gstack/docs/unattended.md

Unattended runs: the artifact contract

A gstack skill runs unattended when a parent agent starts it with GSTACK_SESSION_KIND=unattended and reads its artifacts instead of its prose. This page is the contract between that parent and the run: what the session kind changes, which files a run writes, how the parent decides whether the run finished, and how it reads the result without reading any markdown.

The session kinds are: interactive (a human answers prompts), headless (GSTACK_HEADLESS, CI, the eval harness; a question BLOCKs), spawned (an orchestrator subagent; the recommended option is auto-chosen) and unattended (this page). unattended is honored only as the explicit GSTACK_SESSION_KIND=unattended override, which outranks GSTACK_HEADLESS so a parent can drive a run inside CI. Nothing in the test or eval harness sets it, so headless keeps its BLOCK semantics.

What the session kind changes

gstack-skill-start prints SESSION_KIND: unattended and UNATTENDED_SESSION: true, then applies these rules for the whole skill:

• No prompts. The update check, upgrade offer, telemetry and sync consent, onboarding tips and routing blocks are suppressed exactly as they are for spawned. An unanswered consent is off.
• No publishing or sync, enforced at the writers. Usage analytics are not written (TELEMETRY_WRITE: skipped (unattended session)), the artifacts repo is neither pulled nor pushed (ARTIFACTS_SYNC: skipped (unattended session; mode=<m> queue=<n> retained)), the sync spool is not fed (gstack-brain-enqueue is a no-op, and gstack-review-log says review-log: sync skipped (unattended session) on stderr), and gstack-skill-end drains nothing. Inherited enabled settings and pending queue work are left for the next human session. The upgrade offer becomes one line at skill end, read from the local cache: UPGRADE_AVAILABLE: <version>; run /gstack-upgrade.
• Questions decide themselves, gates do not. A question with a (recommended) option takes it and appends the choice to decisions.jsonl with kind: "auto". A question with no recommendation, any consent, any destructive or irreversible option, and the final approval gate are appended with kind: "approval" and status: "pending". The skill ends at its next gate with the pending list rendered; it never approves and never publishes.
• State root durability is reported. STATE_ROOT: <path> durable=yes|no (no when the host sets GSTACK_EPHEMERAL=1). On an ephemeral root the run says learnings: skipped (state root is ephemeral; set GSTACK_STATE_ROOT) and timing: analytics skipped (...) instead of writing to a disk that vanishes. Point GSTACK_STATE_ROOT at a durable directory when you want cross-run history (see state-root.md).
• The autoplan publication guard is named, not faked. On hosts that do not execute Claude Code hooks, and in every unattended session, gstack-skill-start prints autoplan guard: not enforced by this host; publication order is unverified (GUARD_NOT_INSTALLED) once. gstack-artifact validate requires that line in an unattended run's review-record.md. Claude Code's deny-on-absent behavior is unchanged.

An unknown GSTACK_SESSION_KIND value coerces to interactive and says so: SESSION_KIND: interactive (unknown kind '<x>').

The terminal line

Every workflow skill ends an unattended run with one line the parent greps:

GSTACK_RESULT: skill=<name> status=<status> run=<dir>

status is one of complete, gate_pending, incomplete, interrupted or refused; run is the directory that holds the artifacts below. /autoplan always ends gate_pending when it reaches the final gate, because the gate is written and never approved. Pure queries (gstack-artifact schema, gstack-gate render) print no result line.

Every workflow command shares one exit table: 0 ok, 1 fail, 2 usage, 3 refused or needs a flag. Error lines end with a result code in parentheses, for example findings.jsonl:12: ... (ARTIFACT_SCHEMA); each code has an anchor in troubleshooting.md with a fix: clause. Grep the code, not the prose.

