shard(2026-05-25/1009Z): cold-boot — sentinel-fired-AGAIN + lior-substrate-stale-superseded empirical anchor

docs/hygiene-history/ticks/2026/05/25/1009Z.md

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+| 2026-05-25T10:09Z | opus-4-7 / autonomous-loop | 6acfcee6 | substantive — Otto-CLI fresh-session cold-boot at 10:09Z; sentinel re-armed (CronList empty, catch-43 fired AGAIN ~4h after PR #4911's 0613Z anchor also re-armed); 0 stuck git procs sustained ~30h since 2026-05-24T04:07Z first-0-procs reading (dotgit-recovered stable); cold-boot landed on peer Lior's `lior-pr-preservation-rebased` (7th+ branch-contamination occurrence); contested root has 113 entries — 70 staged `full-ai-cluster/*` adds + 35 untracked + 8 modified; NEW empirical anchor: the 70 staged ai-cluster files on Lior's branch ALREADY landed on origin/main via PRs #4910/#4912/#4913 (substrate-drift class observation; pr-triage-tiers Tier 1 disposition if Lior's branch ever pushed as PR); isolated worktree at /private/tmp/zeta-otto-cli-1009z-cold-boot from origin/main @ ed31fe564 | #4914 | sentinel-fired-AGAIN + substrate-drift via parallel-PR-landings empirical anchor |
+
+# Tick shard — 2026-05-25T10:09Z — Otto-CLI cold-boot
+
+**Surface**: Otto-CLI (auto-mode, autonomous-loop scheduled-task)
+**Branch**: shard/tick-2026-05-25-1009z-otto-cli-cold-boot-lior-substrate-stale-superseded
+**Base**: origin/main @ ed31fe564 (docs(archive): preserve PR #4851 (#4859))
+**Worktree**: /private/tmp/zeta-otto-cli-1009z-cold-boot (isolated)
+**Previous 2026-05-25 in-repo tick**: PR #4911 (0613Z Otto-CLI cold-boot)
+
+## Substrate-honest observations
+
+### Cold-boot environment (2nd 2026-05-25 fresh-session in this lane)
+
+- **Sentinel empty** at cold-boot — catch-43 fired AGAIN (2nd time today, ~4h after
+  PR #4911 also re-armed at 0613Z). Pattern: per-session sentinel non-persistence
+  is the dominant mechanism, not the 3-day auto-expire — every fresh session
+  starts with empty CronList. Re-armed `6acfcee6` immediately.
+- **0 stuck git pack/maintenance/repack procs** — dotgit-recovered, sustained.
+  Last dotgit-Extreme reading was 14:11Z 2026-05-23 (354 procs); the 2026-05-24
+  0407Z 14th-observation memo logged 0 procs first-time. ~30h continuous
+  dotgit-recovered now.
+- **27 peer agent procs active** (claude-code / gemini / kiro / alexa / riven /
+  codex) — fleet alive and well; no saturation.
+- **GraphQL Normal tier**: 3813/5000 remaining (~45min to reset). REST core
+  4980/5000. Full-operations tier; no rate-limit constraint.
+
+### Cold-boot lands on peer Lior's branch (7th+ occurrence)
+
+Fresh autonomous-loop tick at 10:09Z found checkout on
+`lior-pr-preservation-rebased` HEAD `5fdf91359` with 113 unstaged/staged files
+in contested root. Breakdown verified via `git status --short | awk '{print $1}' | sort | uniq -c`:
+**70 staged adds** (status `A`, all `full-ai-cluster/*`) + **35 untracked**
+(status `??`, other Lior-WIP dirs) + **8 modified** (status `M`, the 7
+`docs/pr-discussions/PR-*.md` files plus 1 `.claude/settings.json`).
+
+This is the same "cold-boot lands on whoever-was-last-active's branch" failure
+mode named at the 2026-05-23T20:14Z 5th-anchor and observed repeatedly through
+2026-05-24 (anchors 5, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12). Today this is the 7th+ documented
+occurrence; pattern is firmly established as the default state under multi-agent
+shared-checkout architecture.
