Workflow ref trust¶

Prompt¶

Before responding to questions or discussion points in this document, explore this repository thoroughly. Read the relevant files and ground your answers in what they actually say. Do not speculate about the repository when you could read it instead. Flag any uncertainty explicitly rather than guessing.

There is no application code here. The artifacts are the audit specifications in docs/audits/, the tooling in scripts/ that measures them, the templates in templates/ that the rest of the fleet copies, and the workflows that run all of it every morning against every Shaken Fist repository.

Consult AGENTS.md for the conventions and the invariants that are not visible in the code, and ARCHITECTURE.md for the shape of the system. docs/consistency-audits.md is the reference for what a daily run does, how to add a criterion, how to bring a repository into scope, and how to test a change before it reaches the fleet -- read it before changing anything under scripts/ or docs/audits/. docs/code-review-tracking.md covers the review tooling, and PUSH-AUDIT.md is the pre-push review runbook that every plan's final phase runs.

Two things make planning here different from planning in a repository that holds a product, and both should shape any plan written from this template:

The blast radius is other people's repositories. The daily workflow files and closes GitHub issues fleet-wide. A change that is merely wrong does not produce a red build; it produces issues in ten repositories, or silently closes ones that should have stayed open. Always pass --dry-run when running audit-manage-issues.py by hand.
This repository is in its own audit matrix. A standard we exempt ourselves from is a standard we stop noticing the cost of. A change to a criterion is a change we are measured against the next morning, so a plan should say how many repositories -- including this one -- it newly fails.

Plan file conventions (shared block; do not edit -- the canonical copy lives in shakenfist/development at templates/shared-blocks/plan-file-conventions.md):

All planning documents live in docs/plans/.
Detailed planning gets one plan file per phase. Phase files are named for their master plan, sit in the same directory as it, and append -phase-NN-descriptive before the .md extension.
The master plan tracks its phases in a table under its Execution section:

Phase	Plan	Status
1. Schema migration	PLAN-thing-phase-01-schema.md	Not started
2. Public API	PLAN-thing-phase-02-api.md	Not started

One commit per logical change, and at minimum one commit per phase. Unrelated changes are not batched into a single commit. Each commit is self-contained: it builds, passes tests, and has a message explaining what changed and why.

In this repository. Plans here keep their phases as sections inside the master plan rather than as separate phase files, and the Execution table's Plan column is dropped accordingly; docs/plans/index.md says so. The shared convention above is the fleet default, and a plan large enough to want phase files should use them rather than argue with the block.

Situation¶

#153 named two habits in the fleet's workflows: reusable workflows are called at @main with secrets: inherit, and third-party actions are referenced by a tag rather than a commit sha. Both mean that code nobody reviewed in the calling repository runs inside its CI.

The secrets: inherit half has already landed (fe4b3ba, 2026-09-29). The reusable-workflow-secrets criterion reports any job that passes secrets: inherit to a reusable workflow, and leaves two callees to criteria that already owned them (export-repo-config, ci-review-automation). The fix in the calling repositories is phase 1 of this plan. These were the live secrets: inherit lines on each repository's default branch at the phase 1 survey, read through the GitHub API on 2026-10-02 before any phase 1 pull request was opened (local clones were stale and overcounted). The pull requests that remove them are listed in the phase 1 section.

Criterion	Repositories	Open issues
`reusable-workflow-secrets`	4	client-python#410, instar#610, occystrap#150, shakenfist#4380
`export-repo-config` (its inherit finding)	9	agent-python#146, client-python#409, client-python-k3s#79, clingwrap#138, divergulent#121, instar#600, library-utilities#63, occystrap#148, sfui#38
`ci-review-automation` (its inherit finding)	0	none; its open issues are about other findings

fe4b3ba says no reusable workflow in the fleet read a secret. That is true of the shared callees in actions (smoke-cluster.yml and export-repo-config.yml) and of the test-drift-fix.yml template. It is not true of instar's local test-drift-fix.yml, which reads secrets.GITLAB_TESTDATA_TOKEN to fetch its test data. Deleting instar's inherit would leave that token empty. Phase 1 handles this.

The pinning half has not been started. The spec of reusable-workflow-secrets explicitly leaves it out. These measurements come from local clones of the default branches, with worktree copies excluded, on 2026-10-02:

There are 633 remote uses: references, and none is pinned to a sha.
93 of them are shakenfist/actions/...@main, in 14 repositories.
The other 540 are third-party references, all by tag except one branch, noted below. The largest groups are actions/checkout (272), actions/upload-artifact (93), actions/download-artifact (36), dtolnay/rust-toolchain (16), renovatebot/github-action (15), github/codeql-action/* (40), dorny/paths-filter (13), softprops/action-gh-release (11) and pypa/gh-action-pypi-publish (11). pypa/...@release/v1 is a branch, not a tag.
Every renovate-managed repository already runs Renovate, self hosted through renovatebot/github-action. Every config has automerge: false for minor, patch and digest updates, so each bump is a pull request that a person reviews. Two repositories have no renovate.json at all: visual-digest-rust and private-ci.

What @main on shakenfist/actions actually trusts. That branch has a ruleset ("Protect default branch history") that blocks deletion and non-fast-forward pushes, and nothing more. There is no classic branch protection and no pull request requirement. Over the last three months, 146 first-parent commits landed on it:

How it landed	Count
Merged pull request	81
Pushed directly, by a person	21
Pushed directly, by `shakenfist-bot` (review-mark prune or import)	44

The bot pushes with DEPENDENCIES_TOKEN, a personal access token that falls back to github.token (actions/.github/workflows/prune-reviews.yml:90). Today, anything that can push to actions main runs, at the next CI run, in every one of the 14 consuming repositories. That includes anyone holding that token. It runs with whatever those jobs can reach. After the inherit rollout that is github.token under the caller's permissions: block, but it is also everything on the self-hosted runner the job lands on: smoke-cluster.yml authenticates to its clusters with an on-disk key (its lines 18-20). Composite actions from actions (for example pr-bot-trigger@main) are worse again: they run inside the caller's own job, with its environment and any secrets that job was given. This is the narrowest point of the whole problem: one setting in one repository, rather than 93 references spread over 14.

What sha-pinning shakenfist/actions would cost. At 146 changes per quarter, about 1.6 a day, nearly every day would bring a change. Renovate updates an open digest pull request in place and runs once a night, so the cost is at most one pull request per consuming repository per day: an upper bound of 14 a day across the fleet, each one needing a human. The audit also has callers that hard-code @main as the expected form: CI_REVIEW_SHARED_ACTION and CI_REVIEW_TRIGGER_ACTION in scripts/audit/checks/ci_workflows.py:162-165, and the rationale in REPO_OVERRIDES (scripts/audit/repo.py:33). Those would all have to learn to accept a sha.

