Human Gates

Human gates are the operator-facing boundary where ASF50 stops and waits for a real owner decision. This page is the canonical reference for what scopes exist, what sources are accepted, and how consumption works.

Scopes

The canonical scopes (from scripts/goal-runner/scoped_owner_gate.py):

Scope	Used for	Allowed sources
MERGE_APPROVAL	Approving a PR merge at the exact head	github-review-approval, signed-ticket
TAG_APPROVAL	Creating a Git tag	github-review-approval, signed-ticket
RELEASE_APPROVAL	Authorizing a release	github-review-approval, signed-ticket
PHASE_00_RESUME_APPROVAL	Resuming PHASE-00 after a pause	github-review-approval, signed-ticket
PRODUCTION_PROMOTION	Promoting to production	github-review-approval, signed-ticket
PAID_MODEL_DISPATCH_APPROVAL	Dispatching to a paid model adapter	owner-cli, signed-ticket, github-review-approval

Sources

EXTERNAL_HUMAN_SOURCES = {github-review-approval, owner-cli, signed-ticket}

Source	Channel	Used by
github-review-approval	GitHub UI or gh pr review --approve, ingested by ingest-github-review.ps1	MERGE_APPROVAL, TAG_APPROVAL, RELEASE_APPROVAL, PHASE_00_RESUME_APPROVAL, PRODUCTION_PROMOTION, PAID_MODEL_DISPATCH_APPROVAL
signed-ticket	OpenSSH-signed authorization payload, verified by signed_ticket_verifier.py	MERGE_APPROVAL, TAG_APPROVAL, RELEASE_APPROVAL, PHASE_00_RESUME_APPROVAL, PRODUCTION_PROMOTION, PAID_MODEL_DISPATCH_APPROVAL
owner-cli	goal-gate.ps1 -Action approve -Source owner-cli …	PAID_MODEL_DISPATCH_APPROVAL only

Subject binding

Every high-stakes gate records a subject_sha. The orchestrator refuses to consume a gate whose subject_sha does not match the runtime HEAD. To re-issue a gate for a different HEAD, the owner re-runs the gate creation at the new head.

Consumption

A gate is consumed when the orchestrator uses it to authorize a step. After consumption:

• The gate transitions to APPROVED (or CONSUMED).
• dispatches_used is incremented.
• The gate is no longer in the open list.

Replaying a consumed gate fails closed.

Operator commands

List open gates

.\scripts\goal-runner\goal-gate.ps1 -Action list -RuntimeRoot $env:ASF50_RUNTIME_ROOT

Inspect a specific gate

.\scripts\goal-runner\goal-gate.ps1 -Action inspect -GateId <gate-id> -RuntimeRoot $env:ASF50_RUNTIME_ROOT

Approve via owner-cli (paid-model only)

.\scripts\goal-runner\goal-gate.ps1 `
  -Action approve `
  -GateId <gate-id> `
  -Approver "<human display name>" `
  -Source owner-cli `
  -Note "<bounded justification>" `
  -RuntimeRoot $env:ASF50_RUNTIME_ROOT

Reject a gate

.\scripts\goal-runner\goal-gate.ps1 `
  -Action reject `
  -GateId <gate-id> `
  -Approver "<human display name>" `
  -Source owner-cli `
  -Reason "<bounded reason>" `
  -RuntimeRoot $env:ASF50_RUNTIME_ROOT

Ingest a GitHub review

.\scripts\goal-runner\ingest-github-review.ps1 `
  -GoalId <GOAL_ID> `
  -ReviewJsonPath "<path-to-review.json>"

What is NOT an approval

• A chat message saying "approved" — not a gate.
• A gh pr review --approve invocation that the orchestrator has not ingested.
• A signed ticket whose subject_sha does not match the runtime HEAD.
• An agent-role identity string in the approver field — rejected at write time.
• A historical gate whose dispatches_used is already at max_dispatches.

Provenance matrix

Provenance	MERGE_APPROVAL	TAG_APPROVAL	RELEASE_APPROVAL	PHASE_00_RESUME_APPROVAL	PRODUCTION_PROMOTION	PAID_MODEL_DISPATCH_APPROVAL
github-review-approval	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
signed-ticket	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
owner-cli	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	✓