Propose ship balanced

Run the full minerva lifecycle end-to-end with main-model decisions plus a single independent reviewer at the high-signal gates in place of human gates. This skill is the middle rung between minerva:propose-ship-quick (main model decides every gate solo) and minerva:propose-ship-auto (a 3-agent minerva:round-table panel at every gate). Like both, it is a hybrid orchestrator: it delegates to minerva:synthesize (Phase 4.5, self-gating), minerva:ship, and minerva:cleanup, and inlines the propose / work / review / promote / replan phases.

The four orchestrators form a ladder by adjudication cost: minerva:propose-ship (human gates) · minerva:propose-ship-quick (main model solo) · minerva:propose-ship-balanced (one reviewer at high-signal gates) · minerva:propose-ship-auto (consensus panels). Reach for balanced when the change is bigger than a one-file fix and you want independent eyes on the load-bearing calls — scope, approach, and "is it really done" — without paying for 3-agent consensus everywhere.

Usage

• minerva:propose-ship-balanced "extract the auth middleware into its own module" — start a new balanced run with the inline description as the seed.
• minerva:propose-ship-balanced — start with current-session chat context as the seed (only sensible if the chat already discussed what to build).
• minerva:propose-ship-balanced --cleanup-only <NNN-slug> --retry=N — internal re-entry from the cleanup wake-up loop; skips phases 1–6 and re-runs Phase 7.

Pre-flight: in-flight work collision

Identical to minerva:propose-ship's pre-flight. This check is not main-model-decided — a wrong call here destroys real work, so escalation to the user is hardcoded:

1. List .minerva/work/NNN-*/ plus .minerva/worktrees/NNN-*/.minerva/work/NNN-*/.
2. If any unit has a proposal.md whose ## Status is Draft or whose scratchpad is not the post-promote marker, treat it as in-flight.
3. If the seed overlaps a slug or goal, stop and ask whether to resume that unit (minerva:work <NNN-slug>) or start fresh.

Only proceed after the user confirms. This is the only mandatory pre-run user interaction; everything else reaches the user via escalation.

Verify protocol

The full policy — the default (main model decides), the fixed reviewer-gate taxonomy, the single-reviewer mechanism (decide-first, one dispatch, no re-dispatch), the inline arbitration + behavioral "load-bearing critique" threshold with its anti-circularity escape, the Verifier brief and Skeptic brief, the fail-closed escalation predicate, the scope-fit escape, the never-bypassed self-checks, the hardcoded escalation triggers, the escalation counter, and per-decision logging — lives in references/verify-protocol.md. Read it once, in full, before this run's first decision point; its rules then apply to every decision.

Binding floor, even before the reference is read:

• The main model decides each strategic/tactical decision directly, as in propose-ship-quick. It does not convene a minerva:round-table panel — that is propose-ship-auto's mechanism.
• At the fixed reviewer gates — scope check, approach selection, completion-verification (every run), plus mid-work divergence / replan-acceptance / replan-vs-FIX (only when triggered) — after deciding, the main model dispatches one fresh-context agent (subagent_type: general-purpose, model: sonnet): a Skeptic at scope/approach/divergence/replan, a Verifier at completion. It arbitrates the critique inline (fold load-bearing points or escalate), no re-dispatch (one dispatch per gate). All other gates (whole-proposal soundness, review triage, promote partition, TODO disposition) are decided solo.
• Before committing any decision (including how to act on a reviewer critique) the main model applies the fail-closed escalation predicate: on genuine ambiguity (no dominant option, or a critique it cannot confidently adjudicate), high blast-radius / irreversibility, an unfamiliar public interface or cross-cutting contract, a conflicting .minerva/knowledge/ constraint — or any real doubt — it escalates rather than guess or self-confirm.
• Never elided: completion verification, mid-work divergence confirmation, new-plan acceptance — run as reviewer gates however small the change looks. Scope-fit escape: if the change proves larger, escalate recommending propose-ship-auto/propose-ship.
• Every decision logs one line to scratchpad.md under a ## Balanced decisions YYYY-MM-DD header ([decided] / [reviewed — folded] / [reviewed — clean] / [escalated to user] / [synthesis]).

Phases

Execute the phases in order. The full inline protocols live in references/phases.md. Before executing each phase, read that phase's section there; the map below locates the work, it is not the protocol:

1. Propose (inline) — assemble context → design synthesis → scope (reviewer gate), approach (reviewer gate), whole-proposal soundness (solo) → worktree + branch + file writes per minerva:propose → self-review.
2. Work (inline) — implement per minerva:work; suspected load-bearing divergence is a reviewer gate; completion-verification reviewer gate on the success-criteria checklist + diff.
   • 2.5 Replan (inline, if triggered) — draft Original plan / What changed / New plan; new-plan acceptance is a reviewer gate; append to replan.md.
3. Review (inline) — minerva audit + code review (PR mode delegates to code-review:code-review); the main model triages all findings solo; replan-vs-FIX is a reviewer gate if a load-bearing finding surfaces.
4. Promote (inline) — the main model partitions PROMOTE/MERGE/DISCARD/TODO and disposes TODOs solo; apply writes per minerva:promote Mode A; archive scratchpad.
   • 4.5 Synthesis (delegated, self-gating) — invoke minerva:synthesize with its auto-mode instruction (auto-accept the write gate only; its Step-2 self-gate is unchanged). Log the [synthesis] line; if it wrote, ship stages .minerva/knowledge/overview.md and notes the refresh in the PR body.
5. Ship gate — no gate: silent advancement, except halt if the escalation counter reached 3.
6. Ship (delegated) — invoke minerva:ship via the Skill tool with its auto-mode instruction (auto-accept hard gates #1 commit message and #2 PR title/body; everything else unchanged). CI auto-fix bails classified other are escalated to the user — never silently decided.
7. Cleanup gate — poll PR state via gh pr view; on MERGED invoke minerva:cleanup via the Skill tool with args <NNN-slug> --yes; on OPEN with auto-merge, ScheduleWakeup re-entry (--cleanup-only <NNN-slug> --retry=N, cap 12); otherwise surface manual instructions.

Failure modes, escalation, budget caps

Binding caps: one reviewer dispatch per reviewer gate; propose-phase abort when the strategic intent is too ambiguous to resolve; global escalation counter halts the run at 3. Hard escalation triggers (skip the main model's judgment): in-flight collision, worktree-creation failure, ship-phase other/push-rejection/gh-auth failure, counter at 3. The full trigger list, final-report-on-bail format, and observability requirements live in references/governance.md — read it at the first escalation or before reporting any bail.

Out of scope

Never modify any existing minerva skill at run time (orchestrate by invocation only); never auto-cascade into new work units; never cap implementation time; review/promote ordering is fixed. This skill never convenes a 3-agent minerva:round-table panel — its independent review is a single advisory reviewer arbitrated by the main model. Rationale and detail: references/governance.md.