v0.8.0 — minor-tier (N33 orchestrator drift root-cause closure)

[0.8.0] - 2026-04-28

Added — minor-tier (N33 orchestrator drift root-cause closure)

7 stories closing N33 (12+ consecutive cycles of orchestrator drift requiring manual takeover). First minor-tier release since v0.7.0 (8 cycles). Twelfth multi-cycle populated-CSV run. v0.8.0 self-validated: tier=LOW score=25 files=22 sensitive=0 → skip with automated:true. 16 consecutive LOW-tier self-validations (v0.6.5..v0.8.0).

Root cause synthesis (5 parallel research agents): the recovery infrastructure (5 layers shipped v0.6.8..v0.7.2) was inert — wrap_orchestrator_dispatch had zero production callers. quantum-loop.sh did not source lib/orchestrator-liveness.sh. The agents/orchestrator.md agent definition consumed ~30% of context window (1,743 lines / ~39,900 tokens) before any work began. No per-story re-prompt for orchestrator. Signal protocol asymmetry between shell-side and agent-side parsing. git rev-parse HEAD mismatch in worktree mode.

• US-001 — wire recovery infrastructure into quantum-loop.sh — sources lib/orchestrator-liveness.sh; new ql_wrap_subagent_dispatch helper for callers (US-004 coordinator + external supervisor scripts). Recovery layers are now reachable in production code.
• US-002 — worktree-aware poll_orchestrator_commits — extends signature to accept optional WORKTREE_PATH 4th arg (and wrap_orchestrator_dispatch 3rd arg). Eliminates false-positive STALE in worktree-parallel mode where orchestrator commits land under .ql-wt/<story>/ on feature branches. Tests 12 + 13 (4 new assertions on worktree-path STALE + LIVE detection). 22 → 26 liveness assertions.
• US-003 — modularize agents/orchestrator.md — extracts 13 optional/conditional sections to agents/orchestrator-modules/*.md (slop-cleanup, dead-code-detection, intent-graph, skeleton-drift, constant-scan, hyclone, type-audit, full-feature-review, init-and-routing, observations, reground, contract-promotion, quantum-json-fields). Each section in orchestrator.md replaced with a stub reference + activation guard. 1,743 → 1,007 lines (42% reduction), exceeds initial AC drift target (≤700 lines) but delivers substantive context-window relief.
• US-004 — per-wave coordinator pattern — new agents/coordinator.md defines a thin per-wave subagent (one wave per invocation, then exits). New lib/spawn.sh::spawn_coordinator + build_coordinator_prompt helpers. New --coordinator opt-in flag in quantum-loop.sh (default --legacy-orchestrator preserves existing single-spawn behavior). v0.8.1 dogfood will validate end-to-end.
• US-005 — signal protocol unification — new runner_parse_subagent_output wrapper in lib/runner.sh routes subagent output through the canonical runner_parse_output chain (claim-check + heuristic fallback). agents/orchestrator.md and agents/coordinator.md updated to cite the wrapper instead of ad-hoc <quantum>...</quantum> grep on TaskOutput.
• US-006 — integration tests — new tests/test_quantum_loop_recovery.sh (5 asserts) verifies recovery wiring fires on stale stub orchestrator. New tests/test_coordinator_dispatch.sh (7 asserts) verifies coordinator agent file + spawn helpers + flag parsing. Plus +4 worktree-path assertions in extended liveness test.
• US-007 — retrospective + IDEA_REPORT_v22 + version bump 0.7.10 → 0.8.0 — first minor since v0.7.0 (8 cycles).

Test-suite delta

+16 new assertions across 3 test files:

• 1 extended: test_orchestrator_liveness.sh 22 → 26 (+4)
• 2 new: test_quantum_loop_recovery.sh (5) + test_coordinator_dispatch.sh (7)

Architectural rationale (minor-tier)

This is the first new architectural concept since the multi-runner foundation (v0.7.4 N5) — introduces (a) production wiring for previously-inert infrastructure, (b) a per-wave coordinator pattern (vs the long-running monolithic orchestrator), (c) modular orchestrator definition (13 lazy-loaded modules), (d) unified signal handling. Genuinely minor-tier, validated by the operator.

Honest scope drift

• US-003 AC said agents/orchestrator.md ≤ 700 lines; actual = 1,007 lines. The 42% reduction is substantive but doesn't hit the original target. Further reduction would require extracting Step 3B (Parallel Execution) core logic, which carries regression risk and was deferred.
• US-006 ships unit/integration coverage; full coordinator-pattern dogfood validation is deferred to v0.8.1 (running a real cycle through the new path).

Dogfood milestone (v0.8.0)

7/7 user-facing stories shipped first-attempt PASS under manual takeover. 0 retries. Multi-cycle CSV milestone: 33 → 36 rows (3 advisory rows). Aggregate severity now includes 1 MEDIUM finding (first MEDIUM in 8+ cycles — healthy signal for substantive minor work). G30 self-validation: tier=LOW score=25 files=22 sensitive=0 → skip; recorded with automated:true. N33 root-cause closure: 12+ consecutive manual-takeover cycles addressed via 4 layers of fixes; v0.8.1 validation will confirm whether auto-recovery actually fires in a real cycle. Full retrospective: idea-stage/PIPELINE_REPORT_v22.md. v0.8.x backlog: idea-stage/IDEA_REPORT_v22.md.