ADR-0054: Board Complete and Extend Stay on Operator-Taken Leases

Status · proposed · Date · 2026-10-26 · Deciders · Proposed by joestump-agent, pending Joe

Status note: this ADR is proposed. It answers the open question left by issue #513 (the SPEC-0034 REQ-6 Board exemption for Release and Fail, landed in the PR that references this ADR); nothing here is settled until Joe accepts it.

Context and Problem Statement

On main, every Board action passed owner = "op:"+human.ID to the …OperatorOwned store calls, which match owner=$2. A todo an agent claimed (owner = agent:<id>) therefore answered every Board action with a conflict, and the owning human could not recover a stuck attempt before its lease lapsed. SPEC-0034 REQ-6 promises that the Board's actions are exempt from the fence, "so a human can always release or fail a stuck attempt."

The fix (issue #513) makes the Release and Fail handlers read the todo through GetTodoOperatorOwned and act on its current owner, so they reach a lease the human's agent holds. REQ-6 names only release and fail. The issue left open whether Complete and Extend also apply to an agent's lease. This ADR proposes the answer: they do not.

Decision

Board Complete and Extend keep acting only on a lease the human took from the Board (owner = op:<human_id>). A lease an agent holds, fenced or not, still answers them with a conflict. Board Release and Fail are the only actions that reach an agent-held lease.

Considered Options

• Extend the read-the-current-owner shape to Complete and Extend as well (the same two-line change in each handler). Rejected:
  • Complete asserts the work is done. The agent holding the lease is the only party that knows whether it is; a human completing the agent's attempt from the Board would close it as completed without the agent's result. REQ-6 promises recovery, not completion by proxy.
  • Extend is a heartbeat. Applying it to an agent's lease would let a human keep a crashed supervisor's lease alive indefinitely, hiding the stall from the reaper — the opposite of the recovery the exemption exists for. A worker that is alive heartbeats itself; one that is not should be reaped, not fed.
  • The fence exists to gate heartbeat, complete, fail and release away from everyone but the attempt's holder. REQ-6's Board exemption narrows that gate for the two actions that unstick a todo without asserting its outcome. Widing it to the outcome- and clock-asserting actions goes beyond the promise.
• Leave Complete and Extend as they are (this ADR). The Board's recovery story stays exactly REQ-6's: release the lease back to the queue, or fail the attempt into backoff.

Consequences

• A Board Complete or Extend on an agent-held lease remains a 409 conflict until this ADR is accepted in a different form or REQ-6 is amended; the guide's fence section documents that.
• If a later requirement needs the Board to complete or extend an agent's lease (for example, an operator finishing work an agent abandoned mid-attempt), it lands as a deliberate change to this ADR, with the Complete-without-result and Extend-past-crash cases decided on the record.