do-issue-solo

Work on GitHub Issue (Autonomous)

Work on GitHub issue $ARGUMENTS autonomously, coordinating safely with any other Maverick instance that might also hold a claim on this issue. Follow every phase in order. Only pause to ask the user when you are blocked or need clarification.

Preflight (mandatory)

Preflight output, captured when this skill was invoked (dynamic-content pilot — the command ran before you read this):

!uv run maverick preflight do-issue-solo 2>&1 && echo PREFLIGHT_OK

• Ends with PREFLIGHT_OK → prerequisites are met; proceed.

• Shows an error → halt and report the output verbatim to the user. Do not proceed, do not work around missing prerequisites.

• Empty, or shows the literal command text (dynamic skill content is disabled via disableSkillShellExecution) → run it manually first and apply the same rules:

  uv run maverick preflight do-issue-solo
  

The check verifies: the project is initialised, the Maverick GitHub App is configured (maverick gh-app status reports configured: true), and required tools (gh, git, uv) are on PATH.

Before You Begin

If $ARGUMENTS is empty or not a valid issue number, ask the user for the issue number before proceeding.

Determine the repo (via gh repo view --json nameWithOwner) — you will pass it to every maverick coord command below.

PR code review runs locally during Phase 9 as the agent-code-reviewer subagent — its binary PASS/FAIL verdict is the gate. Some projects also opt into a CI-side re-run via mav-bp-remote-code-review (independent verification for multi-machine fleets or audit needs); when present it adds a status check the auto-merge in Phase 10 will wait on, but its absence is not a blocker.

Phase 0: Coordination + cold-start

Before any other phase.

1. Run uv run maverick coord read <repo> $ARGUMENTS and inspect the snapshot. Decide which of the four branches in mav-multi-instance-coordination applies:
   • Blocked (blocked-by:#N label): abort cleanly, report to user.
   • Claimed with live lease: abort cleanly, report holder + expiry.
   • Claimed with stale lease: decide take-over vs defer.
   • Free: proceed to claim.
2. Claim the issue: uv run maverick coord claim <repo> $ARGUMENTS. The command exits non-zero if the claim is rejected — treat that as abort.
3. Start the workflow report (writes a run-start row that later report calls inherit maverick_skill from):

   uv run maverick report run-start do-issue-solo --issue $ARGUMENTS --phase claimed
   

   From here, agent-dispatch intervals are recorded automatically by the plugin's Subagent hooks (open on dispatch, closed on return), and invoking a tracked inner skill auto-opens its skill-dispatch interval. Your only bookkeeping obligation is the one-line report end --auto --outcome <…> after each inner skill returns — everything else is hooks. Anything left open is flushed as outcome=unknown by report generate.
4. Start the heartbeat daemon. It refreshes the lease every HEARTBEAT_INTERVAL_MINUTES minutes for as long as you hold the claim and exits on its own when the claim is released:

   uv run maverick coord heartbeat-loop <repo> $ARGUMENTS --daemonize
   

   Never background the foreground loop with & — a process backgrounded from a tool shell dies with the shell or leaks unobservably. Liveness is checked in the task loop with coord heartbeat-status.
5. Release is handled on every exit path without any action from you: the plugin's SessionEnd hook runs coord release-all when the session ends (normal exit, user interrupt, crash-caught), and lease expiry (10-minute TTL) covers machine death. Your only release obligations are the explicit ones at workflow boundaries: --reason merged after auto-merge lands, --reason ejected on eject. Do not attempt trap-on-exit wrappers — each Bash call is a fresh shell, so a trap cannot survive to session end.
6. Authorization scopes (only when needed): if the issue explicitly authorizes infrastructure changes — the maverick-authorize-infra label or a Maverick-Authorize: infra line in the issue body — record it so the scope-guard hook permits those edits in autonomous mode:

   uv run maverick coord authorize <repo> $ARGUMENTS infra
   

   If the command exits non-zero, the issue does not authorize the scope: do not make infrastructure changes; note the gap in the solution design instead. Never write .maverick/session-auth.json by any other means — the hook blocks it, and self-granting defeats the authorization model.
7. Cold-start hydrate per mav-durability-on-gh. The skill is fully resumable — a fresh agent re-entering after a crash, stop, or context-exhaustion must skip phases that already completed rather than re-running them against an in-flight or merged PR (#41). Do not reconstruct the resume position by hand:

   uv run maverick coord resume-point <repo> $ARGUMENTS
   

   The command reads the task-progress marker, finds the PR via the recorded branch, inspects CI and the review verdict, and returns {next, instruction, evidence} — follow the instruction. Also check for an existing worktree under .maverick/worktrees/ before creating one. Each phase below ends with a task-progress set write so re-entry advances one boundary at a time without re-running anything.