Mission and problem statement¶

Close #153 with a settled fleet policy on which workflow references may move, enforced by the audit wherever it can be decided mechanically. In brief, the policy is:

Finish the inherit rollout that fe4b3ba started, so no callee can see a secret it was not given by name.
Make @main on shakenfist/actions mean "landed through a pull request that passed CI". Change that repository's ruleset so that changes reach main only that way. With one maintainer this is a record and a CI gate, not a second reviewer (open question 2), and the specs say so. First-party reusable workflows and composite actions keep the moving ref. The decision not to sha-pin them, and its cost, is recorded in the specs.
Pin third-party actions to a sha, with the version in a trailing comment. Renovate (helpers:pinGitHubActionDigests) keeps the pins current, and a new criterion enforces them.
Express a repeated workflow once. A template meant to be the same in every repository becomes a short caller of a reusable workflow or composite action in actions, at the moving ref that point 2 makes safe to trust, and the template's own criterion checks the caller. This belongs in this plan because it rests on the same trust decision: every job moved into actions widens what an unreviewed push to its main would reach, so it waits for phase 2.

Out of scope:

Docker image digests in container: and image: keys. The image-supply-chain plan owns the images the fleet builds.
Pinning the Python, cargo or npm dependencies that workflows install. Other criteria cover those.
Harden-runner-style egress control.
Renovate's own workflow. A shared workflow would still run once per repository, and the better answer is one central run for the whole fleet, which PLAN-renovate-cadence.md delivers.
A fleet-wide "these workflows look alike" detector. It cannot tell drift from a legitimate per-repository difference, so it would file issues against copies that are right to differ. Phase 5 enforces the policy through each template's own criterion instead.

Open questions¶

How does the review-mark bot keep landing on actions main once a pull request is required? If shakenfist-bot is a ruleset bypass actor, the PAT path stays open. If it is not, prune-reviews has to open a pull request and auto-merge it, which is a template change across every adopted repository. A ruleset bypass cannot name a user, only an organisation admin, a repository role, a team, an app or a deploy key, so "bypass for the bot" means a team whose only member is shakenfist-bot, or a GitHub App. A repository-role bypass would let every writer through and is not acceptable. Default: a team of one, shakenfist-bot, as the only bypass actor, with the bypass narrowed to the review-tracking paths if GitHub can express that for this repository (step 2a finds out). It probably cannot: a ruleset's bypass list covers the whole ruleset, branch rulesets have no per-path condition, and a file-path restriction is a push rule that binds every push, pull request merges included. Expect an unnarrowed bypass, and write phase 2's success criterion for that outcome. The spec states the residual risk accurately: the bypass moves the boundary from "can push to main" to "can run a workflow that has DEPENDENCIES_TOKEN in scope", which is wider than one setting in one repository. The || github.token fallback stays harmless, because github.token is not a bypass actor and its push is simply refused; nobody should add the Actions app as a bypass actor to "fix" that refusal. Replacing the PAT with a GitHub App token or a fine-grained token limited to actions (#211) is what actually closes that residual. It is outside this plan because it changes every adopted repository's prune workflow, not because it matters less. PLAN-review-import.md does not move prune to pull requests, so that alternative remains a template change this plan does not make.
What does "a pull request is required" mean with one maintainer? A required approval count of one cannot be met by the author. Default: require a pull request with zero required approvals, plus required status checks. Rulesets require check contexts by job name, not workflow file, so step 2a names them from actions' ci.yml (today Check paths, Lint and Unit tests, the latter two skipped by its path filter on review-only changes). The gain is that nothing lands without CI and a visible record. It is not gated on a second person. And a required check that runs workflow code from the pull request itself can be edited by that pull request to pass, so step 2a also looks at an organisation "require workflows" rule, sourced from a protected ref, as the stronger form. The spec says all of this rather than implying more.
Should GitHub-owned actions (actions/*, github/*) be exempt from sha-pinning? They are the bulk of the references (about 70% of all 633, and over 80% of the 540 third-party ones) and the lowest risk. Default: no exemption. One rule is easier to hold than one with a carve-out (the same reasoning reusable-workflow-secrets gives for local callees), and the Renovate preset makes the cost of the pins uniform.
Is the extra Renovate pull request volume acceptable? Today a @v4 tag silently absorbs every v4.x release. Once pinned, each release becomes a digest pull request. Default: measure it in phase 3a on this repository before deciding the fleet rollout. If volume is the problem, the answer is a grouping rule (one pull request per repository for all action digests), not dropping the pins. Grouping interacts with #88 (standardise renovate groupings), so check that issue's state first.
Does Renovate pin owner/repo/.github/workflows/x.yml@ref reusable-workflow references the same way it pins actions? This only matters for third-party reusable workflows, and there are none today. Default: the criterion measures them anyway, and phase 3a confirms the Renovate behaviour against a fixture rather than assuming it.

Execution¶

Phase	Status	Merged
1. Finish the inherit rollout	In progress
2. Make `actions` main require a pull request	Not started
3. Pin third-party actions to a sha	Not started
4. Record the policy and close #153	Not started
5. Shared workflows instead of copied templates	Not started
6. Push audit	Not started

Phase 1: finish the inherit rollout¶

Planning effort: medium. Review effort: high for instar (step 1a), which is the only repository where a callee reads a real secret.

Scope. Remove every live secrets: inherit in the fleet: at the survey, 17 lines in 10 repositories, closing 13 issues. In this repository, one correction to a spec and a docstring. Out of scope: the other findings on the export-repo-config and ci-review-automation issues, and any other drift between the local test-drift-fix.yml copies and their template. Phase 1 changes only the token references in those copies.

What the survey found (2026-10-02, against default branches through the GitHub API; the master plan's Situation section was corrected to match, and later steps should not redo that):

There are no live pr-auto-review.yml inherits. Local clones of sfui and client-python-k3s still had them, but the default branches did not. ci-review-automation has no part in this phase.
The live export-repo-config.yml inherits were in nine repositories (table in Situation). At the survey none of their issues had a pull request in flight.
actions/.github/workflows/smoke-cluster.yml and export-repo-config.yml read no secret. Each already carries a comment saying so (lines 18 and 9), so for those two, deleting the line is the whole fix.
The local test-drift-fix.yml copies in instar, occystrap and shakenfist have drifted from the template. templates/test-drift-fix/test-drift-fix.yml uses github.token (lines 169, 378, 394, 441). The copies still use secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN: instar at lines 145, 248, 644, 661 and 711, occystrap at 173, 394, 410 and 457, shakenfist at 156, 375, 391 and 438.
instar's copy reads secrets.GITLAB_TESTDATA_TOKEN (line 120, the "Prepare instar-testdata" step). That contradicts both the fe4b3ba commit message and docs/audits/reusable-workflow-secrets.md, which say no callee in the fleet reads a secret. The original brief told the implementer to stop and report if this happened, so the plan now decides it instead (decision 2).
instar's GITLAB_TESTDATA_TOKEN is set in the env: of the one "Prepare instar-testdata" step, not job-wide, so passing it by name does not expose it to the later steps that run pull request code. The calling workflow is maintainer-triggered through pr-bot-trigger.

