Gitea working surface: MCP, branch protection, runbook, and two protocol rules #10

Merged
fabi merged 11 commits from agents/gitea-mcp into main 2026-09-07 19:57:55 +00:00

11 Commits

Author SHA1 Message Date
sylph-pi
a3d99adaa6 ci: install the clippy component the Clippy step needs
Some checks failed
CI / Native — linux (pull_request) Failing after 47m11s
CI / WASM — Web (pull_request) Failing after 11m49s
CI / Formatting (pull_request) Failing after 1m40s
`dtolnay/rust-toolchain@stable` installs a minimal profile. The `native`
job named no components, so every run that reached the Clippy step died
on

    error: 'cargo-clippy' is not installed for the toolchain
           'stable-aarch64-unknown-linux-gnu'

before clippy read a line of source. That is not a lint result; the step
had never run. The `fmt` job below always named `components: rustfmt`
correctly — this one never did.

Two lines of behaviour change. The rest is the comment explaining why the
step is left gating on `-D warnings` rather than softened: the workspace
is not clippy-clean (run 203's build alone emits ~13 rustc warnings that
`-D warnings` promotes to errors), and `continue-on-error` cannot tell
"debt not yet paid" from "debt paid". That debt is scoped in #13, the way
the rustfmt debt is in #12.

Run 203 is what made this visible. With the aarch64 fix in c457320 the
native job got all the way through:

    cargo check  --workspace   ok  10m01s
    cargo build  --workspace   ok  19m04s
    cargo test   --workspace   ok  16m22s   214 passed, 0 failed
    cargo clippy --workspace   toolchain error

Refs #13

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01McNbzUeq1KRBWs4G6X2YVj
2026-09-05 15:39:44 +02:00
c457320210 ci: build for the machine that exists, on the runner that exists
Some checks failed
CI / Native — linux (pull_request) Failing after 52m49s
CI / WASM — Web (pull_request) Failing after 11m39s
CI / Formatting (pull_request) Failing after 2m26s
This workflow has never once gone green on this instance: 23 runs cancelled,
2 waiting, zero successes. Not a regression -- it has been decorative since it
was written, because it describes GitHub's hosted fleet and runs on one
self-hosted aarch64 Pi advertising ["ubuntu-latest","ubuntu-24.04",
"ubuntu-22.04"].

Two failures, both configuration rather than code:

`windows-latest` and `macos-latest` match no runner label, so those jobs sit in
WAITING for ever and the RUN never reaches a terminal state. A pull request's
checks therefore never resolve either way -- not red, just never finished, which
is worse than red because a red check tells you something. Removed: a second
architecture here needs a second runner, not a second matrix row.

`--target x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu` on an aarch64 host makes every build a
cross-compile, and `wayland-sys`'s build script dies on it with "pkg-config has
not been configured to support cross-compilation". Dropped; the native job now
builds for its host.

NOT touched, deliberately: the WASM and Formatting jobs still fail, on real code
state rather than on configuration -- `getrandom` needs the `wasm_js` backend
for wasm32-unknown-unknown, and `cargo fmt --check` reports a ~13,000 line diff
across the tree. Editing those two into passing is precisely the leniency with
an expiry date nobody sets that PROTOCOL.md now forbids. They are issues, not
workflow lines.

(One latent defect noted while reading: `jetli/trunk-action` fetches
trunk-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu onto this aarch64 host. It has never been reached
because the WASM check fails first, and it will bite the moment that is fixed.)

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01McNbzUeq1KRBWs4G6X2YVj
2026-09-04 21:13:43 +02:00
MechaCat02
25bfa1553f protocol: findings before citing code, and checks that were kind once
Some checks failed
CI / Native — ubuntu-latest (pull_request) Failing after 10m46s
CI / WASM — Web (pull_request) Failing after 9m2s
CI / Formatting (pull_request) Failing after 46s
CI / Native — macos-latest (pull_request) Has been cancelled
CI / Native — windows-latest (pull_request) Has been cancelled
Two rules that look unrelated and are one failure, plus the change that makes
the second enforceable.