Phase 1-2: Understand the Issue and Solution Design (subagent)

Run Phases 1 and 2 as a subagent to keep the main context window clean for implementation.

1. Refresh the local base branch before the analyst reads anything. The analyst runs against the main checkout — Phase 4 hasn't created the worktree yet — so a stale local base lets pre-resolved ambiguities slip into the design pass and surface as phantom blockers (#102). Follow the "Base Branch Freshness" rule in mav-git-workflow:

   STORY_BASE=$(uv run maverick git-workflow story-base)
   git fetch origin "$STORY_BASE"
   CURRENT=$(git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD)
   if [ "$CURRENT" = "$STORY_BASE" ]; then
       git pull --ff-only origin "$STORY_BASE"
   else
       git fetch origin "$STORY_BASE:$STORY_BASE"
   fi
   

   If either form refuses a non-fast-forward, halt and report to the user — there are local commits on $STORY_BASE that have not been pushed, which violates trunk-based discipline.

2. Dispatch the agent-issue-analyst agent with:

   • Issue number: $ARGUMENTS
   • Mode: solo (The dispatch interval is recorded by the Subagent hooks — no report calls needed.)

3. When the agent returns, verify the design landed durably — uv run maverick task-progress read <repo> $ARGUMENTS shows comments.design set to a comment ID (the analyst posts it via uv run maverick issue comment post --kind design).

4. If the agent flagged ambiguities it could not resolve:

   • uv run maverick report begin question --issue $ARGUMENTS --topic ambiguity-resolution
   • Ask the user.
   • uv run maverick report end --auto --issue $ARGUMENTS --outcome success

   Otherwise continue.

5. Checkpoint: uv run maverick task-progress set <repo> $ARGUMENTS design.

Phase 3: Create Tasks (subagent)

Run Phase 3 as a subagent.

1. Dispatch the agent-github-issue-planner agent with:
   • Issue number: $ARGUMENTS
   • Design comment ID from the task-progress marker (comments.design)
2. When the agent returns, verify the tasks landed durably — uv run maverick task-progress read <repo> $ARGUMENTS shows:
   • If < 5 tasks: comments.tasks set to a comment ID (posted via uv run maverick issue comment post --kind tasks)
   • If >= 5 tasks: sub-issues exist on the issue
3. If the agent flagged scope concerns:
   • uv run maverick report begin question --issue $ARGUMENTS --topic scope-concerns
   • Ask the user.
   • uv run maverick report end --auto --issue $ARGUMENTS --outcome success
4. Checkpoint: uv run maverick task-progress set <repo> $ARGUMENTS tasks (append --has-sub-issues when the >= 5 tasks path was taken).

Phase 4: Create Worktree + Branch

The branch is created inside a dedicated worktree, not in the main checkout.

1. Derive the branch name per the mav-github-issue-workflow skill.
2. Resolve the base branch from the project config:

   STORY_BASE=$(uv run maverick git-workflow story-base)
   

   • If this story depends on a sibling story whose PR is open but not merged, stack per mav-stacked-prs — base = sibling branch.
3. Create the worktree: uv run maverick worktree create <branch> [--base <sibling-branch>]. From this point on, all file edits happen inside the worktree path.
4. cd into the worktree path for the rest of the story.
5. Checkpoint: uv run maverick task-progress set <repo> $ARGUMENTS branch --branch <branch> (recording the branch is what lets coord resume-point find the PR later).

Phase 5: Execute Tasks (push after every task)

Push after every task, not at the end. See mav-durability-on-gh.