Decisions.

This phase is planned on the master plan's branch, not a new worktree. The master plan has not merged yet, a branch cut from main would not contain it, and phase 1's code lands in other repositories anyway. Only step 1f lands here, as its own commit on this branch.
instar passes GITLAB_TESTDATA_TOKEN by name rather than losing it. test-drift-fix.yml declares it under on.workflow_call.secrets with a description and required: false, so the copy still works when triggered directly. pr-fix-tests.yml passes GITLAB_TESTDATA_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITLAB_TESTDATA_TOKEN }}. This is the named form that the reusable-workflow-secrets spec asks for, and the first live use of it in the fleet, so it is the worked example phase 4 will cite.
Every local test-drift-fix.yml moves from secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN to github.token, matching the template. Whether secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN resolves in a called workflow that was passed nothing is a question nobody here has verified. github.token makes it moot, and it is what fe4b3ba already did to the template for the same reason.
One pull request per repository, one commit per issue, as consistency-fix prescribes. client-python, instar and occystrap each close two issues from one pull request.
Merge order: low risk first, shakenfist last. The six repositories with only an export-repo-config line go first. They have nothing to break: the callee reads nothing, and the workflow runs on its own schedule. Then client-python and occystrap, then instar, then shakenfist, whose four smoke-cluster callers sit on its most expensive lanes.

Step	Effort	Model	Isolation	Brief for sub-agent
1a	high	opus	worktree	instar, closing #610 and #600. (1) In `.github/workflows/export-repo-config.yml`, delete the `secrets: inherit` line under the job calling `shakenfist/actions/.github/workflows/export-repo-config.yml@main`. Commit, citing #600. (2) In `.github/workflows/test-drift-fix.yml`, add `secrets: GITLAB_TESTDATA_TOKEN: {description: 'Read access to the instar-testdata GitLab repository, used by Prepare instar-testdata.', required: false}` under `on.workflow_call`, and replace every `${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}` (lines 145, 248, 644, 661, 711) with `${{ github.token }}`. In `.github/workflows/pr-fix-tests.yml`, replace `secrets: inherit` under job `fix-tests` with `secrets:` / `GITLAB_TESTDATA_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITLAB_TESTDATA_TOKEN }}`. Commit, citing #610. Then grep both files for any other `secrets.` reference; anything else must be declared and passed the same way. Run `actionlint` and `pre-commit run --all-files`. Re-run `scripts/audit-check.py` from shakenfist/development against the worktree, and confirm `reusable-workflow-secrets` and `export-repo-config` no longer report the inherit. Open one pull request whose body closes both issues. Do not merge.
1b	medium	sonnet	worktree	shakenfist, closing #4380. Delete the `secrets: inherit` line under jobs `smoke_collection`, `functional_matrix_merge_collection` and `ansible_modules_collection` in `.github/workflows/functional-tests.yml`, under `functional_matrix_collection` in `scheduled-tests.yml`, and under `fix-tests` in `pr-fix-tests.yml`. The callee `smoke-cluster.yml` in shakenfist/actions reads no secret; its line 18 says so. In `test-drift-fix.yml`, replace `${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}` at lines 156, 375, 391 and 438 with `${{ github.token }}`, then grep for any remaining `secrets.`; there should be none, and if there is one, stop and report. Run pre-commit and the audit check as in 1a. Open the pull request with "Fixes #4380". Only `smoke_collection` runs on a pull request; `functional_matrix_merge_collection` and `ansible_modules_collection` run in the merge queue, so the merge queue run is the verification for those two.
1c	medium	sonnet	worktree	occystrap, closing #150 and #148. Same shape as 1b: delete the export-repo-config inherit (commit citing #148), delete the `fix-tests` inherit in `pr-fix-tests.yml`, and replace `${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}` at `test-drift-fix.yml` lines 173, 394, 410 and 457 with `${{ github.token }}` (commit citing #150). Run pre-commit and the audit check, then open one pull request closing both issues.
1d	medium	sonnet	worktree	client-python, closing #410 and #409. Delete the `secrets: inherit` under job `functional_matrix` in `.github/workflows/functional-tests.yml` (callee `smoke-cluster.yml`, reads no secret; commit citing #410), and the one in `export-repo-config.yml` (commit citing #409). Run pre-commit and the audit check, then open one pull request closing both issues, and let its functional-tests run pass.
1e	low	sonnet	worktree	In each of agent-python (#146), client-python-k3s (#79), clingwrap (#138), divergulent (#121), library-utilities (#63) and sfui (#38): delete the `secrets: inherit` line in `.github/workflows/export-repo-config.yml`, run pre-commit, and open a pull request with "Fixes #N". One pull request per repository. Touch nothing else, even if the same issue lists other findings.
1f	low	sonnet	none	In this repository (branch `reusable-workflow-secrets`), correct the claim that no callee reads a secret. The Why section of `docs/audits/reusable-workflow-secrets.md` says "no reusable workflow in the fleet read a secret" and that every inherit "is fixed by deleting the line". The `ReusableWorkflowSecrets.run` docstring in `scripts/audit/checks/ci_workflows.py` (around line 2186) says "on 2026-09-29 was every callee in the fleet". Both should say that instar's local `test-drift-fix.yml` read `GITLAB_TESTDATA_TOKEN` and was moved to the named form, and every other inherit was a deleted line. Do not add a `consistency-audit` marker or touch `compliance.md`. Run `pre-commit run --all-files`.

Risks and mitigations.

instar's test data fetch fails silently after the change. If the secret name is wrong, the step gets an empty token. prepare-testdata.sh should then fail at authentication rather than carry on. Once 1a has merged, the management session triggers pr-fix-tests once on a throwaway instar pull request and reads the "Prepare instar-testdata" step log. That trigger is maintainer-only, through pr-bot-trigger: comment @shakenfist-bot please attempt to fix (templates/test-drift-fix/README.md:20).
pr-fix-tests in occystrap and shakenfist is not exercised by pull request CI, because it runs only on a maintainer comment. The same post-merge trigger, once per repository, is the check.
A smoke-cluster caller breaks. The callee reads no secret and says so. client-python's pull request run and shakenfist's smoke_collection exercise a changed caller on the pull request. shakenfist's other two run in its merge queue before landing, and its scheduled caller runs that night. The management session checks the next scheduled run.

Definition of done.