1. A FINDING REACHES `main` BEFORE THE CODE THAT CITES IT. A citation resolving
   only on a peer branch is dead the moment it merges. Not hypothetical: 495
   decoder and 366 port commits sit off `main`, and `port/scripts/boot.gd`
   already cites two docs/re pages present on neither its own branch nor main.

2. A CHECK MAY ONLY SOFTEN AGAINST A CONDITION IT CAN TEST -- the Pi agent's
   wording, and better than mine, because it is applicable while writing rather
   than a call to be vigilant. The mechanical form:

       Can this branch tell the difference between "not yet" and "no longer"?

   `gitea-protect --verify` printed  "not a collaborator (yet)" and continued,
   so the only instrument checking Write-not-Admin could not report that gate
   being REMOVED. `check-citations` reported peer citations instead of failing
   them, because under the old topology that was unfixable from the container.
   Both were correct AND kind when written; neither recorded that the kindness
   had a scope. Nobody edits these into being wrong -- the world moves and the
   allowance stays, which is why they survive review. The smell is leniency with
   an expiry date nobody set; the fix is the testable-condition rule.

check-citations gains `--for-merge`, which turns the peer class into a failure.
A flag rather than a new default because BOTH readings are still live: mid-work
on a topic branch the peer class really is unfixable noise. What the old code
could not express is where the code is GOING, and that is a condition the caller
can state. Measured on this tree: 19 citations resolve only on a peer branch --
which is the size of the #7-depends-on-#8 edge, not the 2 I had counted in
boot.gd.

The selftest gains that third class, because a flag whose classification is
unexercised is the shape this rule exists to catch. Controlled: emptying
PEER_REFS makes the peer case collapse into "nowhere" and the selftest reports
🔴 BROKEN, rc=2.

⚠️ Pre-existing and NOT from this change: the default run already exits 1 on 4
citations of `export/...` paths. Those are the generated tree, gitignored by
design, and main's copy of the tool fails identically. The CITE regex treats
`export/` as a repo prefix. Reported, not fixed -- it is the port's file and its
call whether the regex or the citations are wrong.
2026-09-04 18:27:39 +02:00
7fdcd69434 tools: a missing collaborator is a failure, not a blank
--verify's collaborator loop printed  and continued on 404 without touching
`ok`, so the one instrument that checks Phase 1.2 could not report Phase 1.2
being undone. An agent removed from the repository read as "nothing to say"
rather than as a gate that is no longer there.

It has never fired: Gitea answers that endpoint with permission "read" for a
non-collaborator rather than 404, so the case was caught by the role test two
lines down. Correct outcome, wrong reason -- the same shape as the check that
passed on an instance with no rule at all, and not worth keeping because the
luck has held so far.

Found by the port agent reading the file rather than running it, which is the
only way this one was ever going to surface.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01McNbzUeq1KRBWs4G6X2YVj
2026-09-04 17:59:51 +02:00
MechaCat02
87932e4017 docs: the status block said nothing existed while nine issues were live
Phases 1-4 and 6 are done on the instance. This file still opened with "Nothing
exists on the instance: no agent users, no API tokens, no labels, no milestones,
no branch protection" -- every clause of which was false by the time the merge
that carried it landed.

Replaced with a table of measured state, and each row says what was MEASURED
rather than what was run:

  * protection is verified behaviourally -- a real push to main refused with
    `pre-receive hook declined`, as the repository owner -- not read off a
    settings page. That distinction is the whole subject of this file.
  * the tokens are probed: right identity, 403 on branch_protections for both
    agents, so the Write-not-Admin carve-out is demonstrated and not asserted.
  * the labels are 11 because the instance holds 11.

