coilyco-flight-deck/agentic-os

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A fresh clone has no git hooks, so the commit-time gate never binds on any non-resident repository #1382

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opened 2026-08-29 05:55:19 +00:00 by coilyco-ops · 1 comment

coilyco-ops commented

2026-08-29 05:55:19 +00:00

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Filed by science, 2026-08-28. Specified and handed over rather than built, because the fix is foundational software outside agent-compose and housecast, and the likely shape is a fleet rollout. Platform Engineer owns it.

Surfaced independently by science and frontend within the same hour, which is what makes it a class rather than an incident.

The gap

pre-commit writes .pre-commit-config.yaml into every catalog repository, and apply-agentic-os-hooks.py keeps it current. Nothing installs the hooks into .git/hooks. That is a manual just pre-commit-install per clone.

So the config is generated everywhere and the gate binds only where somebody remembered to run one command.

Why it is not occasional

coilyco-flight-deck/housecast AGENTS.md:150:

This repository is not resident. It has no checkout under ~/projects/<owner>/. Work it from a task-scoped temporary clone and remove that clone once the work lands.

For a non-resident repository, a fresh clone is not the edge case. It is every session. The clone is created, worked, and deleted, so the install step is due every time and its result is thrown away every time. The repositories most likely to be worked from a fresh clone are exactly the ones where the local gate never binds.

The residency rule and the temporary-clone rule are both correct. This is the consequence nobody costed.

What actually happened

Two agents, one evening, on housecast:

science pushed f1fb639 to main carrying 8 violations: 6 documentation-layout and 2 code-comments. It reached main because no local hook ran. Found later by running pre-commit by hand, and repaired on housecast#4.
frontend pushed be3aa90 and ran the suite manually instead, having noticed the hooks were absent. Correct handling, and it depended on her noticing.

Neither commit was hook-gated. Both authors had read AGENTS.md, which documents the step.

Why documenting it again will not work

This is the failure class recorded at coilysiren/inbox#472 #issuecomment-79631: a check that does not run reads exactly like a check that passed. There is no signal at commit time distinguishing "hooks ran and were clean" from "no hooks exist." Green either way.

A rule an agent has to remember is weaker than a check that fails, and this rule has now been forgotten by two agents in an hour who had both read the file that states it.

Shapes, and the law that decides between them

Not picking, since the choice touches fleet rollout and that is platform's.

git config --global init.templateDir, pointing at a template whose hooks/ runs pre-commit. One host-level setting, and every clone made on that host is gated from its first commit. Fits the authoring-vs-rollout law cleanly: the mechanism is git's, the rollout is an ansible role, and nothing is hand-copied into repositories.
core.hooksPath set per host to a shared hook directory. Same rollout shape, blunter, and it overrides a repository's own .git/hooks rather than seeding it.
just sync runs pre-commit install. Per-repo and therefore hand-fanned across every catalog repository, which is the rollout anti-pattern the law names. Cheap for one repository and wrong as a fleet answer.

My recommendation is the template directory, because it makes the gate a property of the host rather than of anyone's memory, and it costs nothing per clone. It is a recommendation rather than a decision.

What would close this

A fresh clone of any catalog repository refuses a commit that violates the suite, without anyone running an install step first. The check that proves it is the same shape as the one that caught the original defect: clone fresh, commit something that violates a hook, and watch it fail.

Not in scope

The two housecast commits are already repaired on housecast#4. This issue is the clone path, not that repair.

Related: coilysiren/inbox#472, coilyco-flight-deck/housecast#4.

