feat(start_dev): Heart at the door — refuse or warn on the Heart feed before development

[Jammy2211]

Human request (2026-09-26, verbatim)

do all of those but not the Eyes one which is tomrorow

Overview

Bundle cockpit-followups, member start-dev-heart-gate (siblings: nerves-unused-keys, gut-void-sibling-reach). Epic organ-cockpit.

Member 3 — start-dev-heart-gate (PyAutoBrain, feature/start-dev-heart-gate)

Context: the Heart gate is consulted only at ship time. The human's rule: fix Heart before development.

1. bin/heart_feed.py (stdlib): fetch https://pyautolabs.github.io/PyAutoHeart/state.json (URL derived from
   config/policy.yaml board: heart_board + boards: / the Mind's pages base, no hardcoded org); fallback
   pyauto-heart readiness --json from the canonical Heart when offline (mapped through the same shape);
   print Heart: RED — <headline> (updated 2h ago) + red/yellow item lines; exit 0 green, 1 yellow/stale,
   2 red, 3 grey/unreachable. Never runs a tick. --json for the skill seams.
2. skills/start_dev/start_dev.md step 0a "Heart at the door" (before the resume check): run the helper;
   GREEN continue; YELLOW/STALE print and continue (ack asked at ship, unchanged); RED stop before planning,
   quote the reasons verbatim, offer the existing AUTONOMY "Human override for Heart RED (development only)"
   (recorded on the issue when the human invokes it); GREY say so and continue; --auto + RED parks before
   any issue. Same step in skills/start_bundle/start_bundle.md and skills/route/route.md (one paragraph
   each pointing at start_dev's wording). skills/WORKFLOW.md Heart-gate section mentions the door.
3. Tests: tests/test_heart_feed.py (fixture feeds per status + unreachable via a file:// / monkeypatched
   fetch; exit codes; fallback path mocked) and a seam test in tests/test_policy_seams.py (or a new
   test_skill_seams.py) that the three skill files contain "Heart at the door".
   Witness: fixture RED → exit 2 with reasons; the three skill files reference the step; the next start_dev in a
   session prints the Heart line before the plan.

Claims / branches

PyAutoNerves, PyAutoGut, PyAutoBrain all on clean main; all claimed by eyes-organ-order (disjoint files; Nerves
and Gut AGENTS.md get new sections — merge-safe), Brain also by cosmos-web-ring-greeting. Shared worktree
cockpit-followups with per-repo member branches (rename after worktree_create), parallel-claim: recorded.

Execution (Fable session)

Three issues (one per repo) → three active.md entries → worktree → three Opus subagents in parallel (different
repos), progress files + one Monitor → ship each: Heart YELLOW → ask ack once for the bundle → merge on green →
member 2: dispatch gut_board.yml; member 1: dispatch nerves_board.yml; member 3: nothing to deploy → verify →
close-out per member → then file + run workspace-config-cleanup using the unused-keys output.

Verification

• Nerves: pytest test_autonerves -q; real collect → count of unused keys per library (report), state: ok.
• Gut: pytest tests -q; void-plan on the real ledger shows the 8 sibling names with their repos; YAML parses.
• Brain: pytest tests/test_heart_feed.py tests/test_policy_seams.py -q; bin/heart_feed.py against the live
  feed prints the current status and exits accordingly.
• Firewall --root <wt> OK for all three.

Original Prompt

Click to expand starting prompt

Organ cockpit: start_dev refuses or warns on the Heart feed before development starts

Type: feature
Target: PyAutoBrain
Repos:

• PyAutoBrain
  Difficulty: small
  Autonomy: safe
  Priority: high
  Status: formalised
  Consequence: notify
  Witness: with a fixture RED feed the helper exits 2 and prints the reasons; start_dev.md, start_bundle.md and route.md each reference the step; a start_dev run in the session shows the Heart line before the plan.
  Review-minutes: 0
  Unattended: ready
  Filed: 2026-09-26
  Epic: organ-cockpit

The cockpit and the Heart ntfy alert direct attention to a RED Heart; the human's stated rule is 'fix Heart before doing development'. Today nothing enforces it at the start of a task: the Heart gate is only consulted at ship time (ship_library / ship_workspace step 3). This prompt moves a light version of the gate to the front door.

