ai[bot] <230910855+capy-ai[bot]@users.noreply.github.com>

* feat(ship-queue): train build stamps S_i under fragments; train land publishes S_i exactly; backstop covers exact trees (PR B)

Co-authored-by: capy-ai[bot] <230910855+capy-ai[bot]@users.noreply.github.com>

* docs: stamped trains and train land; QUEUE_TRAIN_STAMP_MISMATCH anchor

Co-authored-by: capy-ai[bot] <230910855+capy-ai[bot]@users.noreply.github.com>

* captain templates: fragments instead of [Unreleased]; no slot call for stamped trains

Co-authored-by: capy-ai[bot] <230910855+capy-ai[bot]@users.noreply.github.com>

* test: timeouts on the train-land gh wrapper's sync spawns

Co-authored-by: capy-ai[bot] <230910855+capy-ai[bot]@users.noreply.github.com>

* feat(ship-queue): train land checks the depth-checked receipt (#3567); regenerate the doctor anchors

Co-authored-by: capy-ai[bot] <230910855+capy-ai[bot]@users.noreply.github.com>

* test(train-stamp): S_i keeps the base's four-part package.json (#3557)

Co-authored-by: capy-ai[bot] <230910855+capy-ai[bot]@users.noreply.github.com>

* test(windows): leave test/ship-queue-train-land.test.ts out of the Windows-safe subset (same gh shim as the train tests)

Co-authored-by: capy-ai[bot] <230910855+capy-ai[bot]@users.noreply.github.com>

* fix(train-land): close pre-landing review and outside-voice findings

- train land checks commit-tree and stamps with a fixed identity and date, journals before the push, and
  adopts its own stamp head on a rerun; a failed commit-tree never pushes a branch deletion
- a symlinked release file in the merged tree refuses before the train stamp writes
- mergeStep merges a conflicted manifest three-way with the predecessor's version (mergeManifest, shared with land)
- train land refuses a PR retargeted off the base and a failed base refresh
- Version Gate skips a released fragment carried in by a stacked pin instead of counting its bump
- bisect of a stamped train tests T0 and S_1..S_k

Co-authored-by: capy-ai[bot] <230910855+capy-ai[bot]@users.noreply.github.com>

* fix(train-land): a rerun whose head is still the pin re-enters the stamp step after a journaled, unpushed stamp

Co-authored-by: capy-ai[bot] <230910855+capy-ai[bot]@users.noreply.github.com>

* fix(train-land): prove the record's S_i is on the gated chain before stamping; a merge main does not show yet pends

Co-authored-by: capy-ai[bot] <230910855+capy-ai[bot]@users.noreply.github.com>

* fix(train-land): pin S_i to the gated head's exact prefix; an out-of-order slot refuses without freezing; stamps never sign

Co-authored-by: capy-ai[bot] <230910855+capy-ai[bot]@users.noreply.github.com>

* fix(train-land): pin S_i to slot position; a failed push or unreadable PR never reads as a move; reruns of landed slots confirm; T0 in the out-of-order refusal

Co-authored-by: capy-ai[bot] <230910855+capy-ai[bot]@users.noreply.github.com>

* feat(train-land): verify the whole stamped chain from git before landing; require changelog_fragments.required_checks green on the stamp commit

Co-authored-by: capy-ai[bot] <230910855+capy-ai[bot]@users.noreply.github.com>

* docs(ship-policy, troubleshooting, harness): train land refusals, resume and required checks; stamped bisect; three-way manifest merges

Co-authored-by: capy-ai[bot] <230910855+capy-ai[bot]@users.noreply.github.com>

* ship: write the Steps 12-16 range with an ASCII hyphen so the skeleton fits maxSkeletonBytes

Co-authored-by: capy-ai[bot] <230910855+capy-ai[bot]@users.noreply.github.com>

---------

Co-authored-by: capy-ai[bot] <230910855+capy-ai[bot]@users.noreply.github.com>
2026-10-30 19:23:01 +00:00

30 KiB

The recommended harness: gstack + Capy, from zero to the first merged train

This is the operating model a team adopts when it runs gstack under a Capy Captain: one person, one Captain thread that directs a crew, crew threads that each own a branch and stop at an unstamped READY, one controller that merges through trains, a daily flaky pass, a twice-weekly release, and a scorecard that says whether the factory is getting better. It was written from two crews that ran it for a week on their own repositories (about 100 merges a week each) and from the recurring problems four Captains reported while doing so. Every path and check name below is configurable; nothing here depends on gstack's own repository.

