Recovery: Coordination Branch Created Off main (Add/Add Conflict)

spec-kitty agent action implement WP## fails with:

Workspace allocation failed: cannot auto-merge the recorded planning commit
'<sha>' into lane '<lane>': the merge conflicts.

Why this happens

The mission's coordination branch (kitty/mission-<slug>) was created off main instead of off the mission's target/planning branch. git merge-base <coord> <target> resolves to main, not to the target branch tip. Lanes fork from coord, so when implement merges the recorded planning_commit_sha (which lives on the target strand) into a fresh lane, both strands have independently added kitty-specs/<mission>/ — an add/add conflict even when file content is identical. See Coord-branch bookkeeping: read/write split-brain root-cause for why the write-placement seam allows this drift.

No shipped --fix for this case

spec-kitty agent mission repair --mission <handle> detects the state and correctly REFUSES: coord and target have diverged (neither is an ancestor of the other), so a fast-forward repair is not safe, and the command mutates nothing. spec-kitty doctor coordination --fix does not apply either — it targets stale coordination_branch keys and simple Gap-1 staleness, not a coord branch built on the wrong base.

Run the diagnostic first, to confirm the diagnosis:

spec-kitty agent mission repair --mission <handle>

It prints a scoped diff and refuses to touch anything. Proceed to the manual fix below.

Manual fix (operator-approved, needs an explicit grant)

Safe when nothing has been implemented yet and the coord branch is local-only (fully reversible). Record the old coord tip first, then reset coord onto the target and restore the coord-owned lifecycle files. (spec-kitty doctor coordination prints the exact .worktrees/<slug>-<mid8>-coord path for your mission — use that instead of hand-constructing it.)

# from the coordination worktree
git -C .worktrees/<slug>-<mid8>-coord reset --hard <target-branch>
git -C .worktrees/<slug>-<mid8>-coord checkout <old-coord-tip> -- \
  kitty-specs/<mission>/acceptance-matrix.json \
  kitty-specs/<mission>/issue-matrix.json \
  kitty-specs/<mission>/status.events.jsonl \
  kitty-specs/<mission>/status.json
git -C .worktrees/<slug>-<mid8>-coord commit -m "chore(coord): re-base coordination strand onto <target-branch> + restore lifecycle"

Then remove the stale lane worktree and branch, and re-run implement:

git worktree remove --force .worktrees/<slug>-lane-a
git branch -D kitty/mission-<slug>-lane-a
spec-kitty agent action implement WP## --mission <handle> --agent <agent>

Verify coord now descends from target:

git merge-base --is-ancestor <target-branch> kitty/mission-<slug>

git reset --hard and git merge on the coordination branch are destructive — get explicit operator sign-off before running them, exactly as you would for a force-push.

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