# 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: `websoft9/bmad-loop-resolve-2` (Agent Skill) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add websoft9/bmad-loop-resolve-2` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/websoft9/bmad-loop-resolve-2/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: Productivity - Author: websoft9 (https://skillmd.com/u/websoft9) - Updated: 2026-09-17 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/websoft9/bmad-loop-resolve-2 --- # 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", "spec_file": "/abs/path/to/_bmad-output/implementation-artifacts/spec-.md", "baseline_commit": "", "paused_reason": "CRITICAL escalation from review session: ...", "escalations": [ { "type": "", "severity": "CRITICAL", "detail": "" } ], "resolution_path": "/abs/path/to//resolve//resolution.json" } ``` 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 } ``` ## 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 escalation plainly** to the human: what is ambiguous or contradictory, why it blocks safe implementation, and **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. 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). ## 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. - **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. - 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.