Two layers, kept apart on purpose:

  • Harness-generic (works in Claude Code, Codex and any host that reads the SKILL.md files): /ship, gstack-ship-queue, gstack-restamp, gstack-pregate, the ship receipt, the train protocol, the flaky-rerun rule, release-cut, gstack-factory-scorecard, /retro.
  • Capy-specific: the user-scope skill folder and its install check, the Captain and its Drive, crew threads, automations, tools.pr.create, the approvals relay. Each one is marked Capy below; the section at the end lists what is only Capy.
flowchart LR
  P[Person] -->|plain-language asks and one-word answers| C[Captain thread]
  C -->|briefs, slot calls| L1[Crew thread: branch A]
  C --> L2[Crew thread: branch B]
  C --> L3[Crew thread: branch C]
  L1 -->|/ship, READY block with SHIP_RECEIPT| C
  L2 --> C
  L3 --> C
  C -->|train build: one gate for up to 5 PRs| G[(Gate workflow)]
  G -->|GREEN or RED with flake records| C
  C -->|slot: stamp, verify, merge, verify| M[(main)]
  M -->|Mon + Thu, 72 h floor| R[Stable release: tag, notes, stable]
  G -.->|flake-records artifacts| F[Daily flaky pass]
  M -.->|free-suite retries| F
  M -.->|/retro Step 7.5| S[Factory scorecard]

Day 0: install

1. The user-scope gstack skill (Capy)

Copy capy/skill/gstack/ from a gstack checkout into the person's user-scope Drive as skills/gstack/ (SKILL.md, captain.md, scripts/install.sh). Add to the user-scope AGENTS.md:

At the start of each session on a Capy cloud machine, load the user-scoped gstack skill and perform its installation check before starting work. If the check fails, follow the skill's session-start steps. Treat a session with no gstack: ok line from this machine as having no gstack: run no gstack workflow, claim none works, and report any blocker. Repeat this check on each separate task machine.

What that buys you: every thread runs bash scripts/install.sh --check [--for <skill>] first and reports exactly one trailer, gstack: ok <revision> for=<skill> or gstack: fail <ids>. The install is about 30 seconds cold and prints the GSTACK_LAUNCH: assignments every later command needs (docs/capy-install.md). A thread that runs /ship installs with --for ship; a planning-only verdict (SKIP pins (planning-only)) does not admit /ship, /review or /qa.

Two things the first week taught every crew:

  • Most threads never install. The rule installs right before the first workflow, so a thread that does not plan one never gets /review or /investigate either. If most threads in a project run a workflow, bake gstack into the project's Capy Setup snapshot instead (capy-install.md#bake-into-a-capy-snapshot): each session then pays only the check.
  • One revision per thread. Subagents on fresh machines install separately and can land one patch apart. Put the minimum revision your crew needs in the crew rules and have every first report quote the trailer, so a lane that is behind says so.

2. The repository

The harness reads four files from the repository. A team can adopt them one at a time; each is independent.

File Why Without it
.gstack/pregate.json Maps changed paths to test lanes, so /ship runs the tests that cover the diff and the remote gate selects correctly (docs/pregate.md) /ship fails every touched file with PREGATE_NO_LANE. Write it once, from one owner, before the crew starts.
.gstack/ship-policy.json queue_mode, the train block (gate and free workflow names, the full-gate check, the train size and fill wait), the stamp files (docs/ship-policy.md) Per-PR queue; train … refuses with QUEUE_TRAIN_OFF.
CHANGELOG.md + VERSION A stamp per merge and a twice-weekly release with notes (docs/releases.md) Skip the version and changelog steps; the train still works on the tree receipt.
AGENTS.md validation discipline Diagnose before fixing, focused checks during repair, one full suite at the end on a frozen tree Threads retry blindly and report passes from older revisions.

A .github/workflows gate that the train can dispatch is the one hard requirement for trains: a workflow that accepts workflow_dispatch with the train nonce and publishes a check (full_gate_check) and a record artifact on the train head. gstack's own evals.yml is the reference; a repository with a plain test workflow sets gate_workflow to it and gets a train without paid cases.

