Found while implementing #12750 (PR #12755); AGENTS.md was outside that card's dispatched file surface, so the contradiction is filed rather than fixed in that PR.
The contradiction
Two maintainer rulings of 2026-08-27 (recorded verbatim on #12750) made an authorized human approval pinned to the PR's exact current head a LEGAL second landing path for the governed surface: the Governed Surface Queue Guard's merge_group leg now passes such a PR (「os-zhuang hotlong 批准算数」), and the seat may flip ready and enqueue once the pinned approval exists — review → Approve → done.
AGENTS.md Prime Directive #14 (the region starting "A governed surface is confirmed and merged by the maintainer, by hand") still carries, in the editable prose after the quoted rulings:
- the bolded sentence: "Reviewed + approved + fully green does not override this." — now false for an approval by an account in the guard's GOVERNED_APPROVERS constant pinned to the current head;
- the unconditional prohibition list: never merge / never add to the merge queue / never enable auto-merge / never flip out of draft — now conditioned (they hold UNTIL the authorized approval is pinned; the queue guard enforces the predicate mechanically).
The PM-skill copies of the clause were updated by PR #12755 (SKILL.md ACCEPT path-fork + Guardrails, references/contract-review.md), so until AGENTS.md is amended the two instruction surfaces disagree about the governed landing paths — and AGENTS.md is the one every seat reads first.
Constraints the fix inherits
Found while implementing #12750 (PR #12755); AGENTS.md was outside that card's dispatched file surface, so the contradiction is filed rather than fixed in that PR.
The contradiction
Two maintainer rulings of 2026-08-27 (recorded verbatim on #12750) made an authorized human approval pinned to the PR's exact current head a LEGAL second landing path for the governed surface: the Governed Surface Queue Guard's merge_group leg now passes such a PR (「os-zhuang hotlong 批准算数」), and the seat may flip ready and enqueue once the pinned approval exists — review → Approve → done.
AGENTS.md Prime Directive #14 (the region starting "A governed surface is confirmed and merged by the maintainer, by hand") still carries, in the editable prose after the quoted rulings:
The PM-skill copies of the clause were updated by PR #12755 (SKILL.md ACCEPT path-fork + Guardrails, references/contract-review.md), so until AGENTS.md is amended the two instruction surfaces disagree about the governed landing paths — and AGENTS.md is the one every seat reads first.
Constraints the fix inherits