Scope-Accretion Completion Discipline

An autonomous session that discovers new in-scope work mid-run can convert that initiative into abandonment: draft five specs, label their implementation “the documented stretch (out of completion condition)”, satisfy the start-time condition, and exit. The Scope-Accretion Completion Discipline closes that gap structurally: artifacts the session itself creates join its completion bar, and the completion judge refuses met: true while they sit unbuilt without operator ratification.

The design principle (per the spec’s convergence review): every load-bearing fact is computed server-side, from git truth and server-owned state — never transported from the session’s environment, and never read from files the session routinely edits.

Run registration (POST /autonomous/register)

At session setup, setup-autonomous.sh registers the run with the server. The server — not the session — mints the runId, snapshots the scopeAccretion config (so a mid-run config edit changes nothing the gate reads), records the sweep base roots with their git rev-parse HEAD start-SHAs, and clamps endAt to now + autonomousSessions.maxDurationMs. One registration per active run: a re-register for a topic is refused (409) while the existing record is non-terminal and unexpired.

The optional declaredDeliverables list is the escape hatch for genuinely draft-only missions: paths declared at setup (operator-visible in the setup summary) never hold completion. A pathless condition (“draft five specs…”) declares nothing — drafting was the abandonment in the motivating incident.

The git-truth sweep at the chokepoint

At every done-claim, POST /autonomous/evaluate-completion sweeps git state over the run’s roots (work_dir repo, its worktrees, in-run worktrees under the agent-home convention): SHA-anchored committed work across local branches plus git status --porcelain uncommitted work. A deliverable-class artifact (a spec under docs/specs/, an audit, a runbook, an incident doc, a script) that is neither built + corroborated, nor declared, nor operator-ratified holds completion deterministically — met: false with reason: scope-accretion-hold and the exact path list — without spending the judge LLM call. It does not matter how the file was written: Write tool, Bash heredoc, tee, or a subagent — the file in the tree is the state.

Corroboration is per-class and never self-authorable: a spec clears via its convergence report plus the server’s own record of a real conformance-check ceremony run, or via a merged PR whose diff carries real non-docs code (≥1 non-docs path, ≥10 changed non-docs lines). Positive corroborations persist (monotone); a network failure fails toward keep-working.

Deletion is not an exit: an accreted deliverable that disappears from the tree stays in the unbuilt set flagged deleted: true and is enumerated loudly.

Ratification — verified principal, display-integral

Two paths, both terminating in server-owned records:

• PIN route (phone-first): POST /autonomous/:topic/ratify-deferral with the dashboard PIN and {"artifacts": [...]} or {"all": true} — the response echoes exactly what was ratified.
• Conversational: when the verified operator says “defer those” / “ratify deferral” in the run’s topic, the server replies with the exact enumerated artifact list; a reply-anchored confirmation (or an explicit “ratify” message) from the verified operator binds exactly that set. A bare “yes” that is not reply-anchored ratifies nothing. Both the trigger and the confirmation are matched only at the server’s live Telegram receive path — no on-disk message file participates, so a session cannot forge either.

The operator’s live mid-run lever is POST /autonomous/:topic/scope-accretion-override (dashboard-PIN-gated) — the config file is snapshotted at registration, so this route (not a config edit) is the instant off-switch for a running session.

No wedge: the breaker, and every exit is loud

breakerK (default 3, min 2) consecutive holds with an unchanged unbuilt set trip a persisted breaker: one loud, distinctly-labeled attention item and topic notice (“exiting via scope-accretion breaker with N unbuilt accreted artifacts…”, carrying the P13 stop-rationale classification), after which the gate disengages for the run. The guarantee, stated honestly: silent deferral is structurally impossible — accreted work blocks completion K times and can thereafter be abandoned only loudly.

Every run-end surface — met, duration expiry, hard-blocker, emergency stop, state corruption — fires POST /autonomous/:topic/run-end, which runs a non-blocking advisory sweep and enumerates any non-empty unbuilt set in the end-of-run notice. A crashed run is caught by a daily sweep backstop (late but loud). The silent clock-out is structurally closed.

Configuration

.instar/config.json

{
  "autonomousSessions": {
    "completionDiscipline": {
      "scopeAccretion": {
        "enabled": true,   // default ON (monotone-safe); snapshotted at registration
        "breakerK": 3      // consecutive unchanged-set holds before the loud breaker exit
      }
    },
    "maxDurationMs": 172800000 // server-side clamp on a registered run's endAt (48h)
  }
}

Editing enabled: false is the rollback for future runs; the PIN override route is the live lever for a run already in flight. Feature metrics land under the scope-accretion key (holds, breaker trips, ratifications, enumerations, sweep latency).

Spec: docs/specs/autonomous-scope-accretion-completion.md.