Using GC

Use Gas City only when the caller explicitly selects it. Treat it as a replaceable execution adapter, not a correctness or completion boundary. The adapter cannot select AgentOps semantics, issue a binding verdict, or turn factory completion into delivery or validation proof.

Choose the factory first

AgentOps supports both Gas City and the Agentic Coding Flywheel as external software-factory runtimes. Use this skill only for Gas City. If the caller selects the Flywheel, switch to using-flywheel and its native workflow instead of wrapping it in Gas City.

AgentOps supplies skills and evidence contracts to either factory. It does not need its own Gas City formula or role pack. Install or link AgentOps skills into the provider runtime before starting workers; the upstream Mayor, coordinator, and workers can then discover and select plan, implement, test, validate, and other AgentOps skills normally.

Gas City 1.4 operating model

Gas City 1.4 is run-centered. The supervisor serves the dashboard and typed, paginated session/run APIs. Every graph-owning city or rig scope needs its own core.control-dispatcher; that deterministic worker advances formula control beads. Agent workers claim routed work. The upstream gc.mayor skill is the guided coordinator; gc.run-operator launches and supervises formulas.

The normal AgentOps path is:

1. Install and pin the upstream gascity workflow and rig-role imports.
2. Add the project as a rig, prepare its stock maintainer runtime, and make AgentOps skills visible to its provider sessions.
3. Create a caller-owned source intent bead and hand its id to the Mayor, which authors the workflow beads and dispatches the upstream build-basic, continuation, review, or implementation formula that matches the available artifacts.
4. Read run, session, bead, artifact, and verdict state. Completion is never inferred from chat or pane prose.

Prepare and qualify a rig before its first build with the shipped AgentOps CLI (no repo checkout required):

ao gc prepare --city /path/to/city --rig /path/to/rig
ao gc check --city /path/to/city --rig /path/to/rig

The command verifies the exact official workflow and role pins, snapshots the upstream validation scripts and schemas unchanged inside the rig's .gc runtime, installs only small AgentOps-owned wrappers at the formula check paths, selects an existing Python that can import PyYAML, and links the AgentOps skills into the city and rig Codex sinks. Skills come from the enclosing AgentOps checkout when one is present, otherwise from the installed skills root; pass --skills-source to pin a different directory. It never modifies the GC binary, cache, formulas, roles, or upstream pack. check issues only native inspection commands, writes no adapter files, and fails before model spend when that runtime contract is missing or drifted.

prepare also pre-seeds Codex trust for every session directory that exists when it runs — the city and rig roots, each .gc/agents/** session home, and each rig worktree root — so a Codex session in one of those directories does not block on the interactive trust dialog. Both persisted layers are seeded in $CODEX_HOME/config.toml: workspace trust ([projects."<dir>"] trust_level = "trusted"), without which Codex silently reports that directory as having no hooks at all, and per-hook trust ([hooks.state."<hooks.json>:<event>:<m>:<h>"] trusted_hash = "sha256:..."), which is what the pack's per-provider .codex/hooks.json would otherwise prompt for. Hook digests are read back from Codex's own hooks/list, never recomputed.

Trust is judged by value, not by the presence of a table. prepare appends only entries that are missing and refuses, naming the entry, when one exists but does not confer trust — an explicit trust_level = "untrusted", a hook Codex reports as changed since it was trusted, a recorded hook Codex still rejects, or a hook recorded enabled = false (a disabled hook is not a trusted working hook). It never overwrites an operator decision, and re-running is a no-op. It also fails rather than continue if Codex returns an empty or unrecognized hook list. The trust store itself is never edited in place: the merged content is parsed in memory first, then installed with the CLI's durable atomic writer, so no failure path can leave a partially written Codex config.

ao gc check verifies the same pre-seed from local state only — it runs no Codex subprocess and writes nothing, deriving each expected hook key from the directory's own hooks.json — and names the specific deficient directory or hook using the same rule prepare seeds to.

Two named limitations.

1. check cannot detect a stale hash. Because it never asks Codex, a recorded trusted_hash that no longer matches the hook's current content reads as satisfied and still raises the trust dialog in a real session. Only prepare sees that — Codex reports the hook as changed and prepare refuses. A green check therefore means "trust is recorded", not "trust is fresh".
2. Homes created after prepare are not covered. Discovery is by filesystem marker, so the guarantee covers session directories that exist at prepare time. A session home Gas City materializes later still carries untrusted hooks on its first spawn; prepare names the configured agents that have no home yet.

The operational rule that follows from both: run prepare, start the city, then run prepare again (it is idempotent) before dispatching.

Preferred pack and registries

The built-in main registry catalogs official packs. The community registry is optional configuration:

gc pack registry list
gc pack registry refresh
gc pack registry search --all
gc pack registry show main:gascity
gc pack registry add community https://registry.gascity.com/registry.toml
gc pack registry search --registry community --all

search reads the local registry cache; show reports release provenance and exact import commands. gc import add declares a source/version, and gc import install resolves it into packs.lock. Prefer an exact accepted release for reproducible cities.

