quality-gates

Quality Gates

Three Gate Types

The 3-Surgeons system provides three quality gates, each serving a different purpose:

Gate	Purpose	When to Run
GainsGate	Infrastructure health verification	Between major phases, after deployments
CardioGate	Quality review chain with rate limiting	When quality degradation is detected
CorrigibilityGate	Safety invariant enforcement	Before destructive or risky actions

GainsGate

When to Run

• Between major phases -- after completing phase A, run gains-gate before starting phase B
• After deployments -- verify the system is healthy post-deploy
• After infrastructure changes -- new config, restarted services, changed endpoints
• Before long-running operations -- ensure everything is healthy before committing to a multi-step process

How to Invoke

CLI

3s gains-gate

MCP Tool

gains_gate()

Default Checks

Check	Critical?	What It Verifies
neurologist_health	No	Pings Neurologist endpoint. Local model may be offline.
cardiologist_health	No	Pings Cardiologist endpoint. API may be unavailable.
evidence_store	Yes	Evidence DB is accessible and queryable.
state_backend	Yes	State backend responds to ping.

Gate Pass/Fail Logic

The gate passes only if all critical checks pass. Non-critical failures are recorded but do not block progress.

• All critical checks pass + some non-critical fail = PASS (with warnings)
• Any critical check fails = FAIL (must fix before proceeding)

Interpreting Results

Running gains gate...

  [PASS] neurologist_health: Neurologist operational (89ms)
  [FAIL] cardiologist_health: Cardiologist unreachable: Connection refused
  [PASS][critical] evidence_store: Evidence store accessible (42 learnings)
  [PASS][critical] state_backend: State backend operational

PASS: 3/4 checks passed (non-critical failures: cardiologist_health)  (23ms)

In this example, the gate passes because the Cardiologist being down is non-critical. The evidence store and state backend (both critical) are healthy.

What to Do When the Gate Fails

1. Read the failure messages -- they tell you exactly which critical check failed and why
2. Fix the root cause -- do not proceed to the next phase with a failed gate
3. Re-run the gate -- verify the fix resolved the issue
4. Only then proceed -- the gate exists to prevent building on broken infrastructure

CardioGate

When to Run

• When quality degradation is detected -- automated monitoring flags declining output quality
• For periodic quality reviews -- scheduled quality assurance checks
• After significant model or prompt changes -- verify quality was not regressed

How It Works

The CardioGate chains three steps:

1. Rate limit check (critical) -- maximum 3 automated reviews per hour. Prevents runaway quality checks from burning budget.
2. Gains gate (embedded) -- all GainsGate checks run as part of CardioGate. Infrastructure must be healthy before quality review.
3. Optional cross-examination -- if both previous steps pass, a cross-exam can be triggered for the quality concern.

Rate Limiting

Setting	Value
Max reviews per hour	3
State key	cardio_gate:reviews_this_hour
Tracked in	State backend

If the rate limit is exceeded, the entire CardioGate fails with a critical rate_limit check failure. This prevents cost runaway from automated quality monitoring loops.

Gate Failure

CardioGate fails if:

• Rate limit exceeded (critical)
• Any GainsGate critical check fails (critical)
• Both must pass for the gate to pass

CorrigibilityGate

When to Run

• Before destructive operations -- dropping tables, wiping data, force pushing
• Before safety bypass requests -- any action that would circumvent safety checks
• Before modifying gate logic -- self-modification of the safety system itself

How to Invoke

The CorrigibilityGate is primarily used programmatically:

from three_surgeons.core.gates import CorrigibilityGate
from three_surgeons.core.config import Config

gate = CorrigibilityGate(config=Config.discover())
result = gate.run(proposed_action="Drop all production database tables and recreate")
# result.passed = False
# result.summary = "CORRIGIBILITY FAIL: Blocked: No destructive operations without explicit approval (matched: 'Drop all...database tables')"

Default Invariants

The gate checks proposed actions against these regex-based safety rules:

Invariant	Catches
No destructive operations	drop database, truncate table, delete all prod data, rm -rf /, wipe all data, destroy database
No bypassing safety	bypass safety, skip safety, ignore safety, disable safety, override safety, circumvent safety, bypass constraint/check/validation/guard
No modifying gate logic	modify the gate logic, disable corrigibility gate, skip gains gate, remove cardio gate, bypass corrigibility gate
No force pushing	force push, push --force, git push -f

Interpreting Results

CORRIGIBILITY PASS: action is safe (4 invariants checked)

or

CORRIGIBILITY FAIL: Blocked: No destructive operations without explicit approval (matched: 'drop all database tables')

A failed corrigibility check means the proposed action matches a safety invariant. The action should NOT proceed without explicit human approval.

What to Do When CorrigibilityGate Fails

1. Do NOT bypass the gate -- the invariant exists for a reason
2. Present the failure to the human -- explain what was blocked and why
3. Ask for explicit approval -- if the human confirms the action is intentional, they can authorize proceeding
4. The gate itself cannot be modified -- "disable corrigibility gate" is itself an invariant violation

Decision Table: Which Gate?

Situation	Gate
Transitioning between project phases	GainsGate
After deploying changes	GainsGate
Quality metric declining	CardioGate
About to delete/drop/wipe something	CorrigibilityGate
About to force push	CorrigibilityGate
Session start health check	GainsGate (or just probe for quick check)
About to modify safety settings	CorrigibilityGate

Gate Composition

Gates can be composed. The CardioGate already embeds a GainsGate. You could build custom workflows:

CorrigibilityGate -> GainsGate -> (proceed with operation)

This pattern ensures: (1) the action is safe, (2) the infrastructure is healthy, (3) then execute.