1. Read project-level skills at docs/maverick/skills/. Apply any topic-specific guidance they carry.

For each task (sub-issue or checklist item), in order:

Each step below is its own obligation. After /do-code returns in step 1, do not stop — continue with step 2. The inner skill's return is a hand-back, not a task-complete signal (#106).

1. Invoke /do-code <one-line task description>. The skill reads before writing, makes the smallest diff that satisfies the task, verifies per mav-local-verification, and refuses to return on red. (Invoking it auto-opens the skill-dispatch interval via the plugin's Skill hook.)
2. Record the outcome — the single bookkeeping obligation per task:

   uv run maverick report end --auto --issue $ARGUMENTS --outcome <success|failure>
   

   On failure, halt the per-task loop and diagnose per mav-systematic-debugging — do not proceed to the commit step with a failing build or red tests.
3. (Optional) Sibling-dispatch /do-test if the change needs new or updated tests that do-code did not already cover — then record its outcome the same way:

   uv run maverick report end --auto --issue $ARGUMENTS --outcome <success|failure>
   

   When /do-test returns, proceed to step 4.
4. Create a conventional commit referencing the issue number.
5. Push immediately.
   • If this is the first push on the branch, set upstream: git push -u origin <branch>.
   • If on a stacked branch, run the retarget check per mav-stacked-prs before every push.
6. Log the commit to the workflow report. SHA and subject come from git; the timestamp is wall-clock at the moment of this CLI call:

   SHA=$(git rev-parse HEAD)
   SUBJECT=$(git log -1 --pretty=%s)
   uv run maverick report commit --issue $ARGUMENTS \
       --phase implement --sha "$SHA" --subject "$SUBJECT"
   

7. Check the task off durably — uv run maverick tasks check <repo> $ARGUMENTS <n> (or close the sub-issue). Never PATCH the comment body by hand.
8. Verify the heartbeat daemon is alive: uv run maverick coord heartbeat-status <repo> $ARGUMENTS — if it reports not running, treat it as claim-lost: stop pushing, re-run the Phase 0 entry check before continuing.

After the last task, run the full verification suite once more.

Checkpoint: uv run maverick task-progress set <repo> $ARGUMENTS implement.

Follow mav-plan-execution for the broader execution loop, verification discipline, failure handling, and crash recovery.

Phase 6: Documentation Review (mandatory)

This phase always runs before the PR is opened. There is no skip path — the heuristic-gated version used to let stale docs ship when Claude's affected-or-not call was wrong. The agent decides whether work is needed; the workflow decides whether the agent runs.

The agent is dispatched with a pre-filtered shortlist of docs the diff plausibly touches, not the open-ended "audit every doc" brief that made this phase the longest single subagent cost on prior issues (observed: ~6 min on a 15-file diff). The agent still reports any out-of-shortlist docs it believes are impacted — those surface in the PR body as a follow-up note rather than being silently rewritten.

1. Build the diff and candidate-doc shortlist in one deterministic step:

   uv run maverick docs shortlist --base "$(uv run maverick git-workflow story-base)"
   

   This writes /tmp/diff.patch, /tmp/changed-paths.txt, and /tmp/doc-shortlist.txt (terms derived from changed paths and identifiers in the diff, matched across every docs/ tree). The shortlist may legitimately be empty — that is a valid input to step 2.
2. Dispatch agent-tech-docs-writer with (interval recorded automatically by the Subagent hooks):
   • Mode: update (per do-docs)
   • Diff: /tmp/diff.patch
   • Candidate docs: the contents of /tmp/doc-shortlist.txt. If the file is empty, pass the literal string <empty — scan only for gaps requiring new coverage>.
   • Instructions:
     • Read each candidate doc. Update only sections rendered stale by the diff; do not refactor unrelated content.
     • If the diff introduces a component, subsystem, or architectural change with no coverage anywhere in docs/, create the new document.
     • If you find a doc outside the candidate list that you believe is impacted, list its path in your return payload — do not edit it. One-pass dispatch: no widen-and-retry; the caller folds these into a follow-up note on the PR for the human reviewer.
     • Returning "no doc changes required" is a valid outcome and must be reported explicitly (not silently inferred).
3. Record the outcome in the PR body or as a one-line PR comment so the gate is auditable:
   • If docs were updated or created: list the files changed.
   • If the agent flagged out-of-shortlist docs: append a Docs follow-up: <paths> line to the PR body so the reviewer sees them.
   • If no changes were required: post Docs review: no changes required.
4. Commit any doc changes with a docs: conventional commit and push per the push-per-task rule. If a commit was made, log it so the docs phase row gets its own sub-row in the report:

