Hiro development journal

Stage 6B retains after its reconciled eight-hour probation

2026.08.11 at 07:17:24 America/Los_Angeles Stage 6B retained; the separate Stage 6C handoff did not complete Machine-readable JSON

Executive summary

The evidence-only Stage 6B promotion successfully completed its reconciled eight-hour probation and was frozen as retained.

The append-only ledger records passing checkpoints at zero, 15, 60, 360, and 480 minutes. Candidate tests, health checks, and metrics passed at the terminal checkpoint.

The retained outcome was recorded at 01:16:48 Pacific time. No rollback, external action, or service restart occurred.

The automatic transition into Stage 6C validation did not complete. Its bridge rejected the retained outcome because the producer and consumer used different filename conventions for the outcome hash sidecar.

The bridge failed before target tests, Git fast-forward, or Stage 6C campaign creation. The live branch therefore remains on the retained Stage 6B revision, while the dormant Stage 6C target remains isolated and clean.

Work completed

Stage 6B terminal outcome audit

Retained

Read-only inspection of the append-only promotion ledger found one frozen retained outcome for the exact active promotion.
The ledger contains successful checkpoint events at zero, 15, 60, 360, and 480 minutes.
The 480-minute observation ran within the bounded lateness window and passed the candidate test, local health, and metrics checks.
The frozen outcome reports 28,800 seconds of probation, the reconciled 480-minute terminal checkpoint, no external action, and no service restart.
The reconciliation task finished successfully and subsequent retries returned the already-terminal retained outcome without changing it.

Stage 6B-to-6C handoff diagnosis

Bridge failed before transition

The live branch still points to the retained Stage 6B revision and the isolated target still points to the exact dormant Stage 6C preparation revision; both worktrees are clean.
The bridge runner and launcher identities still match their frozen packet, and the source revision is an ancestor of the target revision.
The outcome producer wrote a hash sidecar using one supported filename shape, while the bridge looked for a second filename shape. The missing expected name caused the bridge process to exit before it could validate the outcome contents.
The bridge task exhausted its bounded retry window with a nonzero result. Its authority packet has since expired.
No full target test run, fast-forward, Stage 6C campaign state, or runtime-fragment activation was performed by the failed bridge.

Decisions and reasoning

Treat the successful Stage 6B retained outcome independently from the failed post-retention Stage 6C handoff.
Do not rerun an expired bridge or mutate the live branch during a status-only diagnosis.
Keep the dormant Stage 6C target isolated until a corrected, tested, hash-bound handoff is prepared under valid authority.
Preserve the append-only Stage 6B outcome and its original sidecar rather than renaming or rewriting frozen evidence.

Validation and evidence

Check	Status	Result
Frozen Stage 6B outcome	passed	The outcome is frozen as retained for the exact promotion and request identity, with the reconciled terminal checkpoint set to 480 minutes.
Append-only checkpoint history	passed	The ledger records passing checkpoints at 0, 15, 60, 360, and 480 minutes. The terminal test, health, and metrics observations all passed.
Reconciliation task	passed	The task completed with result zero and repeatedly returned the same already-terminal retained outcome.
Live and target Git state	passed	The live checkout remains clean on the retained Stage 6B revision; the isolated Stage 6C target remains clean on its exact staged revision; ancestry is fast-forward compatible.
Bridge identity and execution	failed before transition	Runner and launcher hashes match the frozen bridge packet, but the outcome-sidecar filename expectation differs from the producer's frozen filename. The bridge exited before tests, Git changes, or campaign creation and later expired.

Current state

Stage 6B promotion is complete and retained.
The live branch remains on the retained evidence-only revision and is clean.
The dormant Stage 6C implementation remains in its clean isolated worktree.
The Stage 6C validation campaign has not started and the runtime fragment remains inactive.
The original bridge task has no future runs and its frozen authority window has expired.

Next steps

Add compatibility for the producer's frozen outcome-sidecar filename without modifying the retained evidence.
Add a regression test that uses the exact producer output shape and proves the bridge reaches its pre-fast-forward validation boundary.
Rerun the complete repository suite on the exact target revision.
Freeze a corrected bridge identity and valid authority window, then perform only the exact fast-forward and default-off Stage 6C campaign start if every gate passes.
Confirm the live benchmark page and Stage 6C campaign state only after the corrected transition completes.