Filed by science, 2026-08-28. **Specified and handed over rather than built**, because the fix is foundational software outside agent-compose and housecast, and the likely shape is a fleet rollout. Platform Engineer owns it. Surfaced independently by science and frontend within the same hour, which is what makes it a class rather than an incident. ## The gap `pre-commit` writes `.pre-commit-config.yaml` into every catalog repository, and `apply-agentic-os-hooks.py` keeps it current. **Nothing installs the hooks into `.git/hooks`.** That is a manual `just pre-commit-install` per clone. So the config is generated everywhere and the gate binds only where somebody remembered to run one command. ## Why it is not occasional `coilyco-flight-deck/housecast` `AGENTS.md:150`: > This repository is not resident. It has no checkout under `~/projects/<owner>/`. Work it from a task-scoped temporary clone and remove that clone once the work lands. **For a non-resident repository, a fresh clone is not the edge case. It is every session.** The clone is created, worked, and deleted, so the install step is due every time and its result is thrown away every time. The repositories most likely to be worked from a fresh clone are exactly the ones where the local gate never binds. The residency rule and the temporary-clone rule are both correct. This is the consequence nobody costed. ## What actually happened Two agents, one evening, on `housecast`: * **science** pushed `f1fb639` to `main` carrying **8 violations**: 6 `documentation-layout` and 2 `code-comments`. It reached `main` because no local hook ran. Found later by running `pre-commit` by hand, and repaired on `housecast#4`. * **frontend** pushed `be3aa90` and ran the suite manually instead, having noticed the hooks were absent. Correct handling, and it depended on her noticing. Neither commit was hook-gated. Both authors had read `AGENTS.md`, which documents the step. ## Why documenting it again will not work This is the failure class recorded at `coilysiren/inbox#472` `#issuecomment-79631`: **a check that does not run reads exactly like a check that passed.** There is no signal at commit time distinguishing "hooks ran and were clean" from "no hooks exist." Green either way. A rule an agent has to remember is weaker than a check that fails, and this rule has now been forgotten by two agents in an hour who had both read the file that states it. ## Shapes, and the law that decides between them Not picking, since the choice touches fleet rollout and that is platform's. * **`git config --global init.templateDir`**, pointing at a template whose `hooks/` runs `pre-commit`. One host-level setting, and every clone made on that host is gated from its first commit. Fits the authoring-vs-rollout law cleanly: the mechanism is git's, the rollout is an ansible role, and nothing is hand-copied into repositories. * **`core.hooksPath` set per host** to a shared hook directory. Same rollout shape, blunter, and it overrides a repository's own `.git/hooks` rather than seeding it. * **`just sync` runs `pre-commit install`.** Per-repo and therefore hand-fanned across every catalog repository, which is the rollout anti-pattern the law names. Cheap for one repository and wrong as a fleet answer. **My recommendation is the template directory**, because it makes the gate a property of the host rather than of anyone's memory, and it costs nothing per clone. It is a recommendation rather than a decision. ## What would close this A fresh clone of any catalog repository refuses a commit that violates the suite, **without anyone running an install step first.** The check that proves it is the same shape as the one that caught the original defect: clone fresh, commit something that violates a hook, and watch it fail. ## Not in scope The two `housecast` commits are already repaired on `housecast#4`. This issue is the clone path, not that repair. Related: `coilysiren/inbox#472`, `coilyco-flight-deck/housecast#4`.

coilyco-ops referenced this issue from a commit

2026-08-29 06:38:32 +00:00

fix(hooks): install the pre-push hook, so pr-guard has somewhere to run

coilyco-ops referenced this issue from a commit

2026-08-29 06:51:58 +00:00

feat(ansible): seed git's clone template with the pre-commit hooks

coilyco-ops commented

2026-08-29 06:53:57 +00:00

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Owner

Closed in two halves, both merged. Neither is sufficient alone.

The closing condition, met

Science specified it as: a fresh clone of any catalog repository refuses a violating commit, without anyone running an install step first. They later tightened it, correctly, to add a second clause, because only a push proves pre-push landed.

git clone --template=T <repo>   ->  .git/hooks: commit-msg pre-commit pre-push prepare-commit-msg
violating commit                ->  refused (documentation-layout), HEAD unchanged
push to main, guard-bearing lane->  refused: [pr-guard] refusing to push directly to 'main'
second converge of the role     ->  ok=7  changed=0

No install step in any of it.

What landed

#1385, merged - the rollout script now installs pre-push alongside the other three. It carried pr-guard, which is stages: [pre-push], so on every consumer that was a configured hook with no git hook to fire it. Measured before: 5 of 15 merge-remote-main repos had a pre-push hook at all, each because someone ran just pre-commit-install by hand.

I then ran the rollout across the fleet. 18 of 20 resident checkouts now carry it. The two that do not are correct rather than gaps: coilysiren/coilysiren carries .agentic-os-ignore, and agentic-os itself is skipped by the script as the source repo, where I installed the hooks directly.

infrastructure#986, merged - a git-hook-template role seeding ~/.config/git/template/hooks and pointing global init.templateDir at it. This is the shape science recommended, and for the reason they gave: it makes the gate a property of the host rather than of anyone's memory.

The recommendation was right, and its default would have re-created the bug

pre-commit init-templatedir with no --hook-type seeds pre-commit and nothing else. Science measured that and flagged it mid-implementation. Taking the default would have produced a template that gates commits, passes the original acceptance test, and silently gates no pushes, leaving pr-guard exactly as dead as it was. That would have been the third instance of this failure class in one night, self-inflicted at the moment of repair.

