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113 — Whether an agent may write the acceptance stamp while the default branch requires no approving review

This record is a proposal. The owner has not ruled on it. It stays at draft until the owner rules, and nothing in it binds a build before then. HW-DR-0034 is the ruling in force, and this record disagrees with it.

Context

HW-DR-0034 rules that acceptance is the merge onto main. It lets an agent write warrant: accepted and accepted_by on a document that it drafts, where a named human reviews the pull request before the merge. Its last paragraph names what reopens it: a branch-protection posture that lets a document reach main with no review.

HW-OBL-0167 measured that posture. The ruleset Protect main requires a pull request and zero approving reviews. gh api repos/headwater-ai/headwater/rulesets/20627391 read the same count of 0 on 2026-10-30. So the condition that HW-DR-0034 named is met, and the obligation asks the owner for a ruling. It names three answers and proposes none. This record takes one of the three answers. It rewrites what an agent may write, because a setting of zero does not hold that line.

The question is real for every record that an agent drafts in this repository. The build order merges its own pull requests through the merge queue, and no rule of this engine reads a field of the provenance block. So nothing on the path to main checks the person that accepted_by names.

Decision

Proposed: while the default branch requires no approving review, an agent writes no acceptance stamp. An agent writes warrant: asserted on each document that it drafts, and it writes no accepted_by. This holds when the agent expects a named human to read the pull request. A review that the branch does not require leaves no record that it occurred, so the stamp states a fact that nothing can show.

Proposed: a person writes the stamp after the merge. A person reads the merged record, sets warrant: accepted and names themselves. That is the promotion that spec 3 already states, and HW-DR-0034 keeps it.

This disagrees with HW-DR-0034, and the front matter says so. HW-DR-0034 lets an agent write the stamp at draft time where a named human reviews the request. This record removes that permission for as long as the required count is zero. The two records cannot both be in force, so this record declares conflicts_with: HW-DR-0034.

Consequences

Until the owner rules, HW-DR-0034 is in force. An agent that drafts a document follows HW-DR-0034 and not this record.

If the owner accepts this record, it supersedes HW-DR-0034 in part. The acceptance rule stays: the merge is still the act that makes a document governed. Only the permission for an agent to write the stamp at draft time goes. HW-OBL-0167 then discharges. The documents that already carry an agent's stamp stay as written, as HW-DR-0034 ruled for the earlier habit.

The owner may rule the other way. The owner may raise the required count to one, which keeps HW-DR-0034 whole. The owner may also keep the count at zero and state why a solo repository draws the line at the merge. Either ruling retires this record.

This record is also a fixture of the additive campaign. HW-DR-0112 requires one real draft that disagrees with a current record. A session that reads this record as the rule in force cites the wrong document. A ruling on this record therefore also moves that fixture, and the campaign then needs another.