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automaton/tasks/state-file-enforcement/IMPLEMENTATION.md
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v2.0: state enforcement, project scoping, harness integration
State Enforcement (v2.0):
- .state file as single source of truth for task phase
- Approval gates for research, decomposition, design, test_design
- status.py --transition refuses illegal phase transitions
- status.py --validate-folder detects out-of-order artifacts
- status.py --audit checks all tasks for violations
- status.py --create-task is the only valid way to create tasks
- Pre-v2.0 tasks without .state are UNTRACKED -- all commands refuse them
- New --upgrade command bootstraps .state files for existing tasks

Project Scoping:
- --project flag added to all status.py commands across 16+ files
- _find_project_dir errors instead of silently falling back to ~/.automaton/
- --scope-check marks framework files OUT_OF_SCOPE when working on a project
- Dashboard handlers use stored project_root instead of re-detecting from CWD
- Prompts reference ~/.automaton/scripts/vram_detect.py (not {project}/.automaton/)

Harness Integration:
- status.py --can-edit now supports project-level checks (no --task required)
- --can-edit --file checks file scope without --task
- --json output for machine-readable harness integration
- opencode plugin (plugins/automaton-guard/plugin.ts) intercepts edit/write
- Git pre-commit hook (scripts/git-hooks/pre-commit) blocks commits without task
- Formal integration contract (contracts/harness-integration.md)

Other:
- upgrade.sh delegates to status.py --upgrade instead of manual heuristics
- Phase prompts reference --project {project} for multi-project scoping
- 200 tests passing (14 new)
2026-06-15 14:16:46 -04:00

2.6 KiB

Implementation: State File Enforcement

Changes Made

1. .state file format (implemented in scripts/status.py)

  • .state file contains a single phase name (e.g., research, research:awaiting_approval, implement)
  • Written atomically via .state.tmp → .state rename
  • .state.approvals append-only log records all approvals with timestamp and approver
  • .state.lock for multi-agent claiming (optional, only in multi-agent mode)
  • Non-artifact metadata files (.state, .state.approvals, .state.lock, .state.tmp, VRAM_CONFIG.md, PARENT_SPEC.md, REVIEW.md) are excluded from artifact checks

2. State transitions with approval sub-states

  • Approval-gated phases: research, decomposition, design, test_design now have :awaiting_approval → :approved sub-states
  • Non-approval phases: implement, bug_find, adversarial_bug_find, doc_review, referee have no sub-states
  • status.py --transition refuses transitions past :awaiting_approval without --approve
  • status.py --approve transitions :awaiting_approval → :approved and records approval in .state.approvals

3. Backward compatibility

  • If .state doesn't exist, status.py infers phase from artifacts and writes .state
  • upgrade.sh bootstraps .state for all existing tasks
  • Phase prompts work with or without .state (warns if missing)

4. Forbidden artifacts per phase (implemented in status.py --validate-folder)

  • Each phase has a defined set of artifacts that must NOT exist (artifacts from future phases)
  • --validate-folder checks and reports violations
  • --transition refuses to proceed if forbidden artifacts exist

5. Task creation gate (implemented in status.py --create-task)

  • --create-task creates task folder with .state = new and empty .state.approvals
  • Validates kebab-case task names
  • Refuses if task already exists
  • --audit Category 4 flags manually created task folders

6. Orchestrator and workflow updates

  • prompts/workflow.md rewritten: .state is canonical, approval sub-states documented, status.py commands referenced
  • prompts/orchestrate.md reduced from 493 to 143 lines, references workflow.md and subtask_management.md
  • All phase prompts include .state precondition check

Files Modified

  • scripts/status.py (new, 980 lines)
  • prompts/workflow.md (rewritten)
  • prompts/orchestrate.md (rewritten, 143 lines)
  • prompts/subtask_management.md (new, extracted from orchestrate.md)
  • tests/test_status.py (new, 25 tests)
  • scripts/upgrade.sh (new)

Test Results

  • 183 tests passing (including 25 new status.py tests)
  • Python compilation clean
  • Shell script syntax clean