This prints one checked line per repository, with a non-zero count, and nothing else. A failed API call prints API ERROR rather than nothing, so an outage cannot read as a clean fleet. GitHub only runs workflows from .ya?ml files directly in .github/workflows, so the listing skips anything else rather than fetching a subdirectory as if it were a file:

for r in agent-python client-python client-python-k3s clingwrap \
    divergulent instar library-utilities occystrap sfui shakenfist; do
  files=$(gh api repos/shakenfist/$r/contents/.github/workflows \
      --jq '.[] | select(.type == "file" and (.name | test("\\.ya?ml$"))) | .name') ||
    { echo "$r: API ERROR listing workflows"; continue; }
  n=0
  for f in $files; do
    body=$(gh api repos/shakenfist/$r/contents/.github/workflows/$f --jq .content) ||
      { echo "$r: $f: API ERROR"; continue; }
    n=$((n + 1))
    echo "$body" | base64 -d | grep -qE '^\s*secrets:\s*inherit' && echo "$r: $f"
  done
  echo "$r: checked $n"
done

The 13 issues are closed: client-python#410 and #409, instar#610 and #600, occystrap#150 and #148, shakenfist#4380, agent-python#146, client-python-k3s#79, clingwrap#138, divergulent#121, library-utilities#63 and sfui#38. The next morning's audit closes any that the pull request bodies did not.
gh api repos/shakenfist/instar/contents/.github/workflows/test-drift-fix.yml --jq .content | base64 -d | grep -oE '\$\{\{ *secrets\.[A-Za-z_]+' | sort -u prints exactly ${{ secrets.GITLAB_TESTDATA_TOKEN. Matching the expression rather than secrets. keeps a comment that mentions secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN from reading as a failure.
The post-merge pr-fix-tests triggers in instar, occystrap and shakenfist each got past their token-using steps.
The Merged cell records each landing as <repo> <sha> (#pr).

Back brief gate. Step 1a is implemented first, and its pull request is reviewed before 1b to 1e start. This is about the order of the work, not the order of merging; decision 5 still decides when each pull request merges. Step 1a is the only step that adds rather than deletes, and its shape (declared, optional, described) is the pattern phase 4 documents.

Pull requests. Opened 2026-10-02. The Merged cell is filled from this list at close-out. States are as of 2026-10-03. The reusable-workflow-secrets spec describes the merged pull requests in the past tense and instar#617 as proposed, so the spec and this table move together.

Step	Pull request	Closes	State
1a	instar#617	#600, #610	Open
1b	shakenfist#4404	#4380	Merged as e4c7726
1c	occystrap#152	#148, #150	Merged as c583d68
1d	client-python#415	#409, #410	Merged as 68f295f
1e	agent-python#148	#146	Merged as 4bf7763
1e	client-python-k3s#83	#79	Merged as 03998e0
1e	clingwrap#141	#138	Merged as 125eb20
1e	divergulent#125	#121	Merged as 8a2852e
1e	library-utilities#67	#63	Merged as 832d82d
1e	sfui#44	#38	Merged as ad0d6a2
1f	this branch	--	--

Step 1f landed differently from its brief, deliberately. Rather than updating the docstring's dated claim about the fleet's callees, it removed it: the docstring now says what the check does, and the spec's Why section is the single record of what callees were found to read. A docstring survey goes stale every time a callee changes.

In review, divergulent#125 and library-utilities#67 also replaced a comment that called the deleted secrets: inherit necessary, with the template's comment. The comment was wrong: the callee reads no secret.

Phase 2: make `actions` main require a pull request¶

This covers everything actions serves at @main: reusable workflows and composite actions alike. Composite actions are the stronger case for it, since they run inside the caller's job.

Change the existing "Protect default branch history" ruleset on shakenfist/actions (or add a second ruleset beside it) to:

require a pull request, with the approval count from open question 2;
require the status check contexts named in open question 2;
give only the bypass decided in open question 1.

Do this by hand, as an operator, and record the ruleset JSON in the phase. Then add a criterion so that this does not quietly regress. The criterion is moving-ref-source-protection, in scripts/audit/checks/github_config.py. It applies to the repositories that the fleet consumes at a moving ref, named in a module constant (today only actions). Everywhere else it reports not_applicable with that reason. It reads repos/{org}/{repo}/rules/branches/{default} and fails unless a pull_request rule and a required_status_checks rule are both present. That endpoint does not list bypass actors, so the check also reads each contributing ruleset (repos/{org}/{repo}/rulesets/{id}) and fails unless enforcement is active and bypass_actors is exactly the documented set. GitHub only returns bypass_actors to a caller that can edit the ruleset, and omits the key otherwise, so a missing key is an error, never an empty set. If step 2a finds that the audit's token cannot see the key, the check takes the fallback shape 2a describes instead, and the token is not widened to make it fit. A ruleset inherited from the organisation is read from the organisation's endpoint.

Planning effort: high. This is what decides what the fleet trusts, and it touches GitHub settings that this repository cannot test.

Step	Effort	Model	Isolation	Brief for sub-agent
2a	high	opus	none	Operator step, done by the management session with the operator, not by a sub-agent. Settle how open question 1's bypass can be expressed (team of one or app; path-narrowed if possible) and which check contexts open question 2 requires, then apply the ruleset change. Then prove it on a throwaway branch: a direct push to main is rejected, and a `prune-reviews` run still lands (or opens its pull request, per open question 1). Open a review-only throwaway pull request too, and confirm that every required check resolves: `ci.yml` filters at job level through `Check paths`, and a skipped job reports success, but a trigger-level `paths:` or `paths-ignore:` would never report and would wedge every such pull request. Record which token the audit runs with, and confirm that it sees `bypass_actors` in `repos/shakenfist/actions/rulesets/{id}`; if it does not, do not widen the audit token to make it. Instead, 2b drops the `bypass_actors` comparison and measures only the two rules and `enforcement`, and the spec moves the bypass list to its "Required, but confirmed by a reviewer" half. Record which shape 2b is to take in this phase. For the residual in open question 1, record which repositories put `DEPENDENCIES_TOKEN` in a workflow's scope, and whether any of those workflows runs on a trigger that someone other than a maintainer can fire (`pull_request_target`, `issue_comment`, `workflow_run`).
2b	high	opus	worktree	Add a `MovingRefSourceProtection` class to `scripts/audit/checks/github_config.py`, with the id `moving-ref-source-protection`, its `spec` and its `issue_title` (`Moving ref source protection`), following `DeleteBranchOnMerge` at line 213 for the API-call shape. Register it in `CHECKS` in `scripts/audit/registry.py`. Write `docs/audits/moving-ref-source-protection.md`, following the structure in `docs/audits/README.md`; its Why section cites the landing counts from this plan's Situation. Add the file to `docs/audits/README.md`, and add its lines to `FROZEN_METADATA` and `FROZEN_ISSUE_TITLES` in `scripts/tests/test_metadata.py`. Add pass, fail and not-applicable tests to `scripts/tests/test_github_config.py`, using `CheckTestCase` and a stubbed GitHub client, including fail cases for a missing status-check rule, `enforcement: evaluate`, and an extra bypass actor, and a case where the ruleset response has no `bypass_actors` key, which must be an error rather than a pass. If 2a recorded the fallback shape, drop the bypass comparison and its two cases, and say so in the spec.

Phase 3: pin third-party actions to a sha¶

Planning effort: high for 3a, which decides the rollout. Medium for the rest, which follows renovate.md's pre-commit manager requirement as a worked example.