The run directory

File	Schema	Contents
run.json	run v1	The manifest: run id, status, required_phases, each phase's native and outside outcome (status, model, provider), input snapshot hashes, counts, every artifact's path (relative to the run directory) and sha256, session_kind, gate_rev, deviations, consumed_by.
decisions.jsonl	decisions v1	One row per decision: id (<run>-<label> at gate revision 1, <run>-r<rev>-<label> after a reopen, since labels restart at each gate), title, options, recommended, kind (auto, approval, user_challenge), status (pending, approved, overridden, rejected), gate_rev, and once answered chosen, answered_at, reply.
findings.jsonl	findings v1	One row per reviewer finding: id, phase, voice (native/outside), model, severity, title, disposition, plan_items, native_counterpart (string or null), source. Rows share the review-log row shape, so gstack-review-log --findings derives review status from this file.
tasks.jsonl	tasks v2	Implementation tasks with id, title, status, depends_on, findings (ids in findings.jsonl), blocked_by, acceptance, optional pr/item/tier.
timing.json	timing v1	Per-phase started_at, ended_at, wall_s, outside_s, native_s; started_at and total_wall_s for the run; the Phase 0 estimate.
plan.md	prose	The ## Implementation plan section, with ## URGENT, outside this plan written above it.
review-record.md	prose	The review record and decision audit trail; carries the GUARD_NOT_INSTALLED line in an unattended run.
gate.json	see gstack-gate --help	The final gate list /autoplan renders and parses.

Ids are run-bound: every row's id starts with <run>-, and run.json is the only place the run id is declared. gstack-artifact schema <name> prints the JSON Schema for any of findings, decisions, tasks, timing, run, pregate and ship-receipt; schema --list prints the names.

How a parent consumes a run

1. Decide whether the run finished. gstack-artifact validate <dir>/run.json is the deterministic completion check. It exits 0 and prints ARTIFACT_VALID: run=<id> status=<status> only when the manifest parses and matches its schema, every required phase and each reviewer voice has a terminal outcome, every listed artifact exists inside the run directory with the recorded hash, every JSONL file parses row by row against its schema with run-bound unique ids, task dependencies and finding references resolve without cycles, counts agree with the files, and (unattended) the guard line is present. Otherwise it exits 1 with one error line per problem and ARTIFACT_INVALID: <n> error(s); --json returns the same as { valid, run, status, run_dir, errors[] }. A run that was interrupted shows up here as ARTIFACT_RUN_INTERRUPTED, never as a partial success.
2. Read the terminal line. grep '^GSTACK_RESULT:' <log> | tail -1. With status=gate_pending, the gate is in the artifacts; nothing was approved.
3. List what is pending.

   jq -c 'select(.status=="pending")' <dir>/decisions.jsonl
   gstack-gate render <dir>/gate.json --all    # the numbered list and reply grammar, every page
   

4. Answer the gate by composing the reply grammar (rec, as-is, <id><option> tokens such as d3b uc1a, or rec except <tokens>; bare yes/no is rejected) and feeding it back with the gate revision you read:

   gstack-gate parse <dir>/gate.json --reply "rec except d3b" --gate-rev 1 --json
   gstack-gate decisions <dir>/gate.json --reply "rec except d3b" --gate-rev 1 >> <dir>/decisions.jsonl
   

   A stale revision is GATE_REV_STALE and a reply with unparsed tokens is GATE_REPLY_UNPARSED; both exit 1 and write nothing.
5. Read findings and tasks without the prose.

   jq -c 'select(.severity=="Critical" and .disposition!="accepted")' <dir>/findings.jsonl
   jq -r '.id + "\t" + .title' <dir>/tasks.jsonl
   gstack-artifact urgent <dir>/findings.jsonl   # the URGENT block, or "None."
   

6. Acknowledge consumption so a second parent (or a retry) can tell the run was already read: gstack-artifact ack <dir>/run.json --consumer <id> is idempotent and records consumed_by in the manifest.

