# Bmad Loop Resolve > Interactive escalation-resolution workflow for the bmad-loop orchestrator. A bmad-loop run paused on a CRITICAL escalation (a contradiction or gap a dev/review session could not safely resolve alone); you and the human disambiguate the frozen spec so the story can be re-driven. Invoked as /bmad-loop-resolve . Unlike the automated dev/review sessions this session is interactive — a human is present and you SHOULD ask. - Skill: `bmad-code-org/bmad-loop-resolve` (Agent Skill) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add bmad-code-org/bmad-loop-resolve` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/bmad-code-org/bmad-loop-resolve/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: Productivity - Author: bmad-code-org (https://skillmd.com/u/bmad-code-org) - Updated: 2026-09-17 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/bmad-code-org/bmad-loop-resolve --- # bmad-loop Escalation Resolution A `bmad-loop` run drove a story through dev → review, a session raised a **CRITICAL escalation** (work could not proceed safely — usually a contradiction or an unanswered question in the _frozen spec_), and the orchestrator paused the whole run for a human. The session that escalated is gone; you are a fresh interactive session whose job is to **resolve the ambiguity with the human and update the frozen spec**, so the orchestrator can re-arm the story and re-drive it against a corrected spec. This is **interactive**: a human IS present. Ask questions, present options, recommend — but the human makes the call. (`$BMAD_LOOP_MODE` is intentionally unset for this session; the never-ask automation rules do NOT apply.) ## Identity & I/O contract These environment variables are set: - `$BMAD_LOOP_RUN_DIR` — the paused run's directory. - `$BMAD_LOOP_STORY_KEY` — the escalated story key (also your invocation argument). - `$BMAD_LOOP_RESOLVE_CONTEXT` — path to a `context.json` written for you. **Read `$BMAD_LOOP_RESOLVE_CONTEXT` FIRST.** Its schema: ```json { "story_key": "6-4-cli-list-command", "run_id": "20260613-111429-6a14", "project_root": "/abs/path/to/bmad-project", "code_root": "/abs/path/to/code-repository", "spec_file": "/abs/path/to/_bmad-output/implementation-artifacts/spec-.md", "spec_reaches_the_redrive": true, "redrive_base_ref": "", "baseline_commit": "", "paused_reason": "CRITICAL escalation from review session: ...", "escalations": [ { "type": "", "severity": "CRITICAL", "detail": "" } ], "resolution_path": "/abs/path/to//resolve//resolution.json" } ``` The `escalations` array is ordered newest-first. Across the entire gathered context, each distinct escalation appears exactly once. The interactive session's working directory is always `project_root`. That tree holds the BMAD artifacts and specs you inspect or clarify. `code_root` is the tree where the run's code and git work belong; it may be different. When the roots differ, do not mistake the session cwd for the code checkout: any code fix or commit the human must make belongs under `code_root`, while artifact and spec work remains anchored under `project_root` (or at the explicit absolute paths in this context). You still do not implement or commit during this resolution session; name the correct tree when guiding the human. **`spec_reaches_the_redrive` says whether your edit has a future.** The re-drive reads one tree; `spec_file` may name another. Under worktree isolation the run's mount is discarded before the re-drive reads anything, so a spec inside that mount is destroyed with it. When this field is `false`, every write to `spec_file` still SUCCEEDS and is then thrown away — worse than not editing at all, because the session looks resolved. `null` means there is no ordinary frozen spec to edit: either the task has no spec on record, or stories mode recorded a sentinel path instead. In both cases step 4 does not apply; follow the sentinel guidance below when that block is present. **`redrive_base_ref` tells you which of the two remedies applies.** Read it before you tell the human anything: a branch name and `HEAD` mean opposite things. Do not skip the edit when it is `false` — the corrected spec is what gets carried over, and it is the clearest statement of what you and the human agreed. Do step 4 as usual, then tell the human, in the same breath as the resolution, **where the correction has to land to be read** — which the field decides: when `redrive_base_ref` names a branch, committed on `redrive_base_ref`; when it is `HEAD`, re-applied in the main checkout, uncommitted. The two paragraphs below carry each arm. Be precise about this, because the two obvious moves both fail silently: - Committing from the **main checkout** cannot include the file you edited — it lives in a linked unit worktree, which is a separate working tree. - Committing on the **unit's own branch** does not reach the re-drive either. The replacement worktree is cut fresh from `redrive_base_ref`, not from the branch of the mount that was discarded. So the correction has to reach `redrive_base_ref` itself: make the same edit to that tree's copy of the spec and commit it there. The orchestrator names the same ref when it re-arms; say it here so they hear it before they close the session rather than after. **When `redrive_base_ref` is `HEAD`, do not tell them to commit anything.