And a standing note that this block is the part most likely to be wrong, with
what to believe instead: `gitea-protect --verify` and the issue list MEASURE,
this block REMEMBERS. A remembered status is a cache with no invalidation, which
is the same failure as a 1,227-line BLOCKED.md and as the two documents this
runbook was split across an hour ago.
2026-09-04 17:55:28 +02:00
MechaCat02
bfc6ec4cac Merge branch 'pi/gate-limit' into agents/gitea-mcp 2026-09-04 17:55:00 +02:00
MechaCat02
a008836ea0 docs: the tool creates 11 labels, not 12 -- I counted its own definition
Caught by the Pi agent against the live instance after Phase 4 ran. The tool
creates 5 state/*, 2 agent/*, 4 kind/* = 11.

Where the 12 came from is worth a line, because it is a shape that recurs:

    $ grep -c '^mklabel' tools/gitea-setup
    12
    $ grep -n '^mklabel' tools/gitea-setup | grep -v ':mklabel "'
    74:mklabel() { # name colour description

I counted the function DEFINITION as a call. A measurement taken one token away
from the thing being measured -- the same shape as reading protection off a
settings page and reachability off a DNS record, which is now three today. The
version that cannot make this mistake is counting what the instance holds, and
that is what found it.
2026-09-04 17:50:50 +02:00
057bbd438c agents: name what branch protection does not gate, and stop the tool contradicting it
Two things that read as protection while being none.

Phase 2's rule binds everyone who reaches Gitea through the API or the web, and
does not bind anyone with `gitea admin` in the container -- which includes the
supervising agent that created the agent accounts and minted their tokens. From
that shell the rule is editable and an admin token is one command away. That is
the boundary of what the phase buys, not a hole to plug there, and the document
read as though the gate were universal. Phases 1 and 2 gate the two CONTAINERISED
agents, whose design assumption is that policy lives where they cannot reach it;
a supervisor with a host shell is not in that set.

And `gitea-setup` finished by telling the reader to go and build a Gitea project
board by hand, four sections after the doc explains that a board is a second copy
of the state to hand-sync and is precisely the failure that produced a 1,227-line
BLOCKED.md. A tool instructing you to do the thing its own documentation argues
against is the drift this whole surface exists to end.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01McNbzUeq1KRBWs4G6X2YVj
2026-09-04 17:48:58 +02:00
MechaCat02
17c0e3f2ab docs: fold the page's revisions into the file, and separate wrong from unchecked
The runbook existed as two documents -- a published page and this file -- with
no mechanism keeping them equal, only an intention to remember. Two versions was
the predicted outcome of that, not an accident on top of it. This is the fold,
and the rule that follows it: THIS FILE IS THE SOURCE, the page is derived from
it. When something is urgent enough to push to the page first, it lands here in
the same turn, not "shortly after".

Four things the file did not carry:

  * YOUR OWN PUSHES TO main STOP. `enable_push: false` compiles to CanUserPush,
    which returns false with no bypass for admins or the owner -- quoted from
    the source. Three commits went in by direct push the day this was written,
    so the first notice would have been mid-task. Now a check step.
  * the token files' MACHINES, which the table had lost.
  * do NOT add `write:repository` to the `fabi` token. That scope IS a push
    credential. Written down because that advice was given, in chat, by the
    author of this file.
  * Gitea 1.25.5 confirmed from the desktop too, not just the Pi.

And one thing deliberately NOT folded in: the page said the desktop's outbound
HTTP was blocked, and that is false. `python3 -c 'urllib...'` returns
200 {"version":"1.25.5"} from this box. What is refused here is `curl`, by a
local permission prompt -- which I read as a network constraint and then
published as one. The Phase 3 locations stand; the reason given for them did not.