3. The Captain and its Drive (Capy)

Create a Captain from the Capy app (New Captain) or with tools.captain.create. Its Drive is mounted read-write on every crew thread; this layout is what the crews converged on:

captain-<name>/
  AGENTS.md        the Captain's standing rules: mandate, severity bar, standing approvals, every decision quoted verbatim with its date
  CREW.md          the crew rules every thread reads at start (install check, validation discipline, READY shape, stamp-on-call, flaky rule, approvals)
  DIGEST.md        the state of the crew, "Needs you" first; rewritten, never appended
  NOTES.md         the Captain's running log
  skills/          procedures the crew runs: merge-train/, captain-approvals/, and any repo-specific runbook
  reports/<code>.md   one per thread: Outcome, PR (with head SHAs), Needs, Cost, Lesson, Approvals
  handoffs/        datasets and files the next thread needs (the flaky ledger lives here)
  plans/           plans brought for approval

The phase-1 templates for these files (AGENTS.md, CREW.md, DIGEST.md, a report, a READY block, an approvals table, a slot call) ship under captain/templates/ with the /captain skill, and docs/captain.md explains how the Captain runs a day. Drop the templates in, replace the placeholders (repository, crew login list, gate workflow name, minimum revision, who may approve what), and the crew has its rules before its first thread starts. The approvals shape itself (plan asks with before → after, why, cause, big decisions and a one-word default; a ## Approvals table in every report and PR body) is the harness-generic part and is documented in capy/skill/gstack/captain.md.

The first train

A lane (one crew thread, one branch) does this, in order. Every command is harness-generic; only the thread and the PR tool are Capy.

  1. Branch from the default branch, build, test with focused checks. Write the CHANGELOG entry under ## [Unreleased] (under changelog_fragments, a fragment in the policy's fragment directory instead); leave VERSION at main's value. Never pre-pick a version.
  2. Push the final head. Everything below binds to the pushed head; a later push invalidates the receipt, the pregate record and the review binding.
  3. Open the PR with the host's PR tool (Capy: tools.pr.create, never gh pr create, so CI and review callbacks reach the thread), base the default branch.
  4. Run /ship unattended with the GSTACK_LAUNCH assignments exported: it runs the pregate (on a machine under 8 cores the test tier needs gstack-pregate --stage tests --remote, about $0.06 on a Ubicloud VM or free locally for small selections), both reviews, the gate-integrity list, the docs audit, and writes the ship receipt into the PR body (gstack-ship-receipt write --pr <n>). With queue_mode: stamp-at-merge, /ship does not bump the version. /ship never merges and never merges main into the branch.
  5. READY. gstack-ship-queue ready --pr <n> --no-screen (after running the skill's own paid cases focused) or --screen (one paid screen on the merge SHA). Send the printed block as is: READY #<n> <head> STAMP_VERSION=unstamped, CI at that head, PREGATE: pass, the screen line and SHIP_RECEIPT: pr=<n> head=<head>. A block with SHIP_RECEIPT: none is not READY. From now on the head is frozen: a push drops the PR from any train (QUEUE_TRAIN_MOVED) and the lane must READY again.
  6. Post the READY block as a PR comment too. The Captain reads it in the thread; the scorecard (below) measures READY → merge from the first PR comment that carries it. A crew that only reports in-thread has no READY-to-merge number.

The controller (the Captain, or a thread it designates) does this; the Captain's skills/merge-train/ runbook holds the crew's copy and ship-policy.md#run-a-merge-train is the reference:

  1. gstack-ship-queue train build --prs 41@<sha>,42@<sha> --dry-run, then without --dry-run. Up to 5 READY pins, screened first; with fewer than 5 it waits until the oldest READY is fill_hours old, --urgent for one PR. Refusals happen before any spend: a moved head, a missing receipt, a fork head, a real conflict (the line names the PR and files; rebuild without it and send it back to its lane to merge main).
  2. train verdict: GREEN, possibly with FLAKY N (a case failed once and passed its one in-run rerun; that is green, and the flake record goes to the daily pass), RED (cases that failed twice: bisect on them, drop the attributed PR, or rebuild once after an all-green bisect, never more), or INCOMPLETE (one re-dispatch for an INFRA-only census).
  3. Per slot, in order: call the lane ("#41 slot , base , order <…>"). The lane merges main if needed (CHANGELOG by section), runs gstack-restamp --next --base main --pr 41 --expect-base <sha> --expect-order <…> --allow-repo-commands, commits only the stamp files, pushes, waits for required CI, and reports READY #41 <stamped sha> STAMP_VERSION=<X>. The controller runs gstack-ship-queue verify --pr 41 --train <nonce>, merges with the exact head (gh pr merge 41 --squash --match-head-commit <sha>, or --merge where the repository keeps merge commits), and verifies again. A stamp commit that holds anything beyond the stamp files fails verify --train, freezes the queue and costs a backstop gate. Under changelog_fragments there is no slot call and no lane stamp: the controller runs gstack-ship-queue train land --train <nonce> --pr 41 per slot, which pushes the stamped prefix the gate covered, waits for checks, merges and confirms main (ship-policy.md#train-land).
  4. train prune when every slot has merged.