** That means the re-drive runs in the **main checkout** and reads its WORKING TREE, so an edit there is read as-is. `spec_reaches_the_redrive: false` beside a `HEAD` base is the opposite problem from the one above: `spec_file` points into a worktree this run has STOPPED using, because its isolation policy changed while the story sat escalated. The remedy is to make the same edit to the main checkout's copy of the spec — no commit, no branch. Telling them to commit here sends them to a tree the re-drive does not read, which is the same lost work in the other direction. In **stories mode** (folder+id dispatch) the context also carries a `stories` block — the manifest intent for this story, so you can see WHAT it is meant to do without hunting for it: ```json { "stories": { "spec_folder": "_bmad-output/epic-1", "story": { "id": "6-4-cli-list-command", "title": "CLI list command", "description": "…", "spec_checkpoint": false, "done_checkpoint": false, "invoke_dev_with": "…free-text planner→dev note, or ''…" }, "sentinel": { "kind": "unresolved", "path": ".../stories/6-4-cli-list-command-unresolved.md", "blocking_condition": "…the reason planning halted…" } } } ``` The `sentinel` sub-block is present ONLY when the escalated story is a **sentinel** (see the stories-mode section below); an ordinary escalation omits it. Your **output marker** is the file at `resolution_path`. Writing it is the LAST action of a successful resolution. Schema: ```json { "story_key": "", "decision": "", "spec_file": "", "spec_updated": true, "restore_patch": "" } ``` `restore_patch` is **optional** and used only for the intent-gap patch-restore case below — omit it entirely for an ordinary resolution. ## What you MUST do 1. **Read the context**, then read the **frozen spec** at `spec_file` in full — especially its `` block (the intent the dev/review sessions treat as authoritative). The escalation is almost always that this block is silent on, or contradicts, a case the implementation hit. 2. **Present the current pause evidence plainly** to the human: - When the `escalations` array is non-empty, present its recorded entries in their existing newest-first order. Do not replace recorded escalation detail with `paused_reason`. - When the `escalations` array is empty, first require `paused_reason` to be text containing at least one non-whitespace character. If it is missing, `null`, non-text, or blank after trimming, report a malformed resolve context and do not write the resolution marker. Otherwise, present `paused_reason` verbatim as the available evidence for the current pause and disclose that no newer recorded escalation detail is available. Do not read below the watermark, unfilter or recover an older artifact escalation, or synthesize an escalation object from `paused_reason`. Using the selected evidence, explain what is ambiguous or contradictory, why it blocks safe implementation, and offer **2–4 concrete resolution options** with a clear recommendation and its trade-offs. Keep it tight — quote the relevant spec lines. 3. **Get the human's decision.** Ask follow-ups if the choice is unclear. Do not invent requirements; if the human is unsure, help them reason, don't guess. 4. **Update the frozen spec** to encode the decision unambiguously: amend the `` block and any affected acceptance criteria / test matrix rows so a fresh dev session has exactly one correct reading. Make the smallest change that removes the ambiguity. You MAY use the `bmad-spec` or `bmad-correct-course` skills if a larger spec change is warranted. **If `spec_reaches_the_redrive` is `false`, make the same edit and then say plainly that this copy is not the one the re-drive reads, and name the remedy that `redrive_base_ref` selects: on a branch, the correction must be committed on `redrive_base_ref`; on `HEAD`, it must be re-applied in the main checkout, uncommitted** — an unflagged edit here is lost work, and a commit in the wrong tree or on the wrong branch is lost work that looks done. 5. **Write the resolution marker** at `resolution_path` (schema above), then tell the human the resolution is recorded and they can exit this session — the orchestrator will offer to **re-arm the story and resume the run** (a clean rebuild against the corrected spec). ## Special case: a review-stage `intent gap` with a saved patch When the escalation came from the **review step** halting on an `intent gap`, the dev session first **saved its attempted change as a patch file** (in the implementation-artifacts folder) before reverting the tree — the escalation `detail` and the spec's `## Review Triage Log` reference the patch path. That patch is concrete evidence: it shows exactly which reading of the intent the run implemented. **First check `restore_supported` in the context file.** When it is `false` (worktree-isolation runs: the re-drive discards and re-mounts the unit's worktree, so an in-place restore can never land; an escalation with no recorded spec: a restored patch has no review to resume; a pre-planning sentinel wedge: there is no attempted implementation to restore), **never offer the restore option and never record `restore_patch`** — the orchestrator would reject the resolution and this whole session's negotiation would be wasted. The patch is still available as evidence. Use the patch two ways: - **As evidence.** Read the patch (and the diff it represents) to see what the guessed reading produced — often clearer input for writing the clarification than the questions alone. - **When the attempted reading was actually correct.** Sometimes the run's guess is the right one and only the _intent_ was silent. Present this as an explicit option to the human: _"the implementation read it as X, which is in fact what we want — amend the intent to say X, and resume **review** on the already-written change instead of re-implementing it."_ If the human chooses this: 1. Still **amend the intent** in the spec so it unambiguously says X (step 4 above is unchanged — the frozen intent must match the restored code). 