Brutal Worker

Complete one exact work item and its pull request. Never select a replacement.

Required Context

Always require the stable task reference and read applicable repository rules. Read ../brutal-shared/integration-resolver.md and ../brutal-shared/support/contracts.md. Reuse a managed assignment’s validated work-store/code-host identities, canonical local root, worktree, branch, and base; resolve only missing data needed by the current phase.

For standalone work, also read ../brutal-swarm/references/parallel-execution.md, create or resume the isolated worktree with ../brutal-swarm/scripts/worktree_manager.py, and read ../brutal-inf-fix-loop/SKILL.md plus its source skills.

For managed work, the immutable handoff establishes assignment identity; the phase snapshot supplies revalidated mutable state. Runtime names, logs, and old snapshots are observational and grant no provider authority. Read only the supplied phase context file.

Hard Rules

• Own only the handed-off item, branch, worktree, and pull request.
• Select only task or review_finding; never implement a plan or investigation.
• Never merge, approve, request changes, force-push, delete a remote branch, or create a second pull request for the item.
• Preserve unrelated changes and edit only the isolated worktree.
• Keep the item in_progress until a fresh review has no CRITICAL or MAJOR. Then it may move to in_review; move it to done only after its PR merged.

Managed Phase Protocol

When the prompt contains a managed phase snapshot, do only that phase and return the supervisor’s exact result. Do not continue into the next phase.

work

Read the full item, history, parent/blockers, assignment, and existing PR link. Prove the exact claim from the expected state before changing code. Validate worktree, branch, base branch/SHA, and branch task marker. Implement, test, self-review, commit, push, and find-or-create the single marked PR. Return a checkpoint with current base/head, PR, verification, and zeroed review fields.

review

Read ../brutal-inf-fix-loop/SKILL.md and ../brutal-pr-review/SKILL.md. Use only the exact PR/base/head snapshot and relevant repository rules. Run one fresh material_convergence pass. Return counts for all severities, review id, queued/unhandled counts, summary status, and residual MINOR/NIT findings. Exit after the checkpoint.

fix

Read ../brutal-inf-fix-loop/SKILL.md and ../brutal-pr-finding-fixer/SKILL.md. Drain the full generated all-severity queue for the supplied review occurrence, verify, push, re-read base/head, and return a checkpoint. Do not start a review.

If work or fix hits a merge/rebase conflict, preserve the worktree and return blocked with the exact recovery state.

handoff

This phase is reached only after a fresh review has zero CRITICAL and zero MAJOR. Revalidate PR identity, base/head, task ownership, queue state, and required checks. Reuse same-head verification only when the complete base/head snapshot still matches and checks still pass; otherwise rerun it. Record changed files, commands/results, commits, PR/base, review id, completion kind, and residual MINOR/NIT findings on the task. Move it to in_review and return terminal clean with zero_findings or materially_clean.

complete

After a matching PR is verified merged, record acceptance, move the item to done, and return terminal clean with completion_kind: merged. This is the only preassigned phase that replaces the scheduler’s post-merge finalize action; never use finalize as a managed worker phase.

The supervisor alone derives legal phase transitions. A fresh phase uses fresh execution context. The tmux adapter resumes its exact Codex thread only when an attempt was interrupted in the same phase. Return blocked, canceled, claim_lost, or failed with exact recovery state on hard stops.

Standalone Lifecycle

1. Read and claim the exact item. Resume a matching open PR/branch; complete a matching merged PR; block on closed-unmerged or identity mismatch.
2. Confirm the isolated branch/base and implement the smallest verified change.

3. Commit and push normally. Find the PR by exact marker and head before creating one against the handed-off base:

   <!-- brutal-worker:v1:<stable-task-ref> -->
   Source: brutal-worker
   Work item: <stable ref or URL>
   Parent: <stable ref or none>
   Blocked by: <stable refs or none>
   Stack base: <branch and blocker ref or root>
   Verification: <commands and results>

4. Run $brutal-inf-fix-loop until materially clean, perform the handoff checks above, update the item, and move it to in_review.

Redirect verbose builds, tests, diffs, and provider output to run-local temporary logs. Report command status and duration. On failure, include only the last 200 lines or 16 KiB, whichever is smaller.