# Implementation: Autopilot Gate Integration

## Changes Made

### 1. Gate-between-phases in autopilot
The orchestrator prompt (`prompts/orchestrate.md`) now defines an explicit gate-check loop:
1. Read `.state` → confirm current phase
2. Run `status.py --validate-folder` → check for out-of-order artifacts
3. If violations found → STOP and report
4. Load phase prompt → confirm ALLOWED/FORBIDDEN boundaries
5. Execute phase → produce required artifact
6. If phase requires approval → `--transition {phase}:awaiting_approval`, pause for user sign-off, `--approve`, `--transition {next-phase}`
7. If phase does NOT require approval → `--transition {next-phase}`

### 2. Resumption from `.state`
- The orchestrator reads `.state` for each task, no artifact re-derivation needed
- Approval sub-states are preserved across sessions

### 3. Persona switching
- Orchestrator loads the prompt for the current phase based on `.state`
- FORBIDDEN sections in phase prompts constrain what the orchestrator can do
- Orchestrator must NOT override phase-level FORBIDDEN rules

### 4. Approval gates in autopilot
- Research, decomposition, design, and test_design phases ALWAYS pause for user approval in autopilot
- The pause is enforced by `status.py --transition` refusing past `:awaiting_approval`
- After user says "APPROVED", `status.py --approve` is called, then transition proceeds

### 5. Session break recovery
- `.state` file records the last completed phase (including approval sub-states)
- Next session reads `.state` and resumes exactly where it left off
- No phase progress is lost on session break

### 6. Manual mode coexistence
- Orchestrator reads `.state` and reports current phase
- User triggers phases manually, orchestrator calls `status.py --transition` and `status.py --approve`

### 7. Periodic audit
- Orchestrator calls `status.py --audit` at session start and after task completion
- Catches violations that might slip through individual phase gates

## Files Modified
- `prompts/orchestrate.md` (rewritten, 143 lines with gate-check loop)
- `prompts/workflow.md` (referenced from orchestrate.md)