Driving /autoplan from a parent: gstack-autoplan

On a host where the parent dispatches the reviewers itself (Capy, any orchestrator without a Claude Code harness), bin/gstack-autoplan is the explicit, durable state machine for the whole run. The parent never reads the review record; it runs a loop over two commands and reads the printed lines. A parent on any host reads autoplan/DRIVER.md (its path is printed as DRIVER: by gstack-autoplan --help and the first next) instead of autoplan/SKILL.md: the phase order, the artifact contract and the gate protocol in about a hundred lines, generated from the code.

AP=bin/gstack-autoplan
$AP next --out <dir> --plan <plan.md> [--ui|--no-ui] [--developer-tool] [--no-dx] [--light] [--spend-cap <usd>]
#   PHASE: ceo snapshot=<sha> order=ceo,design,dx,eng
#   SCOPE: ui=yes (...) dx=yes (detected: ...) source=ui:detected,dx:detected
#   DRIVER: <root>/autoplan/DRIVER.md
#   Skipped sections: none (scope: ui=yes,dx=yes,source=ui:detected,dx:detected; checklist=loaded)
#   ATTEMPT: <run>-a1 phase=ceo voice=native  prompt=<dir>/ceo-native-prompt.md  result=<dir>/ceo-native.a1.md  model_family=...
#   ATTEMPT: <run>-a2 phase=ceo voice=outside prompt=<dir>/ceo-outside-prompt.md result=<dir>/ceo-outside.a2.md model_family=differs from the native reviewer
#   SPEND: spent=0.00 reserved=0.00 unknown=0(0.00) worst_case=0.00 cap=none
#   GSTACK_RESULT: skill=autoplan status=awaiting_result run=<dir>

The first next prints SCOPE: … source=ui:<flag|marker|detected>,dx:<…> and, when CLI flags differ from the plan's marker, SCOPE_PIN: add <!-- gstack-autoplan-scope: … --> as the first line of <file>; gstack never writes the plan.

1. Dispatch each ATTEMPT:. The native voice is a subagent on the parent's own model given the prompt file; the outside voice is a subagent on another model family, or bin/gstack-outside-voice run --runner codex-cli|api --prompt <file> --out <file> [--model <id>], which prints OUTSIDE_STATUS: <status> provider=<runner> model=<id> family=<f>. Every reviewer writes its result to the printed result= path under the RESULT FORMAT below. next is idempotent: it reprints open attempts and never redispatches on its own (EXECUTION_UNKNOWN lists attempts whose process died without a result; --redispatch <attempt> mints a fresh one and release --attempt <id> returns its reservation).
2. Submit each result exactly once.

   $AP submit --out <dir> --phase ceo --voice native  --result <dir>/ceo-native.a1.md  --model <id> --attempt <run>-a1
   $AP submit --out <dir> --phase ceo --voice outside --result <dir>/ceo-outside.a2.md --model <id> --attempt <run>-a2 [--runner host-subagent (default)] [--usage-usd <n>]
   #   BOUND: <run>-a1 phase=ceo voice=native model=<id> findings=7 sha256=<result hash prefix>
   #   PHASE_CLOSED: ceo confirmed=4 disagree=1 new=2 native_only=1 coverage=both
   

   Submit seals the bytes it bound as <phase>-<voice>.<attempt>.bound.md (read-only); a later write to the reviewer's file changes nothing bound, and another attempt's result file is refused (ATTEMPT_MISMATCH). Binding checks the receipt line against the phase snapshot (RESULT_RECEIPT_MISSING), parses the canonical findings fence (RESULT_FINDINGS_MISSING), refuses an outside model from the native family (MODEL_FAMILY_CONFLICT), and refuses a second bind of the same attempt or a bind while the phase is not awaiting it (ATTEMPT_MISMATCH, PHASE_NOT_AWAITING, exit 3). Both voices in closes the phase: the reconciliation (confirmed / unverified / disagree / new per outside finding, with disagreement and resolution kept separate) is written to <phase>-consensus.{json,md}, and every later phase's prompts (DX, design and Eng alike) carry each closed predecessor's consensus as data; a phase refuses to open without one (CONSENSUS_MISSING).
3. Loop next until status=gate_pending. Eng always runs last. The gate (gate.json, gate_rev) lists user challenges as approval items, disagreements as auto items and p1 plan approval; nothing is approved.
4. Answer the gate with the reply grammar and the revision you read:

