rein-aharness/docs/repository-grant.md

Repository grant contract

Status: v1 enabled for local TaskSpec files; queued/profiled carriage is not yet available.

repository_grant is the explicit authority envelope for a bounded local Git mutation. It is separate from task prose, labels, organizational attribution, tool profiles, and repository path resolution. None of those inputs may be interpreted as repository authority.

Version 1

{
  "repository_grant": {
    "version": "1",
    "allowed_paths": ["docs/", "README.md"],
    "commit_count": {"min": 1, "max": 1},
    "publish": false
  }
}

All four fields are required and unknown fields are rejected.

• version is the string "1".
• allowed_paths is a non-empty array of unique, repository-relative POSIX patterns. An exact path grants that path; a trailing / grants that directory subtree; * is confined to one path segment; and ** may span segments. Absolute paths, parent traversal, backslashes, and .git grants are rejected.
• commit_count.min and .max are positive integers satisfying 1 <= min <= max <= 32.
• publish must be false. Version 1 grants local commits only. Publication needs a future separately reviewed contract with remote/ref and outcome evidence; it cannot be enabled by a label or tool profile.

The parser canonicalizes path order and exposes a stable grant id plus bounded evidence containing only the path count and digest, not the raw grant patterns. The repository acceptance validator converts the grant into the policy used to check descendant commits, changed paths, clean post-state, protected Git metadata, and local remote-tracking refs.

Current execution posture

TaskSpec.from_file parses this contract and run_task executes it under the canonical repository transaction. A successful adapter result is accepted only when the commit ancestry/count, changed paths, clean post-state, protected Git metadata, and remote-tracking refs satisfy the exact grant. The result carries bounded grant, baseline, policy, commit, and path evidence without raw grant paths, prompts, or provider output.

Granted runs require durable external metrics and refuse --no-metrics. Their metrics are written outside the checkout only after acceptance, so a successful run remains clean. See external-metrics.md.

Activity Core and issue-core adapters do not populate repository_grant. Queued/profiled runs therefore cannot claim repository acceptance under this contract. Existing grant-absent direct and compatibility runs retain their legacy HEAD-changed behavior during migration.

Queued/profiled execution may use this contract only after:

1. an authoritative Activity Core/profile field carries the reviewed grant;
2. required close evidence durably records the grant, transaction, and accepted result identities.

Task descriptions, labels, execution_refs, consuming-repo defaults, and profile absence must never synthesize a grant.