jakman85andClaude Opus 5
8ccfdab180
`required_approvals: 1` on `main` was a lock-out, not a protection. Gitea
refuses to let a PR's author approve their own PR, and `jakman85` is the only
collaborator — so no account in existence could approve a PR the operator
opened, including the PR that would fix that. Measured 2026-10-01 on PR #35:
gate green in 1m41s, reviews `[]`, `required_approvals: 1`, unmergeable.
It was never the documented design either: `ci/approval-policy.sh`'s header and
`ci/gate.sh:194` both already describe the model as "required_approvals drops
to 0 and the GATE decides", and `require-gate.sh`'s own closing note named this
failure and prescribed this remedy. 2026-09-30's entry flagged the 1-vs-0
disagreement as unresolved; this settles it at 0.
Layer 1 — branch protection. required_approvals 1 -> 0 in the declaration, plus
infra/gitea/allow-admin-self-merge.sh to apply it live (target read FROM the
declaration, so the script cannot drift from what the gate checks).
require-gate.sh moves to 0 too; left at 1 it would re-impose the lock-out on its
next run. The narrow choice is deliberate: the other way to unblock an owner is
block_admin_merge_override: false, which would re-open what
block-admin-override.sh was written to close (PRs #5-#9, zero approvals). This
drops the approval COUNT only — block_admin_merge_override and
enable_status_check stay true and are asserted after the PATCH, so a red gate
stays unmergeable by everyone, administrators included.
Layer 2 — ci/approval-policy.sh. Sensitive paths still need a non-author
approval the sole admin cannot get, so an administrator may waive it with an
`/approve-override <reason>` comment: directive must start a line, reason
mandatory, permission re-checked LIVE, invalidated by a new commit, and the
overrider + reason printed in the gate log and job summary. Candidate selection
is the pure, offline ci/approval-override.py (23 unit assertions, all passing);
authorisation stays in the fail-closed stage. Every new failure mode blocks.
The cost, stated not buried: for an administrator, "a change to the gate cannot
be gated by the gate" is now advisory rather than structural. Unavoidable with
one human; what is bought back is an attributed, commit-scoped record instead of
a silent bypass. And the uncomfortable part, accepted as an operator decision:
authorisation is by live permission alone, and the AGENT account `gitea-admin`
also holds `owner` — so an agent can clear its own PR this way. Documented in
approval-policy.json, the stage header, and CLAUDE.md (which tells agents not
to). Narrowing needs no code change: add `override_admins` and the stage already
requires membership.
Adjacent fix, in scope because `make -C ci test` is the only runner for the
suite added here: ci/tests/gate-decision.test.sh hand-maintained a stub list
that "must name EVERY stage gate.sh runs" and omitted `approval-policy` (added
to gate.sh by PR #17), so run_stage hit exit 127 and 15 of 50 assertions failed.
Verified pre-existing on pristine origin/main @ 0c7e8dd. The list is now derived
from gate.sh's own run_stage lines, so the omission cannot recur; the suite goes
15-failed -> 50 passing and `make -C ci test` goes FAILED -> all suites passed.
Toolbox gate: rc 3 UNDETERMINED — every stage green except `gitea-settings`
(no SETTINGS_API_TOKEN locally) and `conformance` (no cluster). NOT a green run.
The live rule is UNCHANGED and still reads 1 — mutating it is an operator
action. Until allow-admin-self-merge.sh is run, ci/gitea-settings.sh will
correctly report DRIFT and this PR will be red.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <[email protected]>
41 lines
4.0 KiB
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41 lines
4.0 KiB
JSON
{
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"_intent": "The CI/CD pipeline is the approver. A human approval is required ONLY for changes that alter what the pipeline itself verifies, or the security posture it rests on -- because those are the changes CI cannot honestly gate: a PR that weakens the gate would be approved by the weakened gate.",
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"_rule": "If a PR touches any sensitive_paths glob, it needs an APPROVED review from someone who is not its author, OR an admin override (see .override). Everything else merges on a green gate alone.",
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"_on_failure_to_evaluate": "BLOCK. Unlike gitea-settings, a skip here is a bypass, not a gap.",
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"sensitive_paths": [
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"ci/**",
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".gitea/**",
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"conformance/**",
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"clusters/**",
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"bootstrap/**",
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"infra/gitea/**",
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"platform/kyverno/**",
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"platform-config/kustomization.yaml",
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".sops.yaml",
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"**/*.sops.yaml",
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"**/rbac.yaml",
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"CLAUDE.md"
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],
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"_why_each": {
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"ci/**, .gitea/**": "the pipeline itself -- the thing doing the approving",
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"conformance/**": "the tests and the harness; changing them changes what green MEANS",
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"clusters/**, bootstrap/**": "Flux wiring -- what reconciles, in what order, with what substitution",
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"infra/gitea/**, platform-config/kustomization.yaml": "branch protection, the drift detector, and the list that decides which admission policies are actually applied",
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"platform/kyverno/**": "the admission policy engine",
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".sops.yaml, **/*.sops.yaml, **/rbac.yaml": "encryption recipients, secrets, and cluster authority",
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"CLAUDE.md": "the delivery contract agents follow"
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},
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"override": {
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"_why": "This repository has ONE human. Gitea refuses to let an author approve their own pull request, so 'a non-author APPROVED review' is a requirement the sole administrator can never satisfy -- every sensitive-path PR they open was permanently unmergeable, including the PR that would fix it. Measured 2026-10-01: PR #35 green gate, zero reviews, unmergeable. An escape hatch that the administrator can actually reach is therefore REQUIRED for the repository to function; the design question is only whether it leaves a record. This one does.",
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"enabled": true,
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"comment_directive": "/approve-override",
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"requires_reason": true,
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"authorized_permissions": ["admin", "owner"],
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"invalidated_by_new_commits": true,
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"_how": "Comment on the PR with the directive at the START of a line, followed by a reason: '/approve-override <why>'. ci/approval-policy.sh resolves the commenter's LIVE repo permission via /collaborators/{login}/permission and accepts the override only if it is in authorized_permissions. The overrider, the timestamp and the reason are printed in the gate log and the job summary.",
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"_self_override_is_allowed": "The author may override their own PR if they hold an authorized permission. That is the entire point -- with one human there is no one else -- but it means the 'a change to the gate cannot be gated by the gate' protection is, for an administrator, advisory rather than structural. It is traded for an auditable record: the waiver is an explicit act, attributed, with a stated reason, in the PR's comment history and the gate output.",
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"_known_consequence_agent_accounts": "ACCEPTED, EYES OPEN (operator decision, 2026-10-01). Authorisation is by live permission ALONE, with no allowlist of human accounts. The agent account `gitea-admin` reports permission `owner` on this repo (measured 2026-10-01), so an AGENT can clear the sensitive-path review on its own PR by posting the directive. Agents author most PRs here, so this is the broad case, not the edge case. To narrow it later without changing any logic, add an `override_admins` allowlist here and require membership in addition to the permission check -- ci/approval-policy.sh reads both from this file.",
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"_staleness": "An override is dropped unless its comment is NEWER than the PR head commit, mirroring Gitea's own dismiss_stale_approvals. An override earned at commit A therefore does not silently cover commit B; push again and you must override again."
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}
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}
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