   $AP answer --out <dir> --gate-rev 1 --reply "rec" --by human            # every recommendation, plan changes included (APPLY: ...; amend_pending)
   $AP answer --out <dir> --gate-rev 1 --reply "as-is" --by human          # APPROVED: keeps every direction, no new paid phase
   $AP answer --out <dir> --gate-rev 1 --reply "rec except d1b" --by agent:<id> --owner-reply "<owner's words>"
   

   --by human means the owner typed the tokens; --by agent:<thread or id> means an agent relayed them, and then --owner-reply (or - for stdin, --owner-reply-file <path>) stores the owner's words verbatim (OWNER_REPLY_REQUIRED); owner words that parse to different choices are refused (GATE_OWNER_REPLY_MISMATCH). An unattended run refuses an answer without --by (ANSWER_BY_REQUIRED, exit 3) and records the value as answered_by on every decision row and in the review record's gate line, so a gate an agent closed is distinguishable from one the owner closed. gstack-autoplan recommend changes one recommendation before relay; it bumps the gate's rec_rev, and a later rec needs the --rec-hash from the render the owner saw (GATE_REC_STALE). A user challenge both voices raised on a confirmed finding (a title match, not file:line proximity alone, which is unverified) with the same changes value is recommended as b only with one shared proposal: a --reconcile record naming it, or the same remedy from both voices. Different or missing remedies keep a, and option b shows both verbatim with the basis. rec (alias all) takes every recommendation, so it accepts the items recommended b. Every accepted plan change prints APPLY: <decision id> <title> -> <chosen text> and becomes a pending amendment: next refuses with PLAN_AMEND_PENDING and export refuses a complete run until revise --incorporates names it, or revise --settle <id> settles a packaging or ordering change that needs no plan edit. A stale revision (GATE_REV_STALE, exit 3), bare yes/no, or a conflicting reply (GATE_REPLY_UNPARSED) writes nothing. A reply that leaves approval items pending records only the answered auto items and keeps the gate; a later reply never overwrites an earlier answer. An accepted change reopens nothing at answer (status amend_pending); revise reopens each phase whose reviewed plan changed plus Eng, archives their prompts and consensus as *.r<rev>.* (sealed *.bound.md results stay in place), and the next gate is gate_rev + 1; p1d reruns every phase on the current plan; p1e ends incomplete.
5. Export and validate. $AP export --out <dir> writes plan.md (with the ## URGENT, outside this plan block first), review-record.md, tasks.jsonl, decisions.jsonl, findings.jsonl, timing.json and run.json; then gstack-artifact validate <dir>/run.json and the consumption steps above apply unchanged. $AP status --out <dir> and resume work after the run directory moves (paths are re-rooted; journal paths are run-relative). With GSTACK_AUTOPLAN_CHECKPOINT_DIR set, a run at rest publishes an immutable, hash-listed generation under <dir>/<run>/generations/ and switches current.json to it (the previous generation is kept; a stale copy never replaces a newer one; a directory overlapping the run is refused with CHECKPOINT_OVERLAP; a failure is a CHECKPOINT: failed warning that leaves the command's exit code alone). $AP checkpoints --from <dir> lists generations with their hash status, and $AP resume --out <new dir> --from <dir>/<run> restores the newest valid one after validating the staged run (CHECKPOINT_INVALID).

