Matilha Gather

When this fires

After /matilha-hunt dispatched a wave and every SP has written a filled SP-DONE.md, the user wants to merge them back and verify regression. This skill is the inverse of /matilha-hunt: it consumes wave-NN-status.md, validates gates, merges in order, runs tests after each merge, and updates status.

Preconditions

• docs/matilha/waves/wave-NN-status.md exists and validates against waveSchema.
• Current branch is the integration branch (not wave-NN-sp-*).
• Working tree clean.
• Every SP's SP-DONE.md passes strict gates.

Execution Workflow

1. Read docs/matilha/waves/wave-NN-status.md via Read tool; validate against waveSchema.
2. Swiss Cheese pre-flight via Bash: verify current branch is not an SP branch (git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD); verify clean tree (git status --porcelain).
3. For each SP in merge_order where status is not completed: validate <worktree>/SP-DONE.md strict gates (status=completed, tests.passed=true, non-empty commits[], non-null completed_at, tests.count>=1, sp_id/feature/wave match).
4. If --dry-run: emit merge plan preview and exit.
5. For each SP in merge_order: git merge --no-ff <branch> via Bash; on conflict, run git merge --abort and HALT (5-rule error with conflicting files).
6. After each successful merge: run test command (default npm test via Bash); on failure, HALT (5-rule error with git reset --hard <pre-merge-sha> recovery).
7. Update wave-status: mark SP merged (status: completed).
8. After all SPs merged: mark wave completed, regression_status: passed, ended: .
9. If --cleanup: for each completed SP, git worktree remove --force <path> + git branch -d <branch>.

Rules: Do

• Validate SP-DONE gates BEFORE any merge (all-or-nothing pre-flight).
• Run git merge --no-ff (preserve merge commits as wave markers).
• Run test command after every merge (localize regressions).
• Commit wave-status.md after each mutation for atomicity.

Rules: Don't

• Auto-rollback on failure (HALT preserves state for inspection).
• Force-merge or skip regression.
• Delete unmerged branches (safe -d, not -D).
• Advance project-status.md current_phase (attest owns that).

Expected Behavior

On success, all SP branches merged into main in declared order + regression passed + wave-status updated. On failure, state preserved; 5-rule error with exact recovery commands.

Quality Gates

• All SPs in wave-status have status: completed.
• Test suite passes after every merge.
• wave-NN-status.md always round-trips through waveSchema between updates.
• .gitignore unchanged by gather.
• current_phase unchanged by gather.

Companion Integration

No companion integrations in Wave 4a. Review and quality delegation is Wave 3c's /matilha-review territory.

Output Artifacts

• Updated docs/matilha/waves/wave-NN-status.md (status, regression_status, started, ended, per-SP status).
• N merge commits on integration branch.
• (With --cleanup) worktrees removed + branches deleted for completed SPs.

Example Constraint Language

• Use "must" for: wave-status validates against waveSchema before any merge; current branch is not SP branch; working tree is clean; every SP-DONE.md passes strict gates.
• Use "should" for: run --dry-run first; commit wave-status after each gather; wait for wave to settle before --cleanup.
• Use "may" for: --cleanup (opt-in); reset failed SP entry to pending after manual recovery to resume.

Troubleshooting

• "wave-NN-status.md not found": Run /matilha-hunt <slug> --wave N first.
• "SP-DONE.md has status=pending": SP author did not finish; ask them or re-dispatch via matilha hunt --force --wave N.
• "merge conflict": Plan's intra-wave disjunction was bypassed; edit plan to move overlap to later wave, re-run /matilha-hunt --force.
• "regression failed after merge": Revert via git reset --hard <sha> (SHA in error output); fix regression; re-run /matilha-gather.
• "on SP branch": git checkout main before retrying.
• "already gathered — no-op": Wave already at status: completed.
• "uncommitted changes": Commit wave-status.md (or other edits) before resume.

CLI shortcut (optional)

If matilha CLI is installed (matilha --version succeeds), you can run matilha gather <slug> to execute this deterministically. The plugin path above works without any CLI installation.