Spec Kitty

Mission Specification: Green the reds — coord review honest-receipt re-pin

Mission Branch: kitty/mission-green-reds-coord-review-repin-01M4H53K Created: 2026-10-09 Status: Draft Input: Milestone 11, Slice 1 — "Green the reds". Fix the release-gating red test(s) so main and the nightly go green: #5928 (TestAgentActionReviewTextEnvelope::test_coord_mission_prompt_skeleton red on main) and its nightly integration-slice P0 escalation #5948 (auto-dedup of #5928; one root cause).

Triage verdict (DIRECTIVE_003 — decision record)

Verdict: stale/incorrect test expectation — fix test-only, no product change. Operator-confirmed 2026-10-09.

The agent action review text envelope on a coordination Mission whose for_review WP has no prior lane commits: 1. records the "Start WP01 review" commit on the coordination branch; 2. fails the subsequent lane auto-rebase/sync (no lane commits to sync) → exits 1 and discloses the failure in prose ("WP01 claim was committed; the lane sync after the for_review -> in_review commit failed: …"); 3. the revert of that commit is refused because the status rows are already committed at HEAD (STATUS_ROLLBACK_REFUSED / RollbackRefusal.TAIL_ALREADY_COMMITTED, mission_write.py:411), so _sync_lane_or_revert (workflow_executor.py:248-249) deliberately does not mark the receipt refused; 4. the commit summary therefore honestly renders [ok] — the commit genuinely is present on the coordination branch.

Reporting a present commit as [refused] was precisely the misleading-receipt defect closed by #5440 (and #5819 / #5804). The current [ok] is the honest marker; the command still fails (exit 1) and still names the lane-sync failure in prose, so no operator is misled. The test's assert "[refused]" in text encodes pre-#5440 behavior and is stale. This mission re-pins the characterization test to the honest behavior; it introduces no src/ change. Consistent with parent EPIC #5106 ("Test suite friction — red-on-main & stale tests") and the issue's own note that "it could also be that the test's expectation is stale."

User Scenarios & Testing (mandatory)

User Story 1 - Nightly and main go green with an honest pin (Priority: P1)

As a Spec Kitty maintainer relying on red main == no release, I want the test_coord_mission_prompt_skeleton coord case to pin the honest current behavior of agent action review (committed receipt rendered [ok], lane-sync failure disclosed in prose, exit 1) so that the release gate reflects real defects, not a stale characterization snapshot.

Why this priority: It is the sole scope of the mission; #5948 is a P0 nightly escalation of the same root cause, and a red release gate blocks the 4.0.0 line.

Independent Test: Run the single characterization case; it is RED on the current (pre-edit) pin and GREEN after the re-pin, with the product unchanged.

Acceptance Scenarios:

1. Given a coordination Mission with a materialized coord worktree and a for_review WP01 with no prior lane commits, When agent action review WP01 --mission <slug> --agent reviewer-renata runs, Then the command exits 1, prints no raw Error: [Errno 2], prints [review] Commits recorded:, discloses claim was committed; the lane sync after … in prose, and renders the recorded coordination commit with the honest [ok] marker (never [refused], because the commit is present). 2. Given the re-pinned test, When it runs on the mission's final commit, Then it passes; and when run against the pre-edit expectation it is red — proving the assertion change is non-vacuous.

Edge Cases

• The Implement variant (TestAgentActionImplementTextEnvelope::test_coord_mission_prompt_skeleton) already passes and is untouched — the asymmetry (implement happy-path exit 0 vs review exit 1) is expected and remains pinned.
• No change to src/: if a future change makes the revert succeed, the receipt would legitimately flip to [refused]; that is a separate behavior change out of this mission's scope.

Requirements (mandatory)

Functional Requirements

ID	Title	User Story	Priority	Status	Delivery	No-op passable?
FR-001	Re-pin coord review receipt to honest [ok]	As a maintainer, I want the coord test_coord_mission_prompt_skeleton to assert the honest-receipt behavior ([ok] + lane-sync-failure prose + exit 1) so that the release gate stops flagging correct behavior as red.	High	Open	[ratchet]	no — the pre-edit pin ([refused]) is red on current main, so an empty diff leaves the case failing; the re-pin is red before and green after on the same fixture.

Non-Functional Requirements

ID	Title	Requirement	Category	Priority	Status
NFR-001	No production behavior change	The diff touches only tests/characterization/test_trio_json_envelope.py; zero lines under src/ change.	Reliability	High	Open

Constraints

ID	Title	Constraint	Category	Priority	Status
C-001	Red-first, no green-washing	The re-pin must be demonstrably red under the old expectation and green under the new one; never skip/disable/xfail/quarantine the test (charter Standing Orders #4, #9).	Technical	High	Open
C-002	Smallest viable diff + locality	Edit only the coord test_coord_mission_prompt_skeleton body and its stale docstring; do not touch the Implement variant, other surfaces, or src/ (DIRECTIVE_024).	Technical	High	Open

Key Entities

• Commit receipt: the _WORKFLOW_COMMIT_RECEIPTS record rendered by _print_commit_summary; outcome == "committed" → [ok], else [refused].
• Rollback refusal TAIL_ALREADY_COMMITTED: the fail-closed state where status rows are already committed at HEAD and the revert leaves the commit in place, keeping the receipt committed.

Success Criteria (mandatory)

Measurable Outcomes

• SC-001: test_coord_mission_prompt_skeleton (review variant) passes locally and in CI; the containing file tests/characterization/test_trio_json_envelope.py is fully green. — [ratchet] · no-op passable: no
• SC-002: Zero lines under src/ change in the mission diff (NFR-001 held). — [ratchet] · no-op passable: no