Step	Effort	Model	Isolation	Brief for sub-agent
3a	high	opus	worktree	Probe in this repository. Add `"extends": ["helpers:pinGitHubActionDigests"]` to `renovate.json`. The existing `managerFilePatterns` already cover `templates/`. Let one Renovate run produce its pinning pull request, and record: the comment format it writes; whether `pypa/gh-action-pypi-publish@release/v1` (a branch) pins cleanly; whether `actionlint` and the template byte-identity checks still pass; whether the github-actions manager also pins a composite `action.yml` (its default file patterns include one, so confirm it against a fixture rather than assuming); and the digest pull request count over the following two weeks. Answer open questions 4 and 5 in the plan, with numbers.
3b	medium	sonnet	none	Add the same `extends` to `templates/renovate/renovate.json`, and say why in `templates/renovate/README.md`. Pin `renovatebot/github-action` first: it runs with `DEPENDENCIES_TOKEN` and write access to its repository, so it is the third-party action most worth pinning. Pin every other third-party `uses:` under `templates/` to a sha with a `# vX.Y.Z` comment, keeping template copies and their deployed twins here byte-identical. Grep `scripts/audit/` for any check that matches a `uses:` line by tag (for example `@v`), and update it to accept a pinned form.
3c	medium	sonnet	worktree	Add the criterion `third-party-action-pinning` to `scripts/audit/checks/ci_workflows.py`, beside `ReusableWorkflowSecrets` (line 2162). It is measured: every remote `uses:` whose owner is not `shakenfist` ends in a 40-hex sha. It is confirmed by a reviewer: the trailing version comment, and the Renovate preset being on. It also scans every `action.yml` and `action.yaml` in the repository, wherever it sits, for `uses:` under `runs.steps`: a composite action's third-party step runs inside each caller's job, and the existing helpers only read `.github/workflows/`. Reuse the existing workflow-parsing helpers in that file rather than adding a YAML dependency. Give it the five criterion files as in 2b, plus tests for a tag ref, a sha ref, a branch ref, a commented-out line, a `docker://` ref (out of scope, not a finding), a local `./` ref (not a finding), a composite `action.yml` with an unpinned third-party step (a finding), and a third-party reusable workflow (`owner/repo/.github/workflows/x.yml@v1`, a finding). Run it against fresh clones of the fleet. The commit message states how many repositories it newly fails, including this one, which must already pass after 3b.

Coordination with PLAN-renovate-cadence.md. That plan moves the fleet's Renovate policy into one shared preset and runs Renovate once for the whole fleet from this repository. If its phase 1 has landed when this phase starts, step 3b adds helpers:pinGitHubActionDigests to the preset once rather than to templates/renovate/renovate.json and every copy of it. Its monthly CI-tooling group (all github-actions and pre-commit updates, digests included) is the grouping rule that open question 4's default anticipates. Once its phase 3 has landed, renovatebot/github-action appears only in this repository's central workflow, so 3b pins it there. Land that plan's phase 1 before this phase's 3b; otherwise every pin arrives as a separate pull request in every repository.

Phase 4: record the policy and close #153¶

Planning effort: medium. It documents a policy that phases 2 and 3 have already decided.

Step	Effort	Model	Isolation	Brief for sub-agent
4a	medium	sonnet	none	In `docs/audits/reusable-workflow-secrets.md`, replace "What this does not cover" with the settled policy: first-party refs move, and the `moving-ref-source-protection` criterion is what makes that acceptable; third-party refs are pinned, under `third-party-action-pinning`. Include the upper bound of 14 pull requests a day this avoids, what a moving ref can reach (Situation: the runner's filesystem, and the caller's job for composite actions), the "pull request and CI, not a second reviewer" limit from open question 2, and the residual from open question 1. Link both new specs. In the Why section, put the instar#617 sentences in the past tense, describing what actually landed if review changed it. Close #153 from the pull request body, and link phase 1's landings.

Phase 5: shared workflows instead of copied templates¶

Planning effort: high. The classification in 5a decides how much of the fleet changes, and renaming required checks can wedge merge queues if it is done carelessly.

Why. templates/ hands workflows to the fleet by copying, and the copies drift. Read through the GitHub API on 2026-10-03:

Template	Live copies	Distinct versions
`renovate.yml` (its README says "copied verbatim")	17	14
`codeql-analysis.yml`	17	12
`pr-retest.yml`	17	10
`export-repo-config.yml` (already a caller of `actions`)	17	6
`mermaid-lint.yml`	6	3
`prune-reviews.yml`	7	1

prune-reviews.yml is the exception because PLAN-review-import.md is actively keeping it converged. Even the caller stub export-repo-config.yml has six versions, so the stubs need a criterion too, not just the code they call.

Why after phase 2. Today a push to actions main reaches 93 @main references in 14 repositories. Each template moved there adds to that. Phase 2 is what makes the moving ref acceptable, so this phase must not start until phase 2's ruleset is live.

Two costs to plan around.

A job inside a reusable workflow reports its status as caller / callee. Any repository whose ruleset or merge queue requires the old check name stops merging until the ruleset is updated. Each rollout pull request therefore changes the ruleset in the same step, and the required checks are listed before the change.
A reusable workflow cannot read files from its own repository without a second checkout, whereas a composite action can, through github.action_path. Templates that ship a script into tools/ (mermaid-lint.sh, ci-prune-reviews.sh, pin-indirect-dependencies*.sh, the issue-fix scripts) probably want a composite action for their steps, wrapped by a thin caller workflow. Step 5a confirms this rather than assuming it. A composite action runs inside the caller's job, with that job's environment, which is the wider exposure the Situation section describes, so phase 2's protection matters most for these.

Step	Effort	Model	Isolation	Brief for sub-agent
5a	high	opus	none	Classify every template directory under `templates/` except `shared-blocks/` and `renovate/` (which `PLAN-renovate-cadence.md` centralises). For each workflow file, fetch every live copy from each fleet repository's default branch through the GitHub API (local clones are stale), diff each one against the template, and sort the differences into drift and legitimate per-repository adaptation, citing the lines. Then decide one of three outcomes and say why: a reusable workflow in `actions`, a composite action in `actions` (when the steps need the caller's checkout or ship a script), or the template stays a template (when the differences are legitimate and cannot be expressed as `with:` inputs). For each repository and template, record which required status-check contexts its ruleset and merge queue name, because wrapping renames them. Write the result into this section as a table, and order the rollout by drift multiplied by copy count. Make no changes outside this plan file.
5b	high	opus	worktree	Pilot on `mermaid-lint` (6 copies, ships `mermaid-lint.sh`, runs on a docker-capable runner). In `shakenfist/actions`, add the composite action or reusable workflow 5a chose, carrying the script. Reduce `templates/mermaid-lint/mermaid-lint.yml` to the caller stub, update `templates/mermaid-lint/README.md`, and change the `mermaid-lint-ci` criterion (`scripts/audit/checks/docs_content.py:444`, which today requires `MERMAID_LINT_SCRIPT = 'tools/mermaid-lint.sh'` at `:143`) so it requires the caller (`uses: shakenfist/actions/...@main` with the documented inputs) and no longer requires `tools/mermaid-lint.sh`, with pass, fail and stale-copy tests. Convert this repository's own copy first, then roll out one pull request per repository, updating each repository's required-check names in the same step. Record each landing in this section.
5c	medium	sonnet	none	Add a test under `scripts/tests/` asserting that every template 5a classified as shared is a caller stub: it calls `shakenfist/actions` at `@main`, and it has no `run:` steps of its own. Then document the convention, that a template meant to be identical everywhere is a caller and anything else says in its README why it is not, in `docs/consistency-audits.md` beside its description of templates (there is no `templates/README.md`). Mention it in `AGENTS.md` only as a one-line pointer, because it is a convention change.
5d	medium	sonnet	worktree	For each remaining template in 5a's rollout order, repeat 5b's shape: callee in `actions`, stub template, criterion change with tests, then one pull request per repository using the `consistency-fix` skill, with required checks updated in the same step. Each template is its own pull request in this repository, and its landing is recorded here.