   SHA=$(git rev-parse HEAD)
   SUBJECT=$(git log -1 --pretty=%s)
   uv run maverick report commit --issue $ARGUMENTS \
       --phase docs --sha "$SHA" --subject "$SUBJECT"
   

5. The PR cannot proceed to Phase 7 until this phase has produced either committed doc changes or the auditable no-op record.
6. Checkpoint: uv run maverick task-progress set <repo> $ARGUMENTS docs.

Phase 7: Pre-push Cybersecurity Review (mandatory)

This phase always runs before the PR is opened. There is no skip path. Any changed code AND any code that could be impacted by the changes (callers, importers, dependents) must be reviewed by do-cybersecurity-review before the PR can be opened.

Each step below is its own obligation. After /do-cybersecurity-review returns in step 2, do not stop — continue with step 3. The inner skill's return is a hand-back, not a phase-complete signal (#106).

1. Compute the full diff: git diff origin/<base>...HEAD.

2. Dispatch /do-cybersecurity-review with (invoking it auto-opens the skill-dispatch interval via the Skill hook):

   • Mode: update
   • Diff: the output of step 1, passed via stdin or as a file path
   • Instructions: review the changed code AND the impact set (callers, importers, dependents — bounded to one or two hops). Return the structured outcome (verdict + findings) defined in the skill's Update Mode contract.

   When the skill returns, proceed to step 3 — do not summarise and stop.

3. Record the outcome: uv run maverick report end --auto --issue $ARGUMENTS --outcome <success|failure|blocked> (use blocked if the verdict was BLOCKING).

4. Act on the verdict:

   • BLOCKING — halt. Surface the findings to the user verbatim. Do not open the PR. The user resolves the BLOCKING items by returning to Phase 5 (implement, test, commit, push). Re-run this phase against the new diff before proceeding.
   • FINDINGS — append a ## Security Review section to the PR body draft listing each finding (severity, location, description, recommendation). The PR may proceed to Phase 8 with these items visible to the human reviewer and to agent-code-reviewer.
   • PASS — record Security review: no concerns. in the PR body draft so the gate is auditable.

5. The PR cannot proceed to Phase 8 until this phase has returned a non-BLOCKING verdict and the outcome has been folded into the PR body draft.

6. Checkpoint: uv run maverick task-progress set <repo> $ARGUMENTS security.

Phase 8: Open PR + Monitor CI

1. Pre-push verification per mav-local-verification — a final green check before asking for review.
2. Stacked-PR retarget check per mav-stacked-prs if the branch stacks on a sibling. Retarget before opening the PR if the sibling is now merged.
3. Resolve the PR target from config:

   PR_TARGET=$(uv run maverick git-workflow pr-target)
   

   Open the PR. The body must end with a literal Closes #$ARGUMENTS line (capitalised; not Refs, Related to, or any other phrasing). gh pr merge --squash carries the PR body verbatim into the squash commit body; GitHub only auto-closes the linked issue when one of Closes/Fixes/Resolves appears in a commit on the default branch. If multiple PRs land via a non-squash promotion (Gitflow: develop → main), each squash commit's body is what GitHub scans — so omitting the keyword on a single PR leaves that story open even after promotion (#56). Use Refs #N only for cross-references to other issues, never for the primary story:

   gh pr create --base "$PR_TARGET" --head <branch> \
       --title "<conventional title referencing #$ARGUMENTS>" \
       --body "$(cat <<'PR_EOF'
   ## Summary
   <1-3 bullet points>
   
   Closes #$ARGUMENTS
   PR_EOF
   )"
   