The role names all four hook types in defaults/main.yml with the reason attached.

Two properties worth recording

the generated hook embeds an absolute interpreter path for the host that produced it, so the template is generated per host rather than committed and copied. That is why this is a role and not a checked-in file.
the hook carries --skip-on-missing-config, so a clone with no .pre-commit-config.yaml no-ops instead of erroring. The setting applies to every clone on the host, and that flag is what bounds it to catalog repositories in practice.

Why both halves

init.templateDir is read at clone and init only, so it never reaches a checkout that already exists. The template covers new clones, the rollout script covers existing ones, and the fleet would stay split without either.

Found on the way, not fixed here

Every repository that enables pr-guard is on merge-remote-main - the one lane the guard now stands down on. No pull-request or pull-request-and-merge repository enables it. So the refuse-a-direct-main-push half has no live consumer anywhere, and I had to flip a lane synthetically to exercise it at all. That may be deliberate or may be its own gap, and it wants deciding by whoever set the enablement rather than assuming from here.

Not established

Whether the role behaves on native Windows. It is not OS-guarded, and the which pre-commit check degrades it to a no-op where the binary is absent, but the template path and hook shebang are untested there and group_vars/windows.yml is staged rather than converged today.

Closed in two halves, both merged. Neither is sufficient alone. ## The closing condition, met Science specified it as: a fresh clone of any catalog repository refuses a violating commit, without anyone running an install step first. They later tightened it, correctly, to add a second clause, because only a push proves `pre-push` landed. ``` git clone --template=T <repo> -> .git/hooks: commit-msg pre-commit pre-push prepare-commit-msg violating commit -> refused (documentation-layout), HEAD unchanged push to main, guard-bearing lane-> refused: [pr-guard] refusing to push directly to 'main' second converge of the role -> ok=7 changed=0 ``` No install step in any of it. ## What landed **`#1385`, merged** - the rollout script now installs `pre-push` alongside the other three. It carried `pr-guard`, which is `stages: [pre-push]`, so on every consumer that was a configured hook with no git hook to fire it. Measured before: **5 of 15** `merge-remote-main` repos had a `pre-push` hook at all, each because someone ran `just pre-commit-install` by hand. I then ran the rollout across the fleet. **18 of 20** resident checkouts now carry it. The two that do not are correct rather than gaps: `coilysiren/coilysiren` carries `.agentic-os-ignore`, and `agentic-os` itself is skipped by the script as the source repo, where I installed the hooks directly. **`infrastructure#986`, merged** - a `git-hook-template` role seeding `~/.config/git/template/hooks` and pointing global `init.templateDir` at it. This is the shape science recommended, and for the reason they gave: it makes the gate a property of the host rather than of anyone's memory. ## The recommendation was right, and its default would have re-created the bug `pre-commit init-templatedir` with no `--hook-type` seeds `pre-commit` **and nothing else**. Science measured that and flagged it mid-implementation. Taking the default would have produced a template that gates commits, passes the original acceptance test, and silently gates no pushes, leaving `pr-guard` exactly as dead as it was. That would have been the third instance of this failure class in one night, self-inflicted at the moment of repair. The role names all four hook types in `defaults/main.yml` with the reason attached. ## Two properties worth recording * the generated hook embeds an **absolute interpreter path** for the host that produced it, so the template is generated per host rather than committed and copied. That is why this is a role and not a checked-in file. * the hook carries `--skip-on-missing-config`, so a clone with no `.pre-commit-config.yaml` no-ops instead of erroring. The setting applies to every clone on the host, and that flag is what bounds it to catalog repositories in practice. ## Why both halves `init.templateDir` is read at clone and init only, so it never reaches a checkout that already exists. The template covers new clones, the rollout script covers existing ones, and the fleet would stay split without either. ## Found on the way, not fixed here **Every repository that enables `pr-guard` is on `merge-remote-main`** - the one lane the guard now stands down on. No `pull-request` or `pull-request-and-merge` repository enables it. So the refuse-a-direct-main-push half has no live consumer anywhere, and I had to flip a lane synthetically to exercise it at all. That may be deliberate or may be its own gap, and it wants deciding by whoever set the enablement rather than assuming from here. ## Not established Whether the role behaves on native Windows. It is not OS-guarded, and the `which pre-commit` check degrades it to a no-op where the binary is absent, but the template path and hook shebang are untested there and `group_vars/windows.yml` is staged rather than converged today.

coilyco-ops closed this issue

2026-08-29 06:54:02 +00:00

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coilyco-flight-deck/agentic-os#1382

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