Who merges. One controller, never the lane. Both crews that ran this learned it the same way: a PR merged off a green list state whose gate never passed, and a stamp commit with one extra line that froze the queue.

The daily flaky pass

The rule (set once by the owner and quoted in the crew rules): a case that fails on its own verdict is rerun once at the same tree, inside the same run. A pass is green with a flake record; a second failure is a real red; harness, INFRA and INCOMPLETE reds are never flakes. Nothing is retried twice, and no threshold, budget or trial count moves to manufacture a pass.

The pass reads two sources, the same two the scorecard counts:

  • Paid: the gate workflow's flake-records-a<attempt> artifact (flake-records.jsonl, one record per flaky case: case, kind, PR, head, run, both attempts, symptom, rerun cost).
  • Free: the free workflow's flake-ledger-* artifacts (one flaky-pass line per file that failed and passed on the serial retry).

It appends each event to a ledger the crew can read (the crews keep it at handoffs/flaky-ledger.md in the Captain's Drive: date, case, tier, PR and head, both runs, a one-line symptom), ranks repeats first, and opens one fix thread per day with the ledger's Open section as its brief. The fix thread moves entries to Fixed (with the PR) or Won't fix (with the reason), never deletes them. bun run test:health is the free weekly check on the free lane (a file that flakes in more than 5% of main runs over at least 20 runs fails it).

As a Capy automation (Capy): one automation, one schedule trigger a day in the owner's timezone, prompt along the lines of "read the newest gate runs' flake-records-a* artifacts and the free runs' flake-ledger-* artifacts since the last pass, append new events to handoffs/flaky-ledger.md, rank repeats first, start one fix thread with the Open section as its brief, and report the count to the Captain". Pass thread: "this" to keep the history in one place, and run it once by hand before enabling it.

The stable release

.github/workflows/weekly-release.yml ("Stable release") runs scripts/release-cut.ts every Monday and Thursday at 14:00 UTC, and never moves stable more than once in 72 hours except for a verified security or regression fix (--security or --regression, with --ref): it takes the newest green commit on main's first-parent history (its required check succeeded, the backstop check succeeded, every check run completed and none failed, no active freeze), tags it v<VERSION>, publishes a GitHub Release whose notes are one line per CHANGELOG version since the previous release, and fast-forwards stable. Team-mode installs follow stable; gstack-config set update_channel main follows every merge. A hotfix is --ref <sha on main>, held by the same floor. Details, the floor's refusal codes and the "nothing green in the window" failure mode: docs/releases.md. A repository adopting this copies the workflow, sets its required check and backstop check names (REQUIRED_CHECK, BACKSTOP_CHECK), and keeps the CHANGELOG headline convention (docs/CHANGELOG_STYLE.md).

Watch for release starvation: when trains merge faster than the backstop settles, most main commits are superseded before they are gated and the week can end with no candidate. The fix is in tooling (accept a commit a green train record covers), not in holding slots by hand.

The factory scorecard

bin/gstack-factory-scorecard reads one window (default 7 days) from GitHub through gh and prints a Markdown table plus a CSV; /retro runs it as Step 7.5 when gh is authenticated. Read-only, no paid work; it downloads the small verdict and flake artifacts, so a busy repository takes a few minutes (--max-artifact-runs caps that). Every line prints its counting rule, and a line whose input could not be read says unavailable (<reason>) rather than 0.

gstack-factory-scorecard --repo owner/name --since-days 7 \
  [--crew login,login] [--gate-workflow evals.yml] [--free-workflow free-tests.yml] \
  [--train-prefix train/] [--ready-marker 'READY #\d+|SHIP_RECEIPT:'] [--pass-marker '"passes": (\d+)|passes=(\d+)'] \
  [--pass-cap 3] [--out-dir .context/factory-scorecard] [--now <iso>]

--repo defaults to the origin remote's owner/name on github.com (or GH_HOST) and is required without one. Each run writes this window's scorecard.md and scorecard.csv to --out-dir and appends the same rows to trend.csv there, so a weekly retro accumulates its own trend without renaming files.

