Harness: pi (v3)

Read at launch with the contract and the charter.

Runtime and launch

• Models: codex-lb gpt-6.1-sol, gpt-6-astra only; the guard blocks model, thinking and run-deadline overrides.

• Launch with the context’s loop-pi launcher. The message names the contract, this file, the charter, the closeout path and the Standing: file with its sha256:

  You are the root. Read $PROTOCOL_SOURCE/sources/loop/contract.md, $PROTOCOL_SOURCE/sources/loop/harness-pi.md
  and <abs charter path> in full. Write <abs closeout path> last, then reconcile and reply (contract section 12).
  Standing: <abs path> sha256=<hex>

• Launch runs the preflight and snapshots the remote for the audit. A cross-repo charter needs loop-pi-preflight <repo> and loop-pi-audit add <repo> first.

• Continuation arms on “You are the root” plus one closeout path. A wrong host or repository, a changed charter, or a Standing: line that differs from the charter’s standing: key refuses the launch. A Standing file that is missing or fails its sha256 still arms, with no grants and a loop-standing-rejected incident.

• Recovery is automatic. After a provider error, a stalled request or a request-ceiling abort, continuation resumes the root. A quota error gets two retries (owner input resets), then stops; authentication, policy and context-length errors stop at once. Never relaunch yourself.

• The loop-state extension records dispatch, return, watch and heartbeat events in codex/state-<date>-loop<N>.jsonl automatically. You write none of them; loop-state digest <log> --json gives live lanes. The state log and lane-patch capture parse the brief’s first non-empty line, Lane: <id> · Task: <ID> (<title>) · Tier: routine|guarded (no · inside the title); a header that does not parse drops that lane from both.

Root load

• LANES.md stays the contract’s one line per live lane: add it with one printf '%s\n' ... >> at dispatch and delete it at land or park, in a bash call you already make (never one running loop-gate-lock). Never rewrite it or add status prose; DECISIONS.md is append-only. In QUEUE.md move rows between sections in place.
• Combine the routine mandatory section 5 reviews since the last one into one reviewer lane (Task: none (land review)) after landing; guarded reviews stay before landing, with the security brief. Edit the run LANE.md CodeRabbit line so task lanes skip it; the root, or the compose lane its brief names, runs it once on each landing’s composed tree.

Routes

Role	Agent	Model / thinking
implementation (default)	worker	sol / medium
judgement, compose, board batches	senior	sol / high
escalation (tripwire or owner-named)	senior-escalation	astra / high
review and security review	reviewer	sol / high
read-only mapping, sweeps, wave drafts	scout	sol / low

A missing agent is a harness fault: stop and say so.

Dispatch and repairs

• Every worker, senior and senior-escalation lane: async subagent {agent, task, worktree: true}, the complete brief as task, with Landing: returns candidate on its own line (the tree is kept only then). loop-pi keeps the tree and runs the lane in it, so a bare loop-gate-lock <name> gates it (cd … && is refused). Scout, reviewer: subagent {agent, task}. No workflow, no model or thinking override.
• 19 native async slots shared by parents and children; keep about 7 free. Only senior may spawn children (scout, worker, reviewer), and only when the brief grants a count. Depth 2 at most.
• Repair rounds and answers resume the same lane’s run with new evidence (subagent resume, which keeps its tree). Never poll a lane’s status between wakes.
• Lanes never push (the guard refuses it); only the root’s bash runs git push origin main.
• A new worktree: true lane needs a clean main checkout (ignored files are fine). /loop-closeout removes only verified clean landed trees; lane patches go to $LOOP_PI_RUN_DIR/lane-patches/.

Waits

• Wakes: a lane return, a watch_start exit or a wake_at timer. Process every return, then end with WAITING: <what> until <deadline>; continuation arms a timer for it.
• Root CI and release waits: a bounded, quiet watch_start that exits on every terminal state. Lanes use watch_process with deadline_s up to 3600.
• LOOP.md’s optional ci-status replaces gh reads.
• Heavy gates run only through loop-gate-lock <name> rows under LOOP.md ## Mutexes. One name runs one leg at a time, so a composed gate’s parallel legs (contract section 6) need a row each, each started under its own watcher. If one is refused, run the legs in turn and say so.
• Give any bash call that can run past 15 minutes a timeout, or run it under watch_start.

Owner questions

While the owner is present, ask in a message that also makes a tool call and append the question to QUESTIONS.md. An idle-lane wake notice (Inspect subagent updates above.) is not an owner control.

Closeout sweep

1. Stop async subagent runs; list any that will not stop.
2. Push landed work with the root’s bash (git push origin main).
3. Stop your watchers (watch_stop) and timers (wake_cancel), then run loop-pi-audit closeout --run-dir "$LOOP_PI_RUN_DIR" --push-log "$LOOP_PI_RUN_DIR/push-log.jsonl" and report a nonzero result under ## Notes, naming each flagged move the charter authorised. Remove no lane tree yourself: list them under ## Notes and ask the owner to run /loop-closeout, which you cannot call.
4. Write the closeout file, then run the contract’s reconcile and reply (section 12, steps 5 and 6).

Turn endings

A message with no tool call ends your turn. Never end a turn with a summary that announces the next
step, an offer to carry on, a list of decisions none of which blocks the remaining work, or a
decision that this is a good place to stop. End a turn only when the closeout is written, when
paused, or when a lane, a watch_start watcher or a wake_at timer will wake this session; when
waiting, arm wake_at and make the last line `WAITING: <what> until <YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM[:SS]Z>`; when
paused, `PAUSED: <reason>`. Launch each lane as its own subagent call.