2. Add **`"restore_patch": ""`** to `resolution.json` (copy the path verbatim from the escalation detail / triage log). The orchestrator then re-arms the spec to `in-review`, re-applies the patch onto the baseline, and re-dispatches — the session resumes at the review step on the restored diff. **Do NOT `git apply` the patch yourself and do NOT set the spec status** — the orchestrator does both deterministically at re-arm. **The restore must not overlap resolution commits.** Re-arm advances the re-drive's baseline to the branch's post-resolve HEAD, but the saved patch was diffed from the ORIGINAL baseline — so if this session left commits that touch the patch's own files, the restore's `git apply` fails and the story re-escalates (loudly, by design: the orchestrator never silently merges the resolution with the stale attempt). If the resolution work already includes or supersedes the attempted change, **omit `restore_patch`** — the commits survive re-arm as the re-drive's starting point, so a from-scratch re-drive builds directly on them. If the attempted reading was wrong (the common case), omit `restore_patch` entirely: the orchestrator re-drives from scratch against the corrected intent. ## What you MUST NOT do - **Do NOT** write the orchestrator's `result.json` — that is a dev/review artifact; this is not one of those sessions. - **Do NOT** change `sprint-status.yaml`, and **do NOT** set the spec's `status:` field — the orchestrator deterministically re-arms the spec status on resume. Edit spec **content** only. - **Do NOT** implement the story, write feature code, run tests, or commit. Your job ends at a corrected spec + the resolution marker. That holds when `spec_reaches_the_redrive` is `false` too: landing the corrected spec where the re-drive reads it is the HUMAN's step — committing it on `redrive_base_ref` when that names a branch, re-applying it in the main checkout when it is `HEAD`. Tell them it is required, and which one; do not do it yourself. - **Do NOT** widen scope. Resolve exactly the escalated ambiguity; if you notice unrelated problems, note them to the human but leave them alone. ## Stories mode: sentinels and the preserved copy In stories mode a story that could not even be **planned** — the dev session hit a contradiction or gap before it could write a real spec — leaves a fixed-slug **sentinel** file instead of a frozen spec: `-unresolved.md` (the intent was too ambiguous to plan) or `-ambiguous.md` (more than one story spec matched the id). The context's `stories.sentinel` block names it and carries the `blocking_condition` the session recorded. A sentinel is **not a spec you edit** — there is no plan or `` block inside it. So for a sentinel: - **Do not try to amend a frozen spec** (step 4's "edit the frozen spec" does not apply — there isn't one). Instead resolve the _upstream_ ambiguity so a fresh planning pass can succeed: usually that means clarifying `SPEC.md` (the epic spec) or this story's entry in `stories.yaml` — the `title` / `description` / `invoke_dev_with` the planner reads — with the human. - **`redrive_base_ref` decides where that upstream edit has to land, exactly as it does for a spec.** `spec_reaches_the_redrive` does not answer this — it is about `spec_file`, which for a sentinel is the file being deleted. The artifacts you actually edit are `SPEC.md` / `stories.yaml`, and they face the same question: when `redrive_base_ref` names a **branch**, the re-drive mounts a fresh worktree and re-plans from that branch's COMMITTED tree, so an uncommitted edit is invisible and the re-plan mints the same sentinel again — tell the human it has to be committed there. When it is `HEAD`, the re-drive re-plans in the main checkout's working tree and the edit is read as-is — do not tell them to commit. The orchestrator re-arms on the same rule and will hold the resume until the branch carries it. - On **re-arm** the orchestrator does NOT flip the sentinel to `ready-for-dev` (there is no plan to route to). It **preserves a copy** of the sentinel under `{run}/sentinels/-.md` as a breadcrumb, **deletes** the sentinel, and the next dispatch re-plans the story from scratch (leg 1 again for a `spec_checkpoint` story). You do not touch the sentinel file yourself. - Write the resolution marker as usual once the human has decided how to disambiguate; set `spec_file` to whatever you edited (e.g. `SPEC.md`), or omit it if the fix was entirely in `stories.yaml`. ### Not a sentinel: more than one file matches the id Distinct from the single-file `-ambiguous.md` sentinel above: when **more than one** file in `stories/` matches `-*.md` (say `3-login.md` AND `3-signup.md`), the id itself is ambiguous _on disk_ and the orchestrator wedges the story without picking either file. You can recognize this state by the escalation reason (`ambiguous story file match: `) and by what the context does NOT have: no `stories.sentinel` block and no single spec path. The auto-clear above does **not** apply — there is no sentinel to preserve and delete, and re-arming alone just re-wedges on the same duplicates. The resolution IS the cleanup: with the human, decide which file is the story's real spec and remove or rename the other (merge content first if both carry real work; renaming must move it out of the `-*` pattern or to another id). Exactly one match re-dispatches that spec; zero matches re-plans from scratch. Then write the resolution marker as usual — re-arm + resume takes it from there. ## If you cannot resolve it If the human defers, the information needed is genuinely unavailable, or the right fix is out of scope for a spec edit (e.g. it needs a PRD/architecture change), say so plainly and **do not** write the resolution marker. Exiting without the marker leaves the story escalated and the run paused — the safe default. The orchestrator will not re-arm a story with no recorded resolution.