Concurrency and recovery: every state write is a locked read-modify-write (run.lock; a second writer sees RUN_LOCKED), attempts are journaled to attempts.jsonl before dispatch, and a parent killed before or after a submit resumes with next without a duplicate charge (test/autoplan-run-recovery.test.ts, test/autoplan-run-concurrency.test.ts, test/autoplan-answer-invalidation.test.ts). --spend-cap admits each attempt through spend.json (SPEND_CAP_EXCEEDED refuses, exit 3); host-subagent spend is unknown and counted in worst_case. --deadline <min> makes the run subcommand cancel the children it started and marks the run interrupted.

RESULT FORMAT (what every reviewer file must contain)

Each prompt file ends with this contract; submit enforces it.

1. The first line is exactly INPUT: <phase> <snapshot sha256> (the receipt that binds the result to the snapshot both voices reviewed).
2. The review is prose, then one fenced block of canonical findings, one JSON object per line: {"id":"F1","severity":"High","title":"...","file":"...","line":12,"fix":"..."} inside a ```gstack-findings fence. severity is Critical | High | Medium | Low | Informational; "user_challenge": true marks a recommended change to the plan's stated direction and needs "changes": "scope" | "cost" | "direction" (what accepting it changes); "urgent": true with "suggested_owner" marks a security or data-loss finding the plan does not own. An empty fence means no findings; a missing fence is refused.
3. The whole result is written to the printed result= path.

Outside-voice runners

Runner	Access	Record label	Needs
codex-cli	repository, read-only, executes here	repository review	codex on PATH and logged in (bin/gstack-codex-login reads OPENAI_API_KEY from stdin)
api	supplied input only	supplied-input review	--model <id> and OPENAI_API_KEY or ANTHROPIC_API_KEY; never silently equal to a repository review
host-subagent	the host's	host-dispatched review	--result <file> the subagent wrote, --model <id>; spend unknown

bin/gstack-outside-voice runners prints each runner's availability on this machine; family <model> prints the model family submit compares. A completed api or host-subagent review is a full outside voice in the record, labeled by its runner. Result codes: EXECUTION_UNKNOWN, RUN_LOCKED, RUN_NOT_INITIALIZED, PHASE_NOT_AWAITING, ATTEMPT_MISMATCH, RESULT_RECEIPT_MISSING, RESULT_FINDINGS_MISSING, MODEL_FAMILY_CONFLICT, SPEND_CAP_EXCEEDED, CONSENSUS_MISSING, OUTSIDE_RUNNER_UNAVAILABLE (anchors in troubleshooting.md).

Hand-run records, revised plans and admission

• Hand-run reviews. submit --record <file> binds a review that did not follow the RESULT FORMAT: the gstack-findings fence, one findings table (Severity and Title columns), one severity-tagged list (- [High] title) or a No findings. line. Without its INPUT: line it binds only with --attest "<reason>" and --attempt <id> (receipt attested; refused after a later revise), and gstack-artifact validate prints attested=<n>. --attempt may be omitted when exactly one attempt is open. submit --voice outside --unavailable "<reason>" (or --failed) closes the phase native_only once native is bound; next and resume never redispatch it.
• Revising the plan in the same run. Edit the source plan, then $AP revise --out <dir> --plan <file> [--incorporates <decision id,...>]. Every phase whose reviewed Implementation-plan hash differs reopens (plus Eng); newly in-scope phases are added; archives keep .r<rev> names with .v<k> only on collision; a revise at gate_pending makes the next gate gate_rev + 1. --incorporates discharges only the named amendments and refuses an unchanged plan; revise --out <dir> --withdraw <decision id> drops one as a journaled owner decision. next prints PLAN_CHANGED and answer prints PLAN_SOURCE_CHANGED when the source plan moved since the snapshot. A plan without both ## Implementation plan and ## Review record refuses with PLAN_SECTIONS_INVALID; next --scaffold reviews a copy with the missing heading added. resume completes an interrupted revise.
• Admission and upgrades. next, submit, answer, revise, export and run refuse on a Capy host (GSTACK_CAPY=1) without an ok install verdict for this checkout, HEAD and workflow at $GSTACK_INSTALL_VERDICT (INSTALL_UNVERIFIED), and in any unattended session when the running Bun is below gstack's supported minimum (RUNTIME_BELOW_MINIMUM); the decision is the same one gstack-skill-start makes (see Install admission); GSTACK_ALLOW_UNSUPPORTED_RUNTIME=1 overrides and records a run deviation. status and resume are never gated. A run directory written by an older gstack prints GSTACK_VERSION_CHANGED once and moves forward (legacy decision ids are renamed and journaled); one written by a newer gstack is refused.