1. A small stdlib helper in PyAutoBrain (bin/heart_feed.py or agents/faculties/vitals): read https://pyautolabs.github.io/PyAutoHeart/state.json (fallback: the local canonical PyAutoHeart state via pyauto-heart readiness --json when offline), print status, headline, updated age and the red/yellow items; exit codes 0 green, 1 yellow/stale, 2 red, 3 grey/unreachable. Never triggers a Heart tick (fast, read-only).
2. skills/start_dev/start_dev.md gains step 0a 'Heart at the door': run the helper; GREEN → continue; YELLOW/STALE → print the reasons and continue (acknowledgement is asked at ship, unchanged); RED → stop before planning and report the verbatim reasons; the human may invoke the existing AUTONOMY.md 'Human override for Heart RED (development only)' to proceed, recorded on the issue as today; GREY/unreachable → say so and continue. Under --auto RED parks the run before any issue is opened. Mirror the step in skills/start_bundle and skills/route (they enter development too).
3. Tests: the helper against fixture feeds (each status + unreachable) and a skill-seam test that the three skill files name the step.

Out of scope: changing ship-time gating; the vitals faculty's tick; Heart internals.

Witness: with a fixture RED feed the helper exits 2 and prints the reasons; start_dev.md, start_bundle.md and route.md each reference the step; a start_dev run in the session shows the Heart line before the plan.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

https://claude.ai/code/session_01SbKQQHRRgm2b69aT9t7771

[Jammy2211]

Checkpoint (2026-09-26, end of session)

Built and committed locally, not pushed, no PR: e31d92f on feature/start-dev-heart-gate in the bundle worktree ~/Code/PyAutoLabs-wt/cockpit-followups/PyAutoBrain. bin/heart_feed.py (live feed: STALE exit 1; --offline fallback: YELLOW exit 1), step 0a 'Heart at the door' in start_dev.md + paragraphs in start_bundle.md, route.md, WORKFLOW.md; ~/.claude skill mirrors are symlinks so nothing else to propagate; 41 targeted tests green, full suite was running at checkpoint.

Heart is YELLOW (three pre-existing organism-map drift reasons); shipping waits on the human's acknowledgement. Resume tomorrow: /ship_library for the bundle cockpit-followups (push + PR + merge on green), then dispatch the board workflow where one exists, then /prm.

[Jammy2211]

Library PR Created

• PR: start_dev: Heart at the door — read the Heart feed before development (#423) #424 (label pending-release, head e31d92f)
• Tests: the full suite gave 1077 passed, 1 failed. The failure (test_grouped_organ_consumers.py::test_hygiene_map_and_heart_board_find_grouped_checkouts) is pre-existing and caused by the env: PYAUTO_MIND exported by the worktree activate.sh overrides the test's PYAUTO_ROOT. It fails the same way on origin/main and passes with PYAUTO_MIND unset.
• API changes: none. This adds a new read-only CLI (bin/heart_feed.py) and start_dev step 0a "Heart at the door".
• Heart YELLOW (85) acknowledged by the human. The reasons are manifest drift and stale release validation, none in this repo.

Next: a human reviews and merges via /prm. No workspace follow-up.

[Jammy2211]

Shipped

Merged in #424 (merge 7de135c, 2026-09-27).

start_dev now has a 'Heart at the door' gate: bin/heart_feed.py reads the Heart state.json (falling back to pyauto-heart readiness); RED stops before planning, YELLOW warns. Mirrored in start_bundle and route.

Pending release: PyAutoBrain@#424 (cleared by /review_release on a published release).