4. Checkpoint: uv run maverick task-progress set <repo> $ARGUMENTS pr_open.
5. Monitor CI with a bounded wait:

   uv run maverick pr wait <repo> <pr-num> --checks --timeout 30m
   

   • Exit 0: checks green — continue.
   • Exit 5: checks failed — read the logs per mav-bp-cicd, fix locally, push, re-run the wait.
   • Exit 3: timeout — investigate the stuck check (a required check that never reports blocks auto-merge too); report to the user if it cannot be resolved. Do not proceed to Phase 9 until the wait exits 0.
6. Browser/UI verification is non-blocking. If the change touches UI and Claude's global instructions or a project skill ask for browser verification, run it with a strict timeout (e.g. 5 min total). On hang, timeout, or failure, post the outcome as a non-blocking PR comment and proceed to Phase 9 — do not wait indefinitely (#41). Phase 9's reviewer is the binding gate; CI is the binding regression check; ad-hoc browser runs are advisory.
7. Checkpoint: uv run maverick task-progress set <repo> $ARGUMENTS ci_green.

Phase 9: Code Review (binary, hard gate)

The local agent-code-reviewer subagent's verdict is the review gate the auto-merge path trusts. This is a binary verdict against the open PR, not a local-diff advisory loop.

1. Dispatch agent-code-reviewer with (interval recorded automatically by the Subagent hooks):
   • The PR URL
   • The issue body, design comment, and tasks list (so it has the spec)
2. Parse the verdict from the marker line only. The agent's reply must end with exactly one MAVERICK_VERDICT: PASS or MAVERICK_VERDICT: FAIL line — that line is the verdict; do not infer it from the prose above it.
   • MAVERICK_VERDICT: PASS — proceed to Phase 10 (merge).
   • MAVERICK_VERDICT: FAIL — proceed to Phase 11 (eject). Do not attempt to auto-fix.
   • Marker missing, ambiguous, or present more than once with conflicting values — treat as FAIL and eject. Do not re-dispatch the reviewer to "get a cleaner answer", and never substitute your own reading of the review body for a missing marker.
3. Checkpoint: uv run maverick task-progress set <repo> $ARGUMENTS review.

There is no fix-and-re-review loop. If the reviewer FAILs the PR, the next step is eject-to-human, not iterate.

Phase 10: Auto-merge (on PASS)

1. Verify the PR body still carries the closing keyword. The body becomes the squash commit body, and the closing keyword must survive into the commit that lands on the default branch (#56). If the body was edited after Phase 8 — by a reviewer, by another subagent, or by a force-push — re-add the line before merging:

   uv run maverick gh-app gh -- pr view <pr-url> --json body -q .body \
       | grep -Eq '(Closes|Fixes|Resolves) #$ARGUMENTS\b' \
       || { echo "PR body missing 'Closes #$ARGUMENTS' — re-add before merging"; exit 1; }
   

2. Auth-path gate (hard). Never auto-merge a PR that touches authentication/authorization surfaces or CI workflow definitions — those require human review regardless of the code-review verdict:

   uv run maverick pr auth-scan <repo> <pr-num>
   

   • Exit 0: clean — proceed.
   • Exit 3: gated paths touched — do not merge. Treat this exactly like a review FAIL: follow the eject path (apply needs-human, post the scan output as a comment, release the claim) and stop.
   • Exit 2: scan error — retry once; if it still fails, eject rather than merging unverified.
3. The Maverick GitHub App posts the approval:

   uv run maverick gh-app gh -- pr review <pr-url> --approve \
       --body "Approved by agent-code-reviewer at $(date -u +%FT%TZ)"
   

4. Enable auto-merge (squash):

   uv run maverick gh-app gh -- pr merge <pr-url> --auto --squash
   

   The merge waits on whatever required status checks the project's branch protection enforces — typically lint, tests, build, and (if the optional mav-bp-remote-code-review workflow is adopted) the CI-side re-run of agent-code-reviewer. If all required checks were already green, GitHub merges immediately; otherwise it merges when they pass.
5. Wait for the merge to land with a bounded wait — cleanup steps below assume the PR is no longer in flight:

   uv run maverick pr wait <repo> <pr-num> --timeout 30m
   

   Exit 3 (timeout) usually means a required check never reported — investigate rather than looping; exit 4 (closed without merge) means a human intervened — stop and report.
6. Checkpoint: uv run maverick task-progress set <repo> $ARGUMENTS merged.
7. Post the completion comment on the issue per mav-github-issue-workflow.
8. Run the post-merge issue-lifecycle step. This always posts an audit comment ("Resolved in PR #