The window is [now - since-days, now): --now (default: the current time) sets its end, and every line counts only items inside it, so a past week measured later does not count anything that happened after that week.

Line How it is counted What one of the best software factories would show
Merged PRs merged_at in the window, base = default branch; crew by --crew logins, else author association OWNER/MEMBER/COLLABORATOR several merges a day, every day; outside contributions land in the same week
Lead time, created → merged PR created_at to merged_at, median and p90 median under 24h, p90 under 3 days (DORA "elite" change lead time is under a day)
Lead time, READY → merged first PR comment matching --ready-marker at or before merged_at; PRs with no such comment are left out and counted under 2h; every merged PR carries a READY comment
Review passes per PR the largest count --pass-marker captures in the PR body (the ship receipt's "passes": N once /ship writes it) or a PR comment (passes=N, REVIEW_PASSES: N), median and p90, plus how many PRs sat at --pass-cap (3: pass 1 reviews the whole diff, later passes only the delta, a pass that finds nothing new is the exit) median 2 passes; none at the cap
Gate runs green / red / cancelled completed runs of the gate workflow (workflow_dispatch by default; --gate-event any); cost from the run's report-verdict-a* artifact (collector-outcomes.json .verdict.costUsd), else the **$N** rule/judge cost or cost=$N line of the PR's verdict comment green on 95%+ of runs, cancelled near 0, cost known for every run
Known gate cost per merged PR known cost / merged PRs; unknown-cost runs make it a floor known, stable or falling week over week
Red-train rate runs whose head branch starts with --train-prefix, cancelled excluded; red = conclusion other than success; red backstops and screens shown beside it under 5% (each red train is a bisect plus a rebuild, about two gates)
Flaky events flake-records-a* records of the newest gate runs (count, known rerun spend) and flake-ledger-* entries of free runs on the default branch; a run whose artifacts cannot be read is counted and named, never scored 0 0 repeat cases; under 1 flaky case per 10 gates; free retries under 1% of runs
Issues opened / closed GitHub search, created and closed in the window closed ≥ opened; nothing severe older than a week
Releases cut releases published in the window, drafts excluded at least one tagged release a week, on schedule

The third column is a bar, not a boast: it is what DORA's elite band and the best-run open source projects show, and it is in the table so a reader sees the gap next to the number.

Where gstack's own numbers stand

Measured on gstack's repository with this tool for the week of 2026-10-19 through 2026-10-25, UTC (--now 2026-10-26T00:00:00Z --since-days 7; the first full week of trains and /ship-before-READY; 83 merged PRs, 54 gate runs, artifacts read for all 54):

Line gstack, that week Against the bar
Merged PRs 83 (crew 80, outside 3) volume is there; the 3 outside PRs are bot PRs (2 from github-actions, 1 from dependabot), and outside contributions are ported by the crew rather than merged from forks
Lead time, created to merged median 6.5h, p90 20.0h inside the bar on both
Lead time, READY to merged no number: 0 of 83 PRs had a READY comment the crew reports READY in-thread; step 6 above (post it on the PR) is what makes this measurable
Review passes per PR no number: 0 of 83 PRs carried a pass count the receipt's passes field lands with /ship's convergence rule; until then crews record the count in the READY block, and the marker reads it from a PR comment
Gate runs 52 green / 2 red / 0 cancelled; known cost $1,361.94 on 52 of 54 runs green rate 96%; cost unknown only on the 2 red runs (the red train and the red screen)
Known gate cost per merged PR $16.41 (a floor) trains averaged $32.48 each for up to 5 PRs (21 trains with a known cost), screens $21.18 each (29 with a known cost)
Red-train rate 5% (1 red of 22 trains; 0 red backstop, 1 red screen) the tool rounds 1 of 22 (4.5%) to 5%, so this is just under the 5% bar; the 1 red screen is counted separately from trains
Flaky events 17 paid flake records across 11 cases, each passing its one rerun (rerun spend $7.20); 17 free-suite retries in 17 of 83 runs above the bar on all three: 0.31 flake records per gate against 0.1, 4 cases that flaked more than once against 0, and 20% of free runs retried against 1%. One case (ship-docsync-current) did it four times in three days
Issues opened / closed 28 / 51 inside the bar
Releases cut 0 none inside the week: the first weekly release, v1.91.242.0, was published at 12:01 UTC on 2026-10-26, just after the window closed (see the starvation caveat above)

