Retire autonomous burndown in favor of harness-native goal orchestration

coilyco-ops commented

2026-07-31 06:52:20 +00:00

Member

Outcome

Remove Ward's programmatic autonomous burndown loop. Long-horizon judgment and persistence belong to harness-native goal execution. Ward continues to provide the governed, machine-readable primitives that a goal-driven director uses.

This supersedes the generic-fallback direction in #953. Coordinate the goal-driven entrypoint and run doctrine with coilyco-flight-deck/agentic-os#526.

Decision boundary

Goal execution owns:

objective persistence and continuation
prioritization and adaptive judgment
progress reporting
deciding whether work is complete or genuinely blocked

Ward owns:

queue and status inspection
reservations and capacity limits
brokered dispatch and isolated execution
workflow and PR gates
outcome recording
reaping, recovery, and backpressure

Removing burndown must not weaken Ward's permission, isolation, audit, or landing boundaries.

Why

The current --burndown / --drain path duplicates an agent policy loop inside Ward through a durable local backlog ledger, polling heartbeat, issue triage and ranking, retry states, forge-health checks, nested dispatch judgment, and parsed DISPATCH: output.

Harness-native goal execution is the better control loop because it preserves one visible objective, adapts across observations, and continues until an explicit terminal condition. Ward's narrower programmatic loop adds a second source of orchestration state without providing a demonstrated operator advantage.

The mode has not established intentional operator usage. It has been entered accidentally. The current visible downstream reference is the QA verification fixture in agentic-os/scripts/qa-verification-fixture.sh, which should exercise direct governed dispatch instead.

Scope

Remove the public --burndown flag and --drain alias.
Remove burndown-only polling and cycle controls, including --poll-interval and --max-cycles, where they have no retained non-burndown consumer.
Remove the autonomous heartbeat, ranking, triage, nested dispatch-decision prompt, and redispatch policy that exist solely for the loop.
Remove the local backlog ledger if retained queue or status behavior does not require it. Prefer issue threads and Ward run records as authoritative state.
Keep the default attached read-only director surface.
Preserve or strengthen machine-readable queue, status, dispatch, reap, and recovery primitives.
Rewire the bounded QA verification fixture to prove direct director dispatch through the retained primitives.
Update README, director and agent docs, terminology, CLI help, and docs/FEATURES.md.
Audit the available downstream repositories for scripted --burndown or --drain consumers before deleting compatibility code.

Acceptance

warded director remains the attached read-only supervision surface.
Ward exposes no autonomous backlog polling or programmatic dispatch-judgment mode.
A harness-native goal can inspect queue state, dispatch bounded work, observe outcomes, and repeat using documented machine-readable Ward primitives.
Reservations, capacity gates, backpressure, workflow gates, reaping, recovery, and audit behavior remain covered by tests.
The QA verification fixture no longer invokes --burndown.
Burndown-only code, tests, flags, documentation, and local state are removed.
The feature inventory describes Ward as the governed execution layer beneath external goal orchestration.
Any discovered real headless or non-goal consumer is named with its exact required behavior before compatibility is retained.

Non-goals

Removing the director role or read-only director surface.
Removing the dispatch broker or engineer workflow.
Implementing a goal lifecycle inside Ward.
Weakening deterministic execution and safety gates.