The "not verified" section now separates WRONG from UNCHECKED. Four entries are
wrong -- requiring an approval does not close the gate, the check could not have
caught that, the token scope, the reachability -- and the pattern in all four is
identical: a property inferred from something ADJACENT to it (protection from a
settings page, reachability from a DNS record) instead of tested directly. That
is the frozen-splash failure, committed in the document about avoiding it. The
first two were caught by the other agent, which is the argument for the review
gate this file exists to build.
2026-09-04 17:18:46 +02:00
7e5719d457 tools: apply and re-check the branch protection rule, rather than clicking it
Phase 2 as a file. Six settings where two are load-bearing and both were missing
from the first draft is the shape of thing that gets mis-clicked at 1am, so it
goes through the API: what was applied is readable in a diff, and `--verify`
can re-check it later instead of it being checked once.

--verify states its expectations INDEPENDENTLY of what the apply path sends.
A check derived from "whatever we posted" cannot fail -- it re-derives the
expectation from the thing under test, which is the same instrument-shaped
failure as a check that passes on an instance with no rule at all.

It also asserts both agents are still Write and not Admin, because an agent
promoted to Admin can edit the rule and then merge, so a green rule proves
nothing on its own. That is the `gitea-verify` card from "Still to build";
what is left of it is only putting it on a timer.

`block_admin_merge_override` stays false on purpose, and the reasoning is in
the file: approvals are whitelisted to `fabi`, and Gitea will not let `fabi`
approve a `fabi` PR -- so with the override blocked, a human-authored PR could
never reach one approval and could never merge at all. The override is not a
hole in the agent gate because the agents are Write, not Admin. Phase 1.2 pays
for that; this is where it is spent.

Reads the repository-scoped credential that already exists on the agent box
(~/.sylph-git-credentials) rather than the issue-only ~/.sylph-gitea-api-token,
which every branch-protection endpoint refuses. That keeps the setup needing no
new credential, and keeps push rights on one machine.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01McNbzUeq1KRBWs4G6X2YVj
2026-09-04 16:49:58 +02:00
034e98eeb0 docker: give each agent its own Gitea hands, and close the cross-approval hole
Phase 5 of docs/agents/GITEA-SETUP.md, plus a correction to Phase 2 that the
runbook could not have known it needed.

gitea-mcp v1.7.0 goes into both images, pinned by the sha256 the release
publishes and smoke-tested with `--version` at build time, so a bad pin fails
the build instead of the agent. Each entrypoint registers it at user scope for
that container's own identity, remove-then-add so a restart is idempotent.

The token is passed BY PATH. `-e GITEA_ACCESS_TOKEN=$(cat …)` would write it in
cleartext into ~/.claude.json, which every session in the container reads;
GITEA_ACCESS_TOKEN_FILE is new in the pinned version and leaves the secret in
its read-only mount. Verified against the binary's own --help, not assumed.

The tool filter stops being an experiment. The names are in the release README:
each agent gets issues, notifications, labels, milestones and pull requests, and
NOT `pull_request_review_write`. That one matters because separate identities
open a hole the runbook did not name: Gitea refuses to let an author approve
their own pull request, and does nothing about sylph-decoder approving
sylph-port's. Two agents could satisfy `required_approvals = 1` between
themselves and then merge, since branch protection blocks pushes to main and
never blocked merges.

Withholding the tool is defence in depth; the controls are in branch protection,
and both docs now say so: approvals whitelisted to the human so an agent's
approval does not count, merges whitelisted to the human so an approved PR is
still merged by a person. Phase 2's check gains the step that actually tests it
-- approve the throwaway PR yourself, then confirm the agent STILL has no merge
button. Without that step, the check passes on an instance where the agents can
merge each other's work.

Also settles two entries on the runbook's own "not verified" list: the tool
filter names, and the Gitea version (1.25.5, whose API schema carries
enable_merge_whitelist and enable_approvals_whitelist under those names).

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01McNbzUeq1KRBWs4G6X2YVj
2026-09-04 16:39:12 +02:00