Read the gap honestly: lead time and throughput are where they should be, the gate is green and its cost is mostly known, and flakiness is the line that is not. The daily pass exists for exactly that line; the scorecard's job is to show next week whether it moved. The inventory lane's per-PR baseline CSV in the Captain's Drive holds the longer history behind these numbers; from here on trend.csv in --out-dir carries the weeks.

What is Capy-specific and what is not

Concern Harness-generic (any host) Capy-specific
Install and health ./setup, gstack-doctor, gstack-upgrade the user-scope skill folder, scripts/install.sh --check and its trailer, the project Setup snapshot
Running a workflow the SKILL.md files, GSTACK_SESSION_KIND=unattended, GSTACK_RESULT: lines the GSTACK_LAUNCH assignments, GSTACK_CAPY=1 and the capy-asks block, no enforced hooks (safety skills are advisory)
Approvals gstack-approvals, gstack-owner-brief render --captain, the ## Approvals table the Captain relay (needs_you), the Captain drive approvals/ mirror
Pull requests /ship, the ship receipt, gstack-pr-shots tools.pr.create (callbacks), tools.pr.uploadAsset (before/after images)
Merging gstack-ship-queue (ready, train build, verdict, verify; train land and land under changelog_fragments), gstack-restamp, gh pr merge --match-head-commit the controller is a Captain thread; slot calls are thread messages
Flaky pass the rerun rule, flake-records-a* and flake-ledger-* artifacts, test:health the daily automation and the ledger in the Captain's Drive
Release release-cut, weekly-release.yml, the stable channel nothing
Scorecard gstack-factory-scorecard, /retro Step 7.5 nothing (the CSV can be kept in the Captain's Drive)
Memory reports/<code>.md, DIGEST.md, the flaky ledger the Drive scopes they live in

Options where crews differ

Two crews ran this a week on different repositories and kept different habits on a few points. Ship the one that fits the repository; both are supported.

Point Option A Option B
Merge method squash with --match-head-commit (one commit per PR; CHANGELOG merges by section) merge commit with --match-head-commit (keeps the lane's commits; history: merge in the policy)
Paid evidence per PR one train gate covers up to 5 PRs; lanes choose --screen or focused own cases a full gate per PR at handoff, plus "gate-ahead": PR N+1 gates on (its branch + N's head) so N's merge needs no second gate
Reusing a gate tree rule: a head whose diff from the gated tree touches only stamp files reuses the gate (gstack-tree-receipt) the same rule, checked by the controller with git diff <gated> <head> before every merge
Severe fixes racing for a slot the next train, --urgent for one PR call the slot for all; the first complete READY wins and the rest restamp to the next patch
Cheap CI on PR pushes free tests on every push; paid work only in trains and screens a cheap tier on pushes, a full-ci label that dispatches the full suites on the exact head; the cheap tier is never merge evidence
Infra flakes never rerun a harness/INFRA red; one re-dispatch for an INFRA-only census one named infra flake (for example a known runner wedge) may be rerun once and must be stated in the READY; a second wedge escalates
Small fixes one PR each, batched by the train batched into wave PRs, since serial slots cost about 30 minutes each
After the merge the main backstop gates any push a train did not cover, and freezes the queue on red the controller watches main's test, e2e and release runs until the release publishes; a red main freezes the queue until root-caused
Severe triage the Captain watches issues and PRs and starts a thread per unowned severe item a scheduled severe sweep (every 4 to 8 hours) with a fixed severity bar, dedupe against owned lanes, one hotfix thread per batch
Contributor PRs ported onto a crew branch with the author's commits kept and Co-authored-by; the fork PR is closed with a thank-you that links the port landed through a wave PR with "Contributed by @handle", Co-Authored-By and Supersedes lines
Privacy the pregate's sealed-output and secret scans before every push plus a per-user denylist grep (names, hostnames, identifying counts from private sources) before any public artifact

Known Capy limits

Collected from the issue files five Captains wrote on 2026-10-26 after a week of running this harness on five repositories. Each is a limit of the platform or of the harness on it as of that date, with the workaround the crews use.