Phase 6: push audit¶

Planning effort: medium. The runbook and the ranges are fixed; the work is running it.

Run PUSH-AUDIT.md once per landing recorded in the Merged cells above, with AUDIT_RANGE set as its "How to use this runbook" section says: <sha>^1..<sha> for a merge commit, <first>^..<last> for a direct landing. Do not use origin/main...: once the phases have merged that range is empty and reads as a clean audit. Phase 1's landings are in other repositories and were reviewed in their own pull requests, so this phase cites those rather than re-running them.

Plan status vocabulary (shared block; do not edit -- the canonical copy lives in shakenfist/development at templates/shared-blocks/plan-status-vocabulary.md):

A status cell -- in the master plan's own Execution phase table, and in the row docs/plans/index.md carries for the plan -- holds exactly one of these terms and nothing else:

Proposed -- written down as a concept, not yet scheduled.
Not started -- scheduled, but no work has begun.
In progress -- work has begun and has not finished.
Blocked -- cannot proceed until something outside the plan changes. Say what, in the plan.
Complete -- the work is done.
Abandoned -- deliberately dropped without being done.
Superseded -- replaced by another plan, which the plan names.

The term is the whole cell. No dates, no phase arithmetic, no parenthetical qualifiers, no summary of what happened: a status is read to decide whether a plan still wants attention, and prose in that column has repeatedly grown until it could no longer be read either by a person scanning the table or by tooling. Detail belongs in the plan file, and a one-line summary belongs in the index's own Intent column.

Matching is case-insensitive, so In Progress is accepted, but the spelling above is the one to write.

In this repository. The same term is written twice: once in this plan's own phase table, and once in the row the plan carries in docs/plans/index.md. The index row is the whole-plan status, so it only reaches Complete once every phase has been completed, abandoned or superseded. The plan-index criterion reads that table, and this repository is inside its own audit matrix, so a status that drifts out of the vocabulary fails our own tooling before it fails anybody else's.

Push audit phase (shared block; do not edit -- the canonical copy lives in shakenfist/development at templates/shared-blocks/plan-push-audit-phase.md):

Every master plan ends with a phase that runs the repository's PUSH-AUDIT.md over the whole plan's work. It is the last row of the Execution table and it is not optional. The rule binds every plan that carries the phase, which is decidable from the plan file alone: a plan that is already Complete, Abandoned or Superseded and does not carry the phase is not reopened to acquire one, and a plan that has the phase runs it even if it reaches Complete before the phase does.
That phase audits the accumulated diff of every phase in the plan against the default branch, not the diff of the last phase alone. Auditing one phase at a time would miss what the phases did to each other -- the duplicated helper that only exists once phases three and six have both landed, the doc page that phase two made wrong and phase five never revisited.
Once the plan's phases have merged, a diff against the default branch is empty and would read as a clean audit. The range is not reliably derivable after the fact either: unrelated work lands on the default branch between phases, so anything anchored on "since the plan file appeared" is far too wide. It has to be recorded. As each phase lands, what put it on the default branch goes into the plan: the merge commit of its pull request, whose diff against its first parent is the whole of what landed, or -- where the phase landed directly -- every commit of the phase, or its first..last range. A single commit is only ever enough when it is a merge commit.
Where the Execution phases are a table, that record is a Merged column, added last so that a row which omits it still reaches Status; where they are prose sections it is a Merged: line in the phase's own section. The Status column keeps its single vocabulary term and nothing else (see plan-status-vocabulary). A phase that landed in another repository records <repo> <sha> (#pr) and is audited against that repository's default branch, as part of the pull request that lands it; the plan's own push-audit phase cites that audit rather than re-running it.
Phases that landed before the plan started recording them are reconstructed rather than left blank. Recover what you can from gh pr list --state merged and git rev-list --first-parent, and say in the plan that the range was reconstructed. Do not trust a path-filtered git log on its own: it lists the commits that touched a path without saying which arrived directly and which arrived inside a pull request, and recording a commit that came in under a merge audits one commit of that pull request rather than the pull request. A reconstructed record may be a summary table in the audit phase's own section rather than a column or a line in the Execution table, which keeps retrospective archaeology out of a table that tracks live status. Where a phase accreted over months of unrelated commits and no range is recoverable, say that instead and name the paths the audit read -- an audit that says what it could not scope is a result; one that silently audits nothing is not.
Findings land as their own pull request against the default branch, and the plan is not complete until they are resolved or explicitly declined in writing. A finding that is declined says why, in the plan, where the next reader will find it.
Where the audit finds nothing, record that in the plan in one sentence. It is a real result, and a run of them is the evidence for making the phase conditional rather than mandatory.
A repository with no PUSH-AUDIT.md still carries the phase, and the phase says that the runbook does not exist yet and what was done instead. Silently omitting it is what let the audit go untriggered for as long as it did.

In this repository. PUSH-AUDIT.md exists at the repository root and is referenced from AGENTS.md, so the final phase runs it rather than explaining its absence. Its diff commands use ${AUDIT_RANGE:-origin/main...HEAD}, so run git fetch origin first: a stale origin/main widens the audit to unrelated history. Phase 6 sets AUDIT_RANGE per landing, because once a phase has merged the default range is empty and reads as a clean audit.

Phase landing (shared block; do not edit -- the canonical copy lives in shakenfist/development at templates/shared-blocks/plan-phase-landing.md):

A plan's status and a repository's review state both live in files that every branch would otherwise rewrite. Left alone, that turns each of them into a merge-conflict hot spot, and it spends a pull request and a full CI run on a change that is entirely prose. Three rules keep them out of the way.