Owner brief

gstack-owner-brief render --out <dir> is what the owner sees at the final gate, interactive or unattended: one page built from gate.json, decisions.jsonl and findings.jsonl (BRIEF_INPUT_MISSING when one is absent). It opens with the URGENT, outside this plan block, then a plain-language summary (phases closed, findings accepted, how many decisions take their default, the cycle time; --summary <file> or <dir>/summary.md replaces the generated sentence with the run's own), then the numbered decisions through the gate list: seven per page (--page N), stable ids, each auto item annotated with the default taken if unanswered, each approval item pending until you answer or decided <id><letter> on <date>. The last line names review-record.md, where the full review lives, and the gstack-autoplan answer call that answers the page. --write also saves brief.md in the run directory. /autoplan Phase 4 presents this output verbatim and writes the former long report to review-record.md.

After the final gate, gstack-owner-brief close --out <dir> --plan <file> rewrites every draft direction stands until the owner decides line in the plan to the decided option and date (DRAFT_DIRECTION: line <n> <id> rewritten); lines whose decision is still pending stay and are reported as DRAFT_DIRECTION_UNRESOLVED (exit 1). gstack-autoplan answer runs the same rewrite when a reply completes the gate (journal event draft_directions_closed).

Lane done: pregate, the sealed guard and the handoff lines

A lane under a coordinator runs gstack-pregate run --allow-repo-commands on its branch before it reports done (the unit tier on the changed files plus the repo's guards, docs/pregate.md#guards). In a repo whose .gstack/pregate.json has a sealed key it runs gstack-pregate sealed before any push or PR creation, since a PR tool may not run local hooks. Its handoff carries, right after the GSTACK_RESULT line, the gstack: ok|fail <rev> line and then the PREGATE: line. The coordinator contract (gstack-autoplan contract) states the same rule word for word.

Timing

/autoplan prints ESTIMATE: ... at Phase 0 (gstack-autoplan-timing estimate --run <id> --out <dir>, medians of the last ten recorded runs per phase, or no history), records each phase close (gstack-autoplan-timing close), and prints the CYCLE: line at the final gate (gstack-autoplan-timing summary). A close without an explicit start measures from the previous phase's end, else from the run start. The cross-run history lives at <state root>/analytics/autoplan-timing.jsonl and is skipped, with a printed line, on an ephemeral state root.

Reference run

test/fixtures/multi-agent-wave/reference-run/ is a complete unattended /autoplan run (the one that produced this wave's plan) and validates clean. test/fixtures/multi-agent-wave/INCIDENTS.md records what went wrong while it was produced by hand and which validator rule now catches each incident.

Install admission

An unattended run, and a GSTACK_SESSION_KIND=spawned run with GSTACK_CAPY=1, starts only on a supported Bun and, on a Capy machine (GSTACK_CAPY=1, set by the installer's GSTACK_LAUNCH line), with a passing install verdict for this checkout, its HEAD and the workflow. Otherwise gstack-skill-start prints INSTALL: fail runtime|verdict — <detail>; fix: <command> (<CODE>) and GSTACK_RESULT: skill=<s> status=refused run=-, and exits 3; stop and run the fix. GSTACK_ALLOW_UNSUPPORTED_RUNTIME=1 admits anyway (INSTALL_VERDICT: overridden), recorded as a deviation. TypeScript entrypoints use checkInstallAdmission from lib/install-verdict.ts; the Bash side is bin/gstack-install-verdict.sh. See capy-install.md.