feat(B-0894.3): per-persona worktrees outside operator's primary repo — ~/.zeta/agents/<persona>/<stream>/ canonical

[AceHack]

Operator-named refinement

"~/Documents/src/repos/Zeta/worktrees/lior- this sometimes locks up where i can't switch to main cause lior has it locked to a worktree isolated branches per persona or even per persona's parallel strems just for full isolation. I think ~/Documents/src/repos/Zeta/ is for shared up to date main and for me to push changes"*
"or maybe just .zeta/agents/"
— operator 2026-05-28, immediately after PR #5696 merged

What B-0894 (PR #5696) got right vs what B-0894.3 corrects

Concern	PR #5696 (B-0894)	This PR (B-0894.3)
Reboot survival (/private/tmp clears on reboot)	✅ Fixed — moved off /private/tmp/	✅ Preserved (new location also under user home)
Operator-primary stays agent-free	❌ NOT fixed — placed under ~/Documents/src/repos/Zeta/worktrees/	✅ Fixed — moved to ~/.zeta/agents/<persona>/<stream>/, outside operator's primary entirely
Per-persona isolation	Partial (path-prefix discriminator)	✅ Full — one dir per AI persona
Per-stream isolation within persona	Not addressed	✅ Multiple worktrees per persona for parallel work-threads
Namespace pattern	Ad-hoc worktrees/<surface>-*	✅ ~/.zeta/ mirrors ~/.claude/ dotfile-namespace pattern (composes with future ~/.zeta/bus/ per B-0894.1)

The architecture

~/.zeta/                                    # Zeta namespace root (parallel to ~/.claude/)
  agents/
    otto-cli/
      b0894-3-per-persona-outside-repo-2026-05-28/   # this PR's authoring worktree
      tick-0512z/                                    # parallel stream
      shard-XYZ/                                     # another parallel stream
    otto-desktop/
    otto-vscode/
    lior/
    alexa-kiro/
    riven-cursor/
    vera-codex/
    lior-antigravity/
  bus/                                       # future per B-0894.1
  config/                                    # future
~/Documents/src/repos/Zeta/                  # OPERATOR primary — agent worktrees forbidden

Empirical proof

This PR's worktree lives at ~/.zeta/agents/otto-cli/b0894-3-per-persona-outside-repo-2026-05-28/ — the first instance of the new canonical pattern. Operator primary checkout (~/Documents/src/repos/Zeta/) is unaffected: no git status pollution, no [main]-holding risk, operator can git checkout any branch unblocked.

Same dogfooding pattern as PR #5696 (which used persistent-location to land persistent-location). Iterative refinement is operationally clean — operator surfaced the residual issue, follow-up PR fixes it without retracting the parent.

What this PR delivers

• B-0894.3 backlog row (P1, refinement of B-0894) with operator's verbatim correction + architecture table + acceptance criteria
• agent-worktree-hygiene rule update:
  • Carved sentence: two compounding invariants (reboot-survival + operator-primary-stays-agent-free)
  • Rule 1: example paths flipped to ~/.zeta/agents/<persona>/
  • Rule 2: default location flipped from ~/Documents/src/repos/Zeta/worktrees/<surface>-* (B-0894) to ~/.zeta/agents/<persona>/<stream-id>/ (B-0894.3); Lior migration documented as non-blocking
  • Rule 4: audit command scans ~/.zeta/agents/ + all legacy surfaces
  • Rule 5: two compounding invariants table includes BOTH reboot-outcome AND operator-blocking columns; PR feat(B-0894): reboot-survival worktree-location discipline — flip default from /private/tmp/ to ~/Documents/src/repos/Zeta/worktrees/ #5696's location shown as "survived but operator-blocking" case
  • Audit + verify-no-main-held commands scan all 4 surfaces

Composes with

• B-0894 (parent, PR feat(B-0894): reboot-survival worktree-location discipline — flip default from /private/tmp/ to ~/Documents/src/repos/Zeta/worktrees/ #5696, merged d3962a9ef) — reboot-survival fix; this PR refines location
• B-0750 — cleanup discipline; cleanup commands updated to scan new surface
• B-0751 — per-agent isolated clones (per-persona dirs are worktree-level analog)
• B-0530 — multi-agent contention; per-persona base dirs reduce contention surface
• B-0894.1 (filed later) — bus envelope migration to ~/.zeta/bus/; same namespace
• tick-must-never-stop.md — sentinel session-exit non-persistence is sibling at harness-level; this PR is filesystem-level. SessionStart hook + first-action discipline produces auto-arming sentinel at session-open (empirically validated this session per operator observation)

What this PR does NOT deliver (future-state work)

• Lior migration of 10 worktrees under operator's primary repo (5 top-level + 5 under worktrees/) — non-blocking; coordinated with Lior's loop substrate
• B-0894.1 bus envelope migration to ~/.zeta/bus/
• B-0894.2 worktree-pool primitive (long-term mechanization)
• Cleanup of old ~/Documents/src/repos/Zeta/worktrees/otto-cli-reboot-survival-fix-0434z/ (the PR feat(B-0894): reboot-survival worktree-location discipline — flip default from /private/tmp/ to ~/Documents/src/repos/Zeta/worktrees/ #5696 authoring worktree) — can be removed in a separate housekeeping pass

Test plan

• B-0894.3 backlog row authored with substrate-inventory + composes_with + operator-verbatim
• Rule edit: carved sentence + Rule 1 + Rule 2 + Rule 4 + Rule 5 + audit + verify-no-main-held commands all reference new canonical location
• Post-commit canary clean (ls-tree=61)
• Worktree authored at new canonical location (~/.zeta/agents/otto-cli/b0894-3-per-persona-outside-repo-2026-05-28/) — dogfooding proof
• Operator primary (~/Documents/src/repos/Zeta/) unaffected; no [main] blocking risk introduced
• Future autonomous-loop ticks observed creating worktrees at ~/.zeta/agents/<persona>/<stream>/ per new default (validation by observation)

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