Install and versions

  • Every machine, subagents included, needs its own install and trailer; a fresh machine spends 30 seconds to a few minutes on it, and crews with nine shard subagents per run pay it nine times. Workaround: bake gstack into the project Setup snapshot.
  • Threads that plan no workflow never install, so /review and /investigate go unused. Workaround: a crew rule that names the workflow each thread will run, or the snapshot.
  • gstack versions drift between machines in one thread (behind=1 on one, current on another); every minimum bump was a crew-wide broadcast (eight in ten days for one crew). Workaround: the minimum revision in the crew rules, quoted in every first report.
  • A reviewer installed --for review-voice is refused by every workflow and must reinstall --for <skill> when later asked to run one.

Machines and long work

  • Machine sleep and restarts kill detached servers, local drivers and long verify loops; /tmp does not survive a wake. Workaround: watched background operations (they keep the machine awake), run directories under ~/.capy/work, long drivers on a remote VM, one worktree per counted run.
  • Commits on a shared tree sweep up another subagent's uncommitted hunks. Workaround: one committer per tree.
  • Capy's git wrapper forces the linked identity, so tests that set GIT_AUTHOR_NAME and assert on it fail on every Capy machine and pass in CI (gstack's own test/gstack-retro-metrics.test.ts is one). Workaround: read those failures as environment, and run the free suite on a remote VM for acceptance.
  • A broken shell line can print the environment, keys included, into a tool log. Workaround: never run env, printenv, set or export bare; check a secret as set or unset only (gstack's launch-env ratchet enforces this in its own files).

Pull requests and review

  • tools.pr.create without index or head publishes the primary checkout's branch, not a worktree's, and targets the configured base, which on a project that works off a non-default branch must be passed every time.
  • Capy's per-push automatic review plus /ship's two review passes double the review time, and a review loop can run five or more cycles on a P0 as each push surfaces one new finding. Workaround: run the review voices before the first push; on a P0 fix only findings in the P0 path and defer the rest to a follow-up.
  • A clean review is not carried forward to a tree-identical merge head, which can sit "running" for ten minutes or more.
  • PR watches and CI callbacks fire only for repositories in a Capy project; a thread waiting on a repository outside one sleeps until a timer wakes it.
  • No per-subagent cost is visible, so /ship and plan reports cannot state what the host subagents spent ("six host subagents, spend unknown").
  • A merge rule keyed on "ship receipt on the head" has no machine-checkable form on the platform side: the controller greps the PR body. gstack-ship-queue ready and train build check it on the harness side.

Approvals

  • An autoplan gate inside a crew thread costs a Captain round trip even when the owner's standing answer is "take every recommendation"; record the standing answer once with gstack-approvals and cite it. Rows mirror to the Captain drive's approvals/ directory when the Captain created one, so other crew threads can read them; without it they stay in the private project-user Drive and the Captain carries the text into PR bodies.

Harness gaps the same files name (fixed or owned in gstack, listed so the reader knows the date): the pregate failing every touched file in a repository without .gstack/pregate.json; /ship printing no GSTACK_RESULT: skill=ship line in unattended mode; the receipt going stale on a late push (now refused by ready); the receipt-write step truncating a PR body; /ship's docs audit blocking on a risk the owner must accept by hand; the pregate's secret scan refusing benign per-trial dummy tokens with no allowlist; no cost ceiling surfaced at autoplan gates.

Where things live

What Path
The user-scope skill and the Captain guide capy/skill/gstack/SKILL.md, capy/skill/gstack/captain.md, capy/skill/gstack/scripts/install.sh
Captain templates and the Captain's day captain/templates/, docs/captain.md (ship with the /captain skill)
Install on Capy, snapshots, the launch line docs/capy-install.md
Ship policy, queue and trains docs/ship-policy.md, lib/ship-queue*.ts, bin/gstack-ship-queue, bin/gstack-restamp
Pregate and lanes docs/pregate.md, bin/gstack-pregate
Flaky reruns and records docs/TESTING_INTERNALS.md#flaky-reruns, scripts/lib/paid-rerun.ts, scripts/lib/ci-history.ts
Stable release docs/releases.md, scripts/release-cut.ts, .github/workflows/weekly-release.yml
Scorecard bin/gstack-factory-scorecard, lib/factory-scorecard.ts, retro/SKILL.md.tmpl Step 7.5, test/factory-scorecard.test.ts