   ; merged to .") and applies a merged-to-<branch> label, then closes the issue per the per-project policy in .maverick/config.json's issue_lifecycle.close_policy (#52). The default policy (on_pr_merge) closes the issue immediately, which is right for trunk-based and GitHub Flow repos. Repos using Gitflow or custom promotion gates can set the policy to on_default_branch_merge or manual to keep the issue open until promotion — the audit comment and label still surface the merge so gh issue list -l merged-to-develop finds work pending promotion. The CLI is idempotent (re-running it on a closed issue is a no-op), so it is safe to retry:

   uv run maverick issue close-on-merge <repo> $ARGUMENTS \
       --pr <pr-num> --target <target-branch>
   

9. Release the claim: uv run maverick coord release <repo> $ARGUMENTS --reason merged.
10. Destroy the worktree: uv run maverick worktree destroy <worktree-path>.
11. Checkpoint: uv run maverick task-progress set <repo> $ARGUMENTS complete.
12. Emit per-phase narrative notes so the report's Analysis section has context for what happened. The JSONL is the authoritative record; the report is a pure render of it, so notes must land in the JSONL — do not edit the rendered Markdown by hand:

    uv run maverick report note --issue $ARGUMENTS --phase design \
        --text "<one-sentence summary of what the analyst returned>"
    uv run maverick report note --issue $ARGUMENTS --phase implement \
        --text "<one-sentence summary of what landed in Phase 5>"
    # ... one `report note` per phase that produced work worth narrating
    

13. Generate the workflow report. Written to the main repo's .maverick/reports/ (resolved via git rev-parse --git-common-dir), not the destroyed worktree's. Re-runs are deterministic:

    uv run maverick report generate <repo> $ARGUMENTS
    

Phase 11: Eject (on FAIL)

1. Post the reviewer's verdict as a PR comment (App identity, per mav-github-issue-workflow):

   uv run maverick gh-app gh -- pr comment <pr-url> --body-file /tmp/review-verdict.md
   

2. Apply the needs-human label to both the PR and the issue:

   gh pr edit <pr-url> --add-label needs-human
   gh issue edit $ARGUMENTS --add-label needs-human
   

3. Request human review on the PR:

   gh pr edit <pr-url> --add-reviewer <human-handle>
   

4. If this story belongs to an epic (look for a parent epic reference on the issue, or uv run maverick state show <repo> <epic>):
   • Mark this story ejected: uv run maverick state set <repo> <epic> $ARGUMENTS ejected.
   • Run block propagation (idempotent, resumable): uv run maverick bprop run <repo> <epic> --ejected $ARGUMENTS.
   • Cancel any in-flight subagent work for stories now in the blocked set, per mav-block-propagation.
5. Checkpoint the eject (#83): uv run maverick task-progress set <repo> $ARGUMENTS ejected.
6. Emit per-phase narrative notes so the eject report has context for the human reviewer:

   uv run maverick report note --issue $ARGUMENTS --phase review \
       --text "<one-sentence summary of what the reviewer flagged>"
   # ... one `report note` per phase that produced work worth narrating
   

7. Generate the workflow report. Do this before releasing the claim so the report lands even if release errors:

   uv run maverick report generate <repo> $ARGUMENTS
   

8. Release the claim: uv run maverick coord release <repo> $ARGUMENTS --reason ejected.
9. Do not destroy the worktree — the human may want to inspect it. Log the worktree path so the user can find it.

Rules

• Only pause for user input when blocked or when the issue is ambiguous.
• Never commit directly to the default branch. All work flows through the feature branch → PR.
• Always use conventional commits referencing #$ARGUMENTS.
• Push after every task. Durability trumps CI-cost optimisation.
• Binary review. PASS auto-merges; FAIL ejects. No fix loop.
• Release the claim on every exit path. Success, eject, abort, crash — all of them must release.
• Never remove a blocked-by:#N label from inside the workflow. Only a human may clear a block.