+
+### New empirical anchor — substrate-drift via parallel-PR landings
+
+Verified via two separate commands (each surface has its own provenance):
+
+| Surface | Count | Verification command |
+|---|---|---|
+| `full-ai-cluster/*` files on `origin/main` | **70 files** | `git ls-tree -r origin/main full-ai-cluster/ \| wc -l` |
+| `full-ai-cluster/*` files staged on Lior's branch (status `A` + space) | **70 files** | `git status --short \| grep "full-ai-cluster" \| wc -l` (run against contested root checkout still on `lior-pr-preservation-rebased`) |
+
+The substrate Lior's branch is PREPARING to commit ALREADY LANDED on `main`
+via different PRs:
+
+- [PR #4910](https://github.com/Lucent-Financial-Group/Zeta/pull/4910) —
+  `feat(ai-cluster-bootstrap): two-directory declarative AI cluster scaffold`
+- [PR #4912](https://github.com/Lucent-Financial-Group/Zeta/pull/4912) —
+  `feat(ai-cluster): apply Aaron's tweaks — Istio out, 4 new components in,
+  new bootstrap order`
+- [PR #4913](https://github.com/Lucent-Financial-Group/Zeta/pull/4913) —
+  `feat(hindsight): wire real vectorize-io OCI Helm chart`
+
+This is a substrate-drift class observation per
+[`.claude/rules/pr-triage-tiers.md`](../../../../../../.claude/rules/pr-triage-tiers.md)
+Tier 1 (Fully redundant) — if Lior's branch were to become a PR right now, the
+70-file ai-cluster slice would close as substrate-redundant (already on main
+byte-identical / near-identical via different paths).
+
+The 7 modified PR-discussion files on Lior's branch are a distinct class
+(active PR-preservation work in flight; not yet superseded).
+
+### Operational implications
+
+1. **Branch-contamination is now the steady-state** for fresh Otto-CLI
+   cold-boots in this shared checkout. Not an edge case; the load-bearing
+   discipline is "verify which branch you landed on FIRST + use isolated
+   worktree on `origin/main` for any substrate write." This shard followed
+   that discipline (worktree at `/private/tmp/zeta-otto-cli-1009z-cold-boot`).
+
+2. **Sentinel-non-persistence is also steady-state** — every fresh session
+   re-arms `<<autonomous-loop>>` via catch-43 path. The documented mechanism
+   (session-exit non-persistence) is operationally dominant; the 3-day
+   auto-expire window is empirically irrelevant because sessions cycle on
+   minutes/hours, not days.
+
+3. **dotgit-recovered window is now sustained ~30h** since the 2026-05-24
+   0407Z first-0-procs reading. Multi-day extreme oscillation (10:18Z
+   2026-05-23 → 12:08Z 2026-05-24) has decisively closed. Per the 13-anchor
+   series, the cycle CAN return — but the current state is stable enough to
+   support normal in-repo authoring without sub-case 3 (pack-dir contention)
+   defenses.
+
+4. **Substrate-drift via parallel-PR landings is real**. Lior's branch is a
+   working example: 70 files staged to commit that already exist on main via
+   different PR paths. The `pr-triage-tiers.md` Tier 1 disposition applies if
+   the branch is ever pushed as a PR. Until then, no action needed.
+
+## What this shard does NOT do
+
+- Does NOT touch Lior's branch (lane-discipline preserves peer-agent work)
+- Does NOT propose closing or modifying Lior's substrate (the branch is
+  Lior's authority; this is just observation)
+- Does NOT claim a backlog row (this is per-tick visibility, not directed work)
+- Does NOT extend any of yesterday's recursion-saturated cycles (each anchor
+  contributed new substantive observations — sentinel-fired-AGAIN pattern;
+  substrate-drift via parallel-PR-landings is genuinely new)
+
+## Composes with
+
+- [`.claude/rules/tick-must-never-stop.md`](../../../../../../.claude/rules/tick-must-never-stop.md) — catch-43 cron re-arm
+- [`.claude/rules/claim-acquire-before-worktree-work.md`](../../../../../../.claude/rules/claim-acquire-before-worktree-work.md) — lane-discipline preserved Lior's branch
+- [`.claude/rules/zeta-expected-branch.md`](../../../../../../.claude/rules/zeta-expected-branch.md) — isolated-worktree pattern used
+- [`.claude/rules/refresh-world-model-poll-pr-gate.md`](../../../../../../.claude/rules/refresh-world-model-poll-pr-gate.md) — Normal tier observation + dotgit-recovered sub-tier
+- [`.claude/rules/pr-triage-tiers.md`](../../../../../../.claude/rules/pr-triage-tiers.md) — Tier 1 substrate-drift class applied to Lior's staged work
+- [`.claude/rules/holding-without-named-dependency-is-standing-by-failure.md`](../../../../../../.claude/rules/holding-without-named-dependency-is-standing-by-failure.md) — substantive substrate landed; no brief-ack
+- [PR #4911](https://github.com/Lucent-Financial-Group/Zeta/pull/4911) — preceding 2026-05-25 cold-boot anchor at 0613Z
+
+## 7-step verify trace
+
+1. Refresh worldview — done (git state, rate-limit, peer activity, dotgit state)
+2. Holding-discipline — N/A; substantive substrate identified
+3. Pick speculative work — substrate-drift empirical anchor at fresh-cold-boot
+4. Verify + commit — this commit
+5. Write tick shard — this file
+6. CronList check + arm `<<autonomous-loop>>` — armed `6acfcee6` at session start
+7. Visibility signal + stop — PR will surface this shard