## Outcome Remove Ward's programmatic autonomous burndown loop. Long-horizon judgment and persistence belong to harness-native goal execution. Ward continues to provide the governed, machine-readable primitives that a goal-driven director uses. This supersedes the generic-fallback direction in #953. Coordinate the goal-driven entrypoint and run doctrine with coilyco-flight-deck/agentic-os#526. ## Decision boundary Goal execution owns: * objective persistence and continuation * prioritization and adaptive judgment * progress reporting * deciding whether work is complete or genuinely blocked Ward owns: * queue and status inspection * reservations and capacity limits * brokered dispatch and isolated execution * workflow and PR gates * outcome recording * reaping, recovery, and backpressure Removing burndown must not weaken Ward's permission, isolation, audit, or landing boundaries. ## Why The current `--burndown` / `--drain` path duplicates an agent policy loop inside Ward through a durable local backlog ledger, polling heartbeat, issue triage and ranking, retry states, forge-health checks, nested dispatch judgment, and parsed `DISPATCH:` output. Harness-native goal execution is the better control loop because it preserves one visible objective, adapts across observations, and continues until an explicit terminal condition. Ward's narrower programmatic loop adds a second source of orchestration state without providing a demonstrated operator advantage. The mode has not established intentional operator usage. It has been entered accidentally. The current visible downstream reference is the QA verification fixture in `agentic-os/scripts/qa-verification-fixture.sh`, which should exercise direct governed dispatch instead. ## Scope * Remove the public `--burndown` flag and `--drain` alias. * Remove burndown-only polling and cycle controls, including `--poll-interval` and `--max-cycles`, where they have no retained non-burndown consumer. * Remove the autonomous heartbeat, ranking, triage, nested dispatch-decision prompt, and redispatch policy that exist solely for the loop. * Remove the local backlog ledger if retained queue or status behavior does not require it. Prefer issue threads and Ward run records as authoritative state. * Keep the default attached read-only director surface. * Preserve or strengthen machine-readable queue, status, dispatch, reap, and recovery primitives. * Rewire the bounded QA verification fixture to prove direct director dispatch through the retained primitives. * Update README, director and agent docs, terminology, CLI help, and `docs/FEATURES.md`. * Audit the available downstream repositories for scripted `--burndown` or `--drain` consumers before deleting compatibility code. ## Acceptance * `warded director` remains the attached read-only supervision surface. * Ward exposes no autonomous backlog polling or programmatic dispatch-judgment mode. * A harness-native goal can inspect queue state, dispatch bounded work, observe outcomes, and repeat using documented machine-readable Ward primitives. * Reservations, capacity gates, backpressure, workflow gates, reaping, recovery, and audit behavior remain covered by tests. * The QA verification fixture no longer invokes `--burndown`. * Burndown-only code, tests, flags, documentation, and local state are removed. * The feature inventory describes Ward as the governed execution layer beneath external goal orchestration. * Any discovered real headless or non-goal consumer is named with its exact required behavior before compatibility is retained. ## Non-goals * Removing the director role or read-only director surface. * Removing the dispatch broker or engineer workflow. * Implementing a goal lifecycle inside Ward. * Weakening deterministic execution and safety gates.

coilyco-ops referenced this issue

2026-07-31 07:09:01 +00:00

Rewrite FEATURES.md as a brand-neutral capability inventory #1623

coilyco-ops referenced this issue

2026-07-31 07:25:05 +00:00

Collapse the documentation tree into durable product contracts #1624

coilyco-ops referenced this issue

2026-07-31 07:29:20 +00:00

prefer harness-native goal execution #953

coilyco-ops referenced this issue

2026-07-31 07:29:25 +00:00

Add "progressive improvement" pattern where the goal is to hit +1 AC rather than solve the entire problem #1474

coilyco-ops referenced this issue

2026-07-31 07:30:16 +00:00

meta: release pressure-test run log (cold-read usability sweeps) #428

coilyco-ops referenced this issue

2026-07-31 08:12:02 +00:00

Make engineer Ward self-refresh work without sudo #1608

coilyco-ops referenced this issue

2026-07-31 08:13:00 +00:00

Restore smart defaults to the ideal product positioning #1326

coilyco-ops referenced this issue

2026-07-31 08:14:03 +00:00

[epic] Stop the warded-workflow full stop: landability gate + convergence circuit-breaker + merge queue #1069

coilyco-ops added the

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2026-07-31 08:25:41 +00:00

coilyco-ops referenced this issue

2026-08-05 09:39:08 +00:00

Collapse the documentation tree into durable product contracts #1624

coilyco-ops commented

2026-08-05 09:57:24 +00:00

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Decision resolved by Kai on 2026-08-05.

