Worker Lifecycle & Retrospective

Worker Lifecycle & Retrospective

Retrospective & Merge

After [agree_tag] and worker WIP commit:

1. Retrospective trigger: retro-marker.json is set to retro_pending: true
   • session-gate.mjs blocks Bash/Agent until retrospective completes
   • Only Read/Write/Edit/Glob/Grep/TodoWrite allowed during retrospective
   • For worktree sub-agents: subagent-stop.mjs marks as deferred_to_orchestrator
2. Perform retrospective (see templates/references/${locale}/retro-questions.md):
   • What went well / What was problematic
   • Audit accuracy review: check for false positives/negatives
   • Memory update: invoke /quorum:retrospect for structured extraction
   • Bidirectional feedback
3. Rejection code improvement check:

   quorum tool audit_history --summary --track <current-track>
   

   • FP rate >30% across 5+ rounds → flag for policy review
   • Same code 3+ times on track → suggest planner re-scoping
4. Technical debt capture: improvement items → work-catalog.md as type: tech-debt
5. Release gate: echo session-self-improvement-complete → marker resets
6. Squash merge: invoke /quorum:merge
7. Write session handoff: update completed task status
8. Loop: return to Session Start

Worker Lifecycle Gate

Every spawned agent must be tracked through its full lifecycle. No agent may be abandoned.

#	Stage	Handoff Status	Verification
1	Spawned	in-progress	agent_id + worktree_path recorded
2	Evidence submitted	auditing	Worker called audit_submit tool with [trigger_tag]
3	Audit complete	→ correcting or → done	Respond file has verdict
4	Corrections (if rejected)	correcting	SendMessage sent to existing agent_id
5	Consensus reached	done (pending merge)	[agree_tag] in respond file
6	Retrospective	done (pending merge)	retro_pending: false
7	Merged	done	Squash commit in git log

Session End Audit

Before the orchestrator session ends, scan handoff for incomplete lifecycles:

For each task where status != "done" and status != "not-started":
  → Report: "[task-id] is in stage {N} ({status}). Action needed: {next step}"

Prohibited session exits:

• Any task with agent_id but no verdict processed → must process or report
• Any task with [agree_tag] but no WIP commit → must verify or report
• Any task with [agree_tag] + commit but no retrospective → must complete or defer
• Any task with retrospective done but no merge → must merge or report

Session Summary (mandatory output)

## Session Summary

| Task | Status | Stage | Next Action |
|------|--------|-------|-------------|
| [task-A] | done | 7/7 merged | — |
| [task-B] | correcting | 4/7 | Awaiting resubmission |
| [task-C] | in-progress | 1/7 | Worker running (agent_id: xxx) |

Handoff updated: {handoff_file_path}

Headless Session End

In headless mode, the session summary is written to a file instead of presented:

• Write to {handoff_dir}/session-summary-{timestamp}.md
• Include all lifecycle statuses + deferred items
• The orchestrator that spawned this headless session reads the summary on completion