A phase is closed out in the first commit of the next phase, not in a pull request of its own. By the time the next phase branches, the previous one has merged, so its merge commit is known and its Merged cell can record the thing the push-audit phase actually needs. This is the only ordering that works: a phase cannot record its own merge commit, and a separate close-out pull request buys that record at the price of a round trip. The close-out sets the finished phase's Status and Merged cells and the plan's row in docs/plans/index.md, and it is committed before the next phase's own work, so that the branch never claims the plan is further along than the default branch is.
The last phase closes itself out. The push-audit phase is the last row of every plan, so no next phase will carry its close-out. Where the audit raises findings, the plan is not complete until they are resolved or declined, and those land as their own pull request after the audit phase has merged -- so that pull request is the carrier, and it can record the audit phase's merge commit, which by then is known. Where the audit finds nothing there is no carrier, and no follow-up pull request is opened for the sake of one cell: the phase sets its own Status, and the plan's index row, to Complete in its own pull request, and records no Merged cell. It is the only row permitted to omit one. The column exists so that the push-audit phase can reconstruct what to audit; the audit phase is last, so nothing ever reads its own row.
REVIEWS.md is not pruned or regenerated in a pull request that changes code or documentation. Editing a reviewed file stales its mark, and adding or removing an in-scope file moves the header count, but neither is the landing pull request's business. prune regenerates the file whether or not it dropped anything, so the prune-reviews workflow heals both on the next push to the default branch. Pruning from a branch is also wrong more often than it is right, though not for the reason it first appears: prune compares each stamp against HEAD, which on a branch is the branch tip, so it drops the marks for the files the pull request itself touched while keeping marks the default branch has already pruned. Committing that state merges a review file computed from a stale tree, and can resurrect marks prune-reviews has already removed. Accumulated staleness is reported by the review-coverage audit, which recomputes coverage against HEAD and raises an issue once the backlog is worth a review session.

A review session is the exception, and it is not optional tidiness: stamp regenerates REVIEWS.md as well as writing the marks, and the rows, the sidecars and the marks are committed together (see docs/code-review-tracking.md). Where a repository requires a pull request to reach its default branch, that is how a review session lands, so "not in a pull request" is about the kind of change, not the mechanism.

These rules assume phases land one after another. Where two phase branches are open at once, each closes out only the phase it directly follows.

In this repository. The plan index is docs/plans/index.md. review-tracking-tests deliberately does not assert the REVIEWS.md header count, so a phase that adds or removes an in-scope file needs no regeneration commit; prune-reviews corrects the count on the next push to main.

Agent guidance¶

Execution model¶

Sub-agent execution model (shared block; do not edit -- the canonical copy lives in shakenfist/development at templates/shared-blocks/subagent-execution-model.md):

All implementation work is done by sub-agents, never in the management session. The management session is reserved for planning, review, and decision-making. This keeps the management context lean and avoids drowning it in implementation diffs.

The workflow is:

Plan at high effort in the management session.
Spawn a sub-agent for each implementation step with the brief from the plan, at the recommended effort level and model.
Review the sub-agent's output in the management session. Check the actual files -- the sub-agent's summary describes what it intended, not necessarily what it did.
Fix or retry if the output is wrong. Diagnose whether the brief was insufficient (improve it) or the model was too light (upgrade it), then re-run.
Commit once the management session is satisfied.

This applies to all steps, including high-effort ones. If a sub-agent cannot succeed even with a detailed brief and the right model, that is a signal the brief needs improving, not that the management session should do the implementation itself.

Use isolation: "worktree" for sub-agents when the change is risky or experimental; the worktree is discarded if the output is unsatisfactory. For safe, well-understood changes, sub-agents can work directly in the main tree.

In this plan. Step 2a is the exception: it changes GitHub settings on another repository, so the management session does it with the operator rather than delegating it.

Planning effort¶

Planning effort (shared block; do not edit -- the canonical copy lives in shakenfist/development at templates/shared-blocks/plan-planning-effort.md):

The master plan itself is always created at high effort -- it requires broad codebase understanding, cross-referencing several source files, and judgment calls about scope and sequencing.

Each phase plan states the recommended effort level for planning that phase. Phases that turn on design decisions, cross-component coordination, protocol changes, or subtle correctness questions should be planned at high effort. Phases that are mechanical, or that follow a pattern already established elsewhere in the codebase, can be planned at medium effort.

In this repository. High effort is anything that changes what a criterion means, anything that touches the scheduler in audit-check.py, and anything that reaches audit-manage-issues.py -- those decide what the fleet is held to and what lands in other people's issue trackers. Medium effort covers adding a criterion that follows the shape of an existing one, a documentation sweep, or a template change with a worked example already in the tree.

Step-level guidance¶

Sub-agent step guidance (shared block; do not edit -- the canonical copy lives in shakenfist/development at templates/shared-blocks/subagent-step-guidance.md):

Each phase plan includes a table like this:

Step	Effort	Model	Isolation	Brief for sub-agent
1a	medium	sonnet	none	One-sentence summary of what to do and which files to touch
1b	high	opus	worktree	Why this needs high effort: requires understanding X to do Y

Effort levels, from cheapest to most thorough:

low -- Purely mechanical changes: rename, reformat, add a log line, regenerate generated code. The brief is a complete instruction.
medium -- The plan provides enough context to follow a clear brief. The sub-agent may read a few files, but the approach is already decided.
high -- Requires reading several files, making judgment calls, or understanding non-obvious invariants. The sub-agent needs to think about edge cases.
xhigh -- The setting for hard coding and agentic steps: long-horizon changes, or steps where the sub-agent must both research and implement.
max -- Correctness matters more than cost. Expect diminishing returns and occasional overthinking; reserve it for steps where a wrong answer would be expensive to detect.

Brief for sub-agent: this is the key field. Write it as if briefing a colleague who has never seen the codebase. Include what to change, which files to touch, what patterns to follow, and any non-obvious constraints.

A good brief front-loads the research the planner already did, so the implementing agent does not repeat it. Instead of "add storage functions for the new object", name the functions to add, the file they belong in, the existing equivalent to mirror (with line numbers), and any registration the change also needs.

The better the brief, the lower the effort level needed and the lighter the model that can succeed.

In this repository. A worked brief: instead of "add a check that plans are indexed", write "add a PlanIndex class to scripts/audit/checks/plans.py declaring the id plan-index, its spec and its issue_title as class attributes and implementing run(repo), register the instance in CHECKS in scripts/audit/registry.py beside the other plan checks, write docs/audits/plan-index.md following the structure in docs/audits/README.md and linking to compliance.md#plan-index, add the file to docs/audits/README.md, add its lines to FROZEN_METADATA and FROZEN_ISSUE_TITLES in scripts/tests/test_metadata.py, and add tests to scripts/tests/test_plans.py covering pass, fail and not-applicable." A brief that names four of the criterion's five files is the characteristic defect here, and the frozen tables are the one most often left out.

A check that does not apply reports not_applicable with a reason rather than being omitted, because an omitted check renders as unknown.