Authoritative removal boundary:

Delete --burndown, the --drain alias, polling controls, heartbeat, ranking, triage, LLM dispatch decisions, redispatch policy, and the entire local backlog ledger under ~/.ward/backlog.
Make a clean v0 removal. Do not retain deprecated flag shims and do not add a Ward goal command.
Keep warded director as the attached read-only supervision surface. Startup may render one live queue snapshot but persists no orchestration state.
Add stable --json output to retained queue and status inspection. #1618 extends that schema with end-to-end lifecycle correlation.
Preserve headless as the cross-repository issue classification meaning fully dispatchable without human input. Remove auto-burndown wording from the external label description through its owning surface, not Ward compatibility code.
Harness-native /goal execution owns waiting, repetition, prioritization, progress reporting, completion judgment, and blocked judgment.
AOS #526 owns reusable long-run doctrine but does not block removal from Ward.

Ward retains reservations, capacity, backpressure, brokered dispatch, isolated execution, workflow and pull-request gates, lifecycle records, outcomes, reaping, recovery, and audit behavior.

Decision resolved by Kai on 2026-08-05. Authoritative removal boundary: * Delete --burndown, the --drain alias, polling controls, heartbeat, ranking, triage, LLM dispatch decisions, redispatch policy, and the entire local backlog ledger under ~/.ward/backlog. * Make a clean v0 removal. Do not retain deprecated flag shims and do not add a Ward goal command. * Keep warded director as the attached read-only supervision surface. Startup may render one live queue snapshot but persists no orchestration state. * Add stable --json output to retained queue and status inspection. #1618 extends that schema with end-to-end lifecycle correlation. * Preserve headless as the cross-repository issue classification meaning fully dispatchable without human input. Remove auto-burndown wording from the external label description through its owning surface, not Ward compatibility code. * Harness-native /goal execution owns waiting, repetition, prioritization, progress reporting, completion judgment, and blocked judgment. * AOS #526 owns reusable long-run doctrine but does not block removal from Ward. Ward retains reservations, capacity, backpressure, brokered dispatch, isolated execution, workflow and pull-request gates, lifecycle records, outcomes, reaping, recovery, and audit behavior.

coilyco-ops referenced this issue

2026-08-05 10:08:47 +00:00

Remove public verification-fixture mode #1645

coilyco-ops commented

2026-08-05 10:09:50 +00:00

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Scope clarification from Kai on 2026-08-05: the body bullet about rewiring verification-fixture mode is superseded by #1645. #1620 removes autonomous burndown and retains direct goal primitives. #1645 separately removes the public fixture mode. Goal verification uses ordinary direct dispatch against synthetic or disposable repositories, with no replacement bespoke mode.

coilyco-ops referenced this issue from a commit

2026-08-05 23:39:13 +00:00

refactor: retire autonomous burndown

coilyco-ops commented

2026-08-05 23:39:46 +00:00

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Landed on canonical main in 25c5a895. Ward now has no autonomous burndown flags, polling loop, heartbeat, ranking, triage, model dispatch decision, redispatch policy, or local backlog ledger. The retained director renders one live snapshot and opens an attached read-only surface. Queue/status now has stable schema-versioned JSON, and the docs show the explicit harness-native /goal loop over queue, broker lifecycle, logs, PR, reap, stop, and recovery primitives. Downstream audit completed: AOS now launches its bounded engineer fixture directly in b6f7caa6, and infrastructure's obsolete director evaluation harness was retired in 9075f54 with infrastructure#520 closed. Full Ward tests, lint, vet, build, generated references, and pre-commit passed.

Landed on canonical main in 25c5a895. Ward now has no autonomous burndown flags, polling loop, heartbeat, ranking, triage, model dispatch decision, redispatch policy, or local backlog ledger. The retained director renders one live snapshot and opens an attached read-only surface. Queue/status now has stable schema-versioned JSON, and the docs show the explicit harness-native /goal loop over queue, broker lifecycle, logs, PR, reap, stop, and recovery primitives. Downstream audit completed: AOS now launches its bounded engineer fixture directly in b6f7caa6, and infrastructure's obsolete director evaluation harness was retired in 9075f54 with infrastructure#520 closed. Full Ward tests, lint, vet, build, generated references, and pre-commit passed.

coilyco-ops closed this issue

2026-08-05 23:39:47 +00:00

Rows
Columns

Retire autonomous burndown in favor of harness-native goal orchestration #1620

Outcome

Decision boundary

Why

Scope

Acceptance

Non-goals