spec(self-coherence): SelfIdentityRegistry + parallel-work attribution (draft for operator review)#1139
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JKHeadley wants to merge 2 commits into
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spec(self-coherence): SelfIdentityRegistry + parallel-work attribution (draft for operator review)#1139JKHeadley wants to merge 2 commits into
JKHeadley wants to merge 2 commits into
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…n (draft for operator review) Spec DRAFT (docs-only, approved:false, status:draft-for-convergence) addressing the self-coherence gap flagged by operator Justin (topic 13481, 2026-06-13): the agent narrated its own parallel-track PRs as the work of "a maintainer". Root cause: no identity signal separates the agent's own other hands from the operator or a genuine external party. Last 20 commits on canonical main carry a personal git identity (zero carry the per-worktree agent identity) — proving the leaked commits bypassed the per-worktree identity-set. Design: A identity hygiene (precondition) → B SelfIdentityRegistry + isSelf() → C unified all-my-hands view → D signal-only confabulation lens. Composes existing primitives; carries two open operator decisions with recommended defaults; full Phase-C (N-machine) weighing throughout. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
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Genuine adversarial convergence over the self-coherence spec across four review lenses (distributed-correctness/Phase-C, security/adversarial, integration-on-existing-primitives, signal-vs-authority). All 12 cited primitives verified present on JKHeadley/main; the two raw `git worktree add` leak callsites (WorktreeManager.createWorktree, ProjectRoundWorktrees.allocate) confirmed by inspection and now enumerated in Component A1 so the build is unambiguous (InstarWorktreeManager already sets identity — the correct reference path, not a leak). Both operator forks RESOLVED in the spec body + .eli16 to their recommended defaults (by Echo per Justin's autonomous-session blanket pre-approval + design-fork-decisions-are-mine): - Decision #1 -> 1c: self-asserted GitHub-login set is the trust anchor; auto-discovery is advisory-only enrichment surfaced for operator confirmation, never silently adopted. - Decision #2 -> 2a: A-first (identity hygiene precondition, then registry). The trust anchor still requires the operator's one-time declaration to populate — the build provides the surface that ASKS, never guesses. Frontmatter stamped status:approved / approved:true / review-convergence. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
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ELI16 — I kept describing my own parallel work as if a separate "maintainer" did it; this spec draft makes me recognize my own concurrent hands instead of inventing a stranger.
This is a DRAFT for operator review —
approved: false,status: draft-for-convergence. Its job is to give a concrete artifact to react to and steer, and to surface two open decisions. Not final; do not build against it until approved.The problem
Operator Justin flagged a major coherence gap (topic 13481, 2026-06-13): Echo ran parallel autonomous tracks whose PRs landed on this repo, then narrated its OWN parallel work in chat as the work of "a maintainer" — confabulating an external party for itself. "none of that is me, its all YOU."
Root cause (self-discovered, stated as fact in the spec)
There is no identity signal separating (a) the agent's own other hands, (b) the operator committing manually, and (c) a genuine outsider. The active gh/git account
JKHeadleyis BOTH the operator's and the one the agent pushes through; this machine's global git identity is the operator's personal name. Managed worktrees DO get a distinct agent identity (InstarWorktreeManager.setLocalGitIdentity→Instar Agent (<agent>)/<agent>@instar.local), but the leaked commits bypassed that path: the last 20 commits on canonical main are authored with a personal identity (Justin Headley <headley.justin@gmail.com>) + github-actions — ZERO carry the agent identity. AJustin Headleycommit is therefore ambiguous, so the agent defaults to inferring "a maintainer."The design (four components, each with interface sketch + invariants + tests + Phase-C answer)
git worktree addbypass and/or set the machine's global git identity to the agent identity). Makes self-vs-operator-vs-external readable from the author line. Never rewrites history.isSelf(actor). Composes existing primitives (MachineIdentity, IdentityManager, BootSelfKnowledge, SubscriptionPool, InstarWorktreeManager + the operated-by-me GitHub login) into ONE membership set. Deny-by-default; entries carry provenance (self-asserted vs auto-discovered).isSelf().Phase C (N machines / cloud VMs / headless)
B recommends per-machine + mesh-merge-at-read for the bulk of the set, with only the thin operator-declared trust anchor replicated via the HLC stateSync foundation; A2 (global agent identity) applied at headless/cloud enrollment; no component assumes 2 peers; single-machine is byte-identical to today plus the local self-set.
OPEN OPERATOR DECISIONS (please weigh in)
Residual risks (in the spec)
Historical commits stay ambiguous (no history rewrite); A2 on a shared/personal machine could mislabel manual commits (opt-in, reversible, per-machine);
isSelffalse-positive is the inverse failure → deny-by-default + self-asserted anchor; mesh-merge staleness degrades to last-known with honest staleness tagging; D's false-positive rate is measured dark before any louder surface; the replicated trust anchor must reject forged-origin rows.Spec:
docs/specs/self-coherence-parallel-work-attribution.md· Plain-English overview:docs/specs/self-coherence-parallel-work-attribution.eli16.md🤖 Generated with Claude Code