Model choice¶

Sub-agent model roster (shared block; do not edit -- the canonical copy lives in shakenfist/development at templates/shared-blocks/subagent-model-roster.md):

The planner recommends which model is best suited to each step. This is a judgment call, not a rigid rule -- the right model depends on what the step requires, not on whether it is "planning" or "implementation". The models available to sub-agents are:

fable -- The most capable model available, for the hardest reasoning and the longest-horizon work: multi-step changes a single sub-agent must carry end to end, or steps whose correctness depends on holding a whole subsystem in mind at once. It costs materially more than opus, so reserve it for steps that have already defeated opus or are expected to.
opus -- The default for steps needing deep reasoning, architectural understanding, subtle correctness judgment (locking, state machines, migrations), or intricate implementation that would be costly to debug if it were wrong.
sonnet -- A good default for well-briefed implementation work. Faster and cheaper than opus, and effective when the plan front-loads the research and the brief leaves no broad judgment calls to make.
haiku -- Suitable for purely mechanical tasks: search-and-replace, regenerating generated code, adding log lines, running commands. The brief must be a near-complete instruction.

Model choice interacts with effort level and brief quality. A detailed brief compensates for a lighter model -- sonnet at medium effort with a thorough brief often matches opus at medium effort with a vague brief. The planner's job is to write briefs good enough that the recommended model can succeed.

The model also determines the context window: fable, opus and sonnet have 1M tokens, haiku has 200K. A step that must hold many files in context at once may need one of the larger-context models for that reason alone, even when the reasoning itself is straightforward.

When in doubt, skew to the more capable model. Saving money only matters if the outcome is still acceptable. A failed or low-quality implementation wastes more time -- and therefore more money -- than the heavier model would have cost. Recommend a lighter model only when you are confident the brief is detailed enough for it to succeed.

In this repository. The project-specific checks referred to above are:

pre-commit run --all-files passes. It runs actionlint, shellcheck, flake8, skillsaw and all five test suites, and ci.yml runs the same command on every pull request.
python3 scripts/audit-check.py --repo-path . --repo-name development still reports what it reported before the change, or the plan says why the verdict moved.
If the change touches issue filing, it was exercised with --dry-run only.

Management session review checklist¶

Management session review checklist (shared block; do not edit -- the canonical copy lives in shakenfist/development at templates/shared-blocks/plan-review-checklist.md):

After a sub-agent completes, the management session verifies:

The files that were supposed to change actually changed -- read them, do not trust the summary.
No unrelated files were modified.
The changes match the intent of the brief: not merely syntactically correct, but semantically right.
The project's own pre-merge checks pass, including any generated code that has to be regenerated and committed (see the project-specific checks below).
The commit message follows project conventions, including the Co-Authored-By line recording model, context window, and effort level.

Administration and logistics¶

Success criteria¶

We will know when this plan has been successfully implemented because the following statements will be true:

pre-commit run --all-files passes.
scripts/audit-check.py run against this repository reports no new failures, or the plan states which verdicts moved and why.
Any new or changed criterion has all five of its files in step: the Check subclass in scripts/audit/checks/<family>.py, its registration in CHECKS in scripts/audit/registry.py, the specification under docs/audits/, its row in docs/audits/README.md, and its frozen lines in FROZEN_METADATA and FROZEN_ISSUE_TITLES in scripts/tests/test_metadata.py -- plus a FROZEN_COLUMN_NAMES line where a spec page carries more than one check. AUDIT_METADATA, ISSUE_TITLES and COLUMN_NAMES are derived from the registry rather than tables anybody edits; the issue title is the fleet-wide idempotency key, so renaming one orphans every open issue for that check across the fleet.
No consistency-audit marker block has been added to a criterion specification by hand, and the compliance tables in docs/audits/compliance.md have not been hand-edited.
Any entry added to REPO_OVERRIDES carries a stated reason.
Anything under templates/ is judged as the code it will become in ten other repositories: placeholders consistent, no reference to paths that only exist here, and the README beside it saying what to substitute.
Python is wrapped at 120 characters, single quotes for strings and double quotes for docstrings, and no script has grown a dependency outside the standard library.
Documentation in docs/ describes any user-visible change. AGENTS.md changes only if a convention changed; ARCHITECTURE.md only if the shape of the system changed; README.md only if the pitch, the install story or the documentation links changed.

Specific to this plan:

reusable-workflow-secrets is compliant in every repository in scope.
A direct push to shakenfist/actions main by a person is rejected, and moving-ref-source-protection reports compliant for actions.
No third-party uses: in this repository or under templates/ is unpinned. third-party-action-pinning has filed its issues fleet-wide, and the plan records how many.
153 is closed, and the specs say why first-party refs move and¶
third-party refs do not.

Documentation index maintenance¶

When creating a new master plan from this template, add one row to the table in docs/plans/index.md: the date the plan was written, a link to it, a one-line intent, and its status from the vocabulary above. Rows run oldest first. One row per master plan, never one per phase -- the phases are tracked in the plan's own Execution table, and duplicating them in the index is how the two drift apart.

There is no phase-arithmetic column and no order.yml here; both belong to repositories whose documentation is published through a generated navigation. The plan-index criterion checks the columns this index actually has.

The index row carries the whole-plan status, so it only reaches Complete once every phase has been completed, abandoned or superseded. Update it as the plan progresses, not only at the end.

Plan close-out sections (shared block; do not edit -- the canonical copy lives in shakenfist/development at templates/shared-blocks/plan-closeout-sections.md):

Future work¶

We should list obvious extensions, known issues, unrelated bugs we encountered, and anything else we should one day do but have chosen to defer to here, so that we do not forget them.

...

Bugs fixed during this work¶

This section should list any bugs we encounter during development that we fixed. You should also scan the project's issue tracker, where one exists, for directly related issues that we should either resolve as part of this master plan or at least be aware of while planning it.

...

Back brief¶

Before executing any step of this plan, please back brief the operator as to your understanding of the plan and how the work you intend to do aligns with that plan.

In this repository. Future work, as of writing:

Replace DEPENDENCIES_TOKEN with a GitHub App token or a fine-grained token limited to what it pushes. While it can bypass the actions ruleset, anything that can run a workflow with it in scope can put unreviewed code into every consumer's CI (open question 1). Tracked as #211.
PLAN-TEMPLATE.md's "In this repository" note after the push-audit block says PUSH-AUDIT.md's commands are written against main...HEAD. They now use ${AUDIT_RANGE:-origin/main...HEAD}. Correct the template, which this plan copies but does not own.
scripts/audit-check.py appears to write more than its JSON document to stdout when redirected to a file, so json.load of its output fails. Reproduce and file it.
visual-digest-rust and private-ci have no renovate.json. Phase 3's pins would rot in those two repositories. The renovate criterion already owns that.

Related issues, as of writing:

153 is the issue this plan closes.¶
211 replaces DEPENDENCIES_TOKEN, the residual from open¶
question 1.
88 (standardise renovate groupings) interacts with open¶
question 4's grouping rule.
58 (Dependency Dashboard) is where phase 3a's pinning pull¶
request will show up.

📝 Report an issue with this page