Read this contract when the execution plan reaches one of its steps. Execute only the current step and the continuation it names. Step numbers refer to skills/herdr-foreman/SKILL.md.

Step 13 — Run the Judge Round

Optional. No trigger — proceed to Step 14. A bot disagreement inside Step 14 returns here first. A weighing nomination from Step 12 is an adjudication trigger. The judge's report is the ruling once foreman verify-ruling binds it in the judge round's last step; until then no defer or decline applies.

Run the round's seven steps in order — compose the brief, re-measure the shared window, plan the pinned seat, let apply spawn its fresh worker on the pinned tier, dispatch, wait, act on the ruling:

skills/herdr-foreman/references/judge-round.md

The judge is read-only, so Step 7 is skipped for it. Never substitute a judge, lower its tier, or hand-write an assignment to bypass a refusal. Its last step names where to continue.

A judge round is a round: once its ruling is recorded, run Step 16 and Step 17 before continuing, whatever the ruling (insufficient and blocked included). Record the step the ruling named as the stow's continuation step. The current foreman takes Step 17's Continue Route without clearing context.

Step 14 — Release the Pull Request

The release is one more assignment, never a prompt into the developer's existing context. Return to Step 7 (it reports already-provisioned), then Step 8 with the role release for the developer's agent (template skills/herdr-foreman/templates/brief-release.md, the same WORKTREE and BRANCH, a fresh REPORT), dispatch through Step 10 so the context is cleared and the brief is fresh, and wait on the report in Step 11. apply refuses the release dispatch, dry run included, while the task carries an open verdict gate: return to Step 12 and clear it first. A source-changing release finding returns to Step 12 for the next counted developer assignment. A blocking policy review returns there too, where its nominations go to a weighing. Fill WEIGHING_RULING with the judge's report and the follow-up issue once a weighing covers the findings, otherwise "none". The worker merges after all gates pass. Proceed immediately to Step 15 only after verifying its reported release against the live VCS and release gates. Record that evidence in the task ledger.

Step 15 — Clean Up the Worktree

Fast-forward the shared checkout, remove the merged task's own worktree with git worktree remove, and delete the branch, in the post-merge order of rules/agent-worktree-isolation.md Cleanup. This is the one removal the foreman makes itself (skills/herdr-foreman/references/team-operation.md Writers and Checkouts, the merged-task exception). Then run Step 7's sweep again for the round's other worktrees. Proceed immediately to Step 16.

Step 16 — Log the Round

Finalize the task ledger with the round outcome and remaining obligations. Mark the task completed only after its acceptance criteria and required release and cleanup obligations are verified. When the task merged or was abandoned, close it. The record is {"task", "outcome": "merged" | "abandoned", "evidence"}:

HS=.tessl/plugins/jbaruch/herdr-policy/skills/herdr-foreman/; [ -d "$HS" ] || HS="$HOME/$HS"; [ -d "$HS" ] || case "$(git config --get remote.origin.url)" in git@github.com:jbaruch/herdr-policy|git@github.com:jbaruch/herdr-policy.git|https://github.com/jbaruch/herdr-policy|https://github.com/jbaruch/herdr-policy.git|ssh://git@github.com/jbaruch/herdr-policy|ssh://git@github.com/jbaruch/herdr-policy.git) HS=skills/herdr-foreman/ ;; *) echo "herdr-policy skill not found: install jbaruch/herdr-policy" >&2; exit 1 ;; esac
bash "$HS/foreman.sh" close-task --record <close.json>

Exit 0 — stdout is the recorded task_closed event JSON. Repeating the same closure prints the existing event. Proceed.
Non-zero — stderr names the refused field or the conflicting earlier closure. Correct the record and re-run; do not finish Step 16 with a merged or abandoned task unclosed.

A task still in progress (a consultation or a fix round) is not closed; it continues to Step 17 open.

Preserve the ledger for resume and standup. Preserve retrospective notes and link them from the ledger. Save current progress through the attention owner and curate the round's lessons. Report outstanding attention first, followed by the outcome and saved paths. Proceed immediately to Step 17.

Step 17 — Checkpoint the Foreman Context

Stow the handoff under the working-memory reference, with a structured gap for anything the stow could not capture. The stow's unresolved_work names the continuation step, the step the round's outcome routes to:

A gate decision, judge ruling or remedy — the step it named
A release-ready pull request — Step 14
A merged or abandoned task awaiting closure — Step 16
Only foreman-queue seats remaining — Step 5

Capture the active goal's objective, remaining work, status and any remaining budget in the stow; saving it does not complete, pause or recreate the goal. Handle pending supervision events and keep the foreground watch active for every enrollment. Do not save a handoff hold, schedule foreman-reset, type /clear or end the turn merely for a round boundary. Preserve the current context and active goal.

Continue Route — run Steps 1 and 2 in this context, retaining their existing round-start gates, then take the saved continuation step in place of Step 5. When enrollments still need observation, continue Step 11's fleet loop while routing the next work. With only queued work, return to Step 5. Read foreman-queue from the owner rather than inferring an empty queue from a completed round. Finish only after the authorized work is complete, a genuine user pause, or a verified continuation satisfying the Stop gate.

An explicitly requested maintenance reset follows skills/herdr-foreman/references/working-memory.md Reset Outcome Routing. Do not ask for one at each boundary. A failed reset never permits Stop with active work. Fresh-foreman succession is not implemented by this checkpoint; a saved handoff alone is not a live successor.

Resume Route — the next context follows one route:

The resume prompt's reads: the stow and its required files, supervision, foreman-queue
Explicitly set /goal <saved objective> in the incoming foreman's host runtime under the working-memory reference's Successor Goal contract
Step 1, then Step 2
The stow's continuation step, in place of Step 5

foreman-queue lists seats only. Gating, release and closure return through the continuation step, never through the queue.

On replacement, verify the incoming foreman's /goal is active and verify live supervision before retiring the outgoing foreman. A pasted goal objective alone is not proof that the runtime's goal is active.

For the daily standup, use Skill(skill: "herdr-standup").