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automaton/tasks/fix-stale-task-mtime-proxy/IMPLEMENTATION.md
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Lap Tran bc7daf8590 Restore archived tasks, fix dashboard scroll-reset, bind ornith, add Playwright smoke test
- **Restore 82 completed tasks** from tasks/complete/ back to tasks/ top
  level (all <7 days old per the cleanup policy; premature bulk archive
  was fixed).
- **Dashboard: fix scroll-reset on auto-refresh** — renderBoard rebuilds
  the board via innerHTML every 2s, destroying each column-body's
  scrollTop. Now snapshots column-body scrollTop + board.scrollLeft +
  view.scrollTop before rebuild and restores after (matched by
  PHASE_GROUPS index).
- **Dashboard UI additions** (pre-existing unstaged work): approval
  section cards, transition buttons, inline artifact editor (textarea for
  writing missing SPEC/VERDICT/etc from the detail modal).
- **Bind ornith as Implement model** — config.md: Model explicit to
  omlx/Ornith-1.0-35B-4bit-mlx, context window 32768. Interactive
  autopilot already used ornith via opencode default; now explicit.
- **Fix cleanup stub** — automaton-cleanup.sh had a stale --project arg
  pointing at a pytest temp dir (test isolation leak). Rewired to point
  at ~/.automaton.
- **Fix plist-isolation test** — test asserted host plist doesn't exist,
  but a real install creates it. Now snapshots mtime before run, asserts
  unchanged after (only a write during the test counts as bleed).
- **New Playwright smoke test** (tests/test_dashboard_ui.py) — 2 tests:
  board renders tasks, column scroll survives auto-refresh tick.
  Verified the test fails without the scroll fix (scrollTop resets to 0).
  Skipped via importorskip when playwright is absent (main CI stays
  green).
- **Clarify SI loop scope in README** — new-project onboarding section
  documents the framework-scoped self-improvement loop and options
  (leave/pause/create project loop).
- **CHANGELOG** documents all changes including the known model-divergence
  gap (mde tasks marked complete but per-role model binding was never
  implemented).
2026-06-26 10:05:18 -04:00

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# Implementation: fix-stale-task-mtime-proxy
## Bug
`--can-edit` used `.state` file mtime as a proxy for "last edit activity" to detect stale tasks. But `.state` is modified by phase transitions, not by actual editing. A task in `implement` phase for 30+ minutes would be flagged as stale even if the developer was actively editing files the whole time, because `.state` mtime only reflects the last phase transition.
## Fix
1. Added `_get_edit_timestamp()` — reads `.state.lastedit` mtime if it exists, falls back to `.state` mtime for backward compatibility
2. Added `_touch_lastedit()` — creates/updates `.state.lastedit` file
3. `--can-edit` now calls `_touch_lastedit()` on ALLOWED responses (both project-level and task-level paths), recording actual edit activity
4. Staleness check uses `_get_edit_timestamp()` instead of raw `.state` mtime
5. Added `.state.lastedit` to `NON_ARTIFACT_FILES` so it's not treated as a phase artifact
6. `--same-session` uses `_get_edit_timestamp()` for consistent activity tracking
7. `--touch` command now touches `.state.lastedit` instead of `.state`
8. Added staleness check to the single-task `--can-edit --task` path (previously only project-level `--can-edit` checked staleness)
## Files Changed
- `scripts/status.py`: Added `_get_edit_timestamp()`, `_touch_lastedit()`, updated `cmd_can_edit()`, `cmd_same_session()`, `cmd_touch()`, `NON_ARTIFACT_FILES`
- `tests/test_status.py`: Added `TestStateLastEdit` class with 5 tests and `TestTestPlanPhaseMapping` class
## Tests
- `test_can_edit_creates_lastedit_on_allowed`: Verifies `.state.lastedit` is created on ALLOWED
- `test_can_edit_creates_lastedit_with_file_scope`: Same for file-scoped can-edit
- `test_stale_uses_lastedit_not_state_mtime`: Old `.state` + recent `.state.lastedit` → not stale
- `test_stale_when_lastedit_old`: Recent `.state` + old `.state.lastedit` → stale
- `test_falls_back_to_state_mtime_without_lastedit`: No `.state.lastedit` → falls back to `.state` mtime
- All 249 tests pass