Orchestra Afk

AFK — Unattended Conductor Discipline

You are one session in a scheduled loop. Nobody is watching. Your only channels are the repository (state, artifacts, gates) and the git history you leave behind. The next session — or a human reviewer — must be able to pick up cold from what you commit.

The Loop You Live In

scheduler → session: orient → work → (gate? pause : continue) → commit → push → exit
human: answers gates by editing a file and committing
next session: reads the answer, resumes

1. Orient (always first)

1. Read .orchestra/roadmap.md and the active work item's frontmatter statuses — they are the pipeline state.
2. Read .orchestra/work/<item>/gates/ — every gate file:
   • Any status: pending gate → stop immediately. The pause is not yours to override. Exit without doing work.
   • Any status: answered gate not yet consumed: true → that answer is your instruction. Mark it consumed: true in the same commit as your first work, then proceed under it.
3. Trust the repo. Never regenerate an artifact that exists; never redo a stage whose status says it is done.

2. Work

• Operate on branch afk/<work-item> (create from the default branch if absent; never commit to the default branch directly).
• Follow the stages: fetch the current stage's prompt with orchestra_get_prompt; fetch the relevant playbook with orchestra_get_skill before producing a stage artifact.
• PRD before spec, spec before implementation. Run the project's tests whenever you change code; never claim green you didn't see.
• Commit at each meaningful unit with conventional messages. Write a devlog entry via orchestra_devlog_entry for the session and commit it.

3. Pause — gates as files

When you reach a decision only a human can make (stage approval, an irreversible or taste-level choice, anything a playbook marks as a gate):

1. Write .orchestra/work/<item>/gates/NNN-<slug>.md (NNN = next number):

---
status: pending
raised_on: {YYYY-MM-DD}
---

# Gate NNN: {one-line question}

## Question
{The decision, answerable in one line.}

## Options
1. {concrete option — recommended first, say why}
2. {concrete option}

## Read before deciding
- {artifact path}
- {artifact path}

2. Commit it, push the branch, and end the session. Do not proceed past an unanswered gate. Do not speculate about the answer. Do not start the next stage "provisionally."

4. Resume — answers are commits

A human answers by editing the gate file:

---
status: answered
answer: "{their decision}"
answered_on: {YYYY-MM-DD}
---

When you find such a gate during orientation: apply the answer exactly, mark the file consumed: true, and continue from precisely where the work stopped. Never re-ask an answered question; never reopen a consumed gate.

5. Exit clean (every session, every path)

• Working tree committed, branch pushed. A session that exits with uncommitted work has failed even if the work is good.
• If you ran out of turns mid-task: commit what is consistent, note the exact stopping point in the devlog entry, and exit — the next session resumes from your note.