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When work must halt

Skip is a loan, and loans get written down. A security-class reason never skips silently and is never a planner’s decision. /flow auto is tiered: green work can merge without asking, and security-class work HALTs.

This page is the operator home for those rules. Maintainer files stay canonical in the repo; they are linked only in the footer.

Security-class halt rules

Section titled “Security-class halt rules”

These classes are never “such as” with a silent remainder. Every one of them halts.

  • authentication / auth
  • authorization
  • admin-surface exposure
  • tenancy
  • payments
  • data loss / data migration
  • removing or weakening validation

On any of them:

  • The operator accepts the exposure in writing in DEBT.md. You do not decide it for them.
  • In /flow auto this is a Tier-C HALT. Stop and ask. Do not proceed.
  • Closing a run with open security debt requires explicit operator acknowledgment. “Temporary” is not an acknowledgment.

Skip a gate with debt

Section titled “Skip a gate with debt”

Skipping is legitimate. Skipping silently is not.

Record the exposure first, then skip:

/flow debt add "skip 01-research" "<the exposure, concretely>" "<close before: named condition>"
/flow skip 01-research --reason "…"

Guards, in this order (they reference the class list above; they do not replace it with a shorter one):

  1. Stage 05 (contract) can never be skipped. Adapt the contract to the project type instead. See Why the contract can never be skipped.
  2. A security-class reason halts. The operator accepts the exposure in writing in DEBT.md. It is never a planner’s decision.
  3. An unrelated open debt line will not unlock the stage.
  4. /flow skip only advances when an open debt line names that exact stage and the reason is not security-class.
  5. After a legitimate skip, planning_complete may tolerate that stage so cards are not blocked forever. The debt line remains open.

DEBT.md

Section titled “DEBT.md”
  • The first skip creates DEBT.md.
  • Line shape: skipped thing, concrete exposure, named close-before condition, date, cards.
- [ ] DEBT: <what was skipped> -- <exposure> -- close before: <named condition> -- opened <date> (cards: C-NNN...)
  • Closing a run with open security debt requires explicit operator acknowledgment. “Temporary” is not an acknowledgment.
  • A card blocked by a debt stays todo with PARTIAL evidence naming the debt. Never half-done, never rounded up to done.

Run an auto build

Section titled “Run an auto build”

/flow auto preflights; on pass, it writes shared auto state. /flow auto stop returns to manual. There is no hidden bypass.

Preflight is fail-closed:

  • every card has a classified risk (no unknown)
  • security-class cards need a distinct-author acknowledgement in DEBT.md
  • stage 05 carries a current semantic_gate receipt

Then, per card, the loop in operator language is: classify the tier, build in an isolated worktree with a scoped subagent, review, receipts, check, merge, deploy, live verify, paste world-state evidence, then done. Use /flow workspace verbs so the journal has no hole. A raw git worktree add records nothing.

Tiers

Section titled “Tiers”
Tier What Action
Tier-A Green, no security-class Auto-merge without asking.
Tier-B Fixable One repair by a fresh subagent (two-strikes). First red of an ordinary card does not call a billable cross-vendor engine.
Tier-C Security-class touch or a debt skip HALT. Operator accepts in writing in DEBT.md. Never planner-decided.

Hard caps (iterations / tokens / wall-clock) are mandatory. Exceed any → HALT + report. A loop with no cap is an antipattern.

Every gate decides on a mechanical signal (real exit code, real ## Verify, live check). Never an agent’s self-assessment.

Parallel merge conflict → halt and re-plan. The overlap check was gamed.

When the run stops itself

Section titled “When the run stops itself”

A run HALTs and reports. It never silently continues. It stops on any of:

  • A hard-stop cap exceeded (iterations / tokens / wall-clock).
  • A red ground-truth signal that cannot be repaired in two strikes.
  • A Tier-C security-class touch.
  • A merge conflict during parallel builds (the allowed-files overlap check was gamed: stop and re-plan).
  • BLOCKED / NEEDS_CONTEXT from a subagent that more context cannot resolve.

On halt: state what stopped, what is done, the open debt or blocker, and 2–4 concrete options. Do not patch around a regression. Let the operator decide.

Maintainer homes (not the public page): skills/flow/references/debt-and-halts.md, skills/flow/references/auto-run.md, skills/flow/references/attestations.md.