AgentOps prefers the official gascity build pack, the workflow family visible in the public Maintainer City factory. The current accepted reference is gascity 0.1.6 at commit 3b3b89f2011e06d84459aa7bea1552382f13930a:

• dashboard: https://factory.gascity.com;
• workflows: build-basic, build-from-*, implement, review, issue, and PR flows;
• stock rig roles: gc.run-operator, gc.implementation-worker, planners, reviewers, and publisher;
• scope-local formula control: core.control-dispatcher;
• guided coordination: the upstream gc.mayor skill.

Install the workflow pack at city scope and its sibling roles pack on every rig that runs work, following the exact commands returned by gc pack registry show main:gascity. Keep the stock gc.* namespace; do not nest or rename the roles behind an AgentOps pack.

Work enters the city through the Mayor. The caller authors ONE source intent bead with acceptance, then hands the Mayor its id — the Mayor decomposes, authors the workflow beads, and dispatches. The caller never runs gc sling itself; an operator-slung run bypasses the coordinator that owns retries, re-dispatch, and tending for that workflow.

gc bd create "Add a --json flag to the export command"
gc mail send mayor -s "Build ago-XXXX" \
  -m "Decompose and launch build-basic for bead ago-XXXX with push=true open_pr=true." --notify

Or, in an interactive Mayor session:

Use skill gc.mayor

Direct gc sling remains a debugging tool for a city with no live Mayor; a run started that way has no coordinator and the operator inherits its tending.

AgentOps skills are tools available to those factory agents, not a replacement workflow. Explicitly name a skill in the bead or prompt when its behavior is required. The current upstream decomposition does not automatically propagate a free-form Required Skills section from the caller-owned source bead into every generated work item. Inspect the decomposition before implementation; put a required skill name on the actual work item or worker prompt when its use is an acceptance condition. Skill presence and skill invocation are different facts.

Upgrade an existing city to 1.4

Before starting its orchestrator, run once per city:

gc doctor --fix
gc import install
gc supervisor stop --wait   # macOS when an older direct supervisor remains
gc start

Then confirm:

• gc version reports 1.4.0 from the intended path;
• gc doctor has no blocking failures;
• each graph-owning rig has an unsuspended core.control-dispatcher;
• imports and packs.lock resolve;
• ao gc check accepts the contained maintainer runtime and AgentOps skill links;
• on macOS, the supervisor LaunchAgent resolves to the same executable as the selected gc binary;
• old standalone-dashboard bookmarks or reverse proxies are removed.

A stale registered city may block every start. Repair that city with gc doctor --fix, or explicitly unregister it if it is intentionally retired.

Retire an old HQ/canary by exact registered name or path, without stopping the machine-wide supervisor needed by its replacement:

gc cities --json
gc stop /path/to/old-city --timeout 45s
gc unregister /path/to/old-city
gc cities --json

unregister fails rather than silently accepting an unknown target. Preserve the city directory until its Beads state is backed up or confirmed disposable. Create the replacement from the upstream Gas City template, install its pinned imports, and verify it with gc cities --json, gc --city <new-city> status, and gc --city <new-city> doctor --json.

Orchestrating through the Mayor: the tending loop

After handing intent to the Mayor, the orchestrator runs five verbs. Each verb has one owner; crossing owners is the recurring failure class this section exists to stop.

Rework the orchestrator performs by hand (editing a failed run's worktree, re-slinging its formula, closing its beads) creates a second uncoordinated author for the same intent; the Mayor's relaunch then races it.

Stall protocol

First classify the bead.

• Still ready: dispatch it once to its gc.run_target, then stop and inspect.

• Already routed/in progress: re-slinging is a NO-OP. Wake its owning worker once:

  gc session wake <run_target>
  

Then capture the exact tmux pane named by session state and run gc doctor. Never repair a city from inside that city.

Never create pack-owned sessions by hand. gc session new for a singleton or scaled agent (core.control-dispatcher, role workers) makes a mis-scoped session that squats the canonical name in start-pending and blocks the reconciler from spawning the real one — extending the exact stall being repaired. Session lifecycle belongs to the reconciler and demand scaling. When the city itself needs tending (a stalled reconciler, sessions that never leave draining, model or provider rewiring), send the request to the Mayor:

gc mail send mayor -s "<subject>" -m "<request with bead ids>" --notify

The upstream pack may leave a future affinity-bound step assigned to a session that has already drain-acked. Diagnose this only from outside the city:

ao gc recover-affinity --city /path/to/city --rig /path/to/rig

The default is a dry run. If every listed assignment is correct, repeat with --apply. The bounded repair only clears the assignee on a currently ready formula bead whose gc.session_affinity=require session is no longer live. It does not sling, retry, close, restart, or select work.

Visibility: four layers

1. Supervisor/run state — gc dashboard, run detail, gc status, and gc session list --json. Run detail unifies the stage ladder, structured transcripts, token rate, and estimated burn rate. A roster may still report active while a provider is wedged.

   Programmatic run status comes from the supervisor's typed run API — the same data the dashboard renders. gc status prints the API base; neither gc status --json nor any other CLI subcommand carries run objects.

   API="http://127.0.0.1:<port>/v0/city/<city-name>"
   curl -s "$API/runs/<run-id>"   # {run_id, title, status, target, scope, started_at, updated_at}
   curl -s "$API/runs/census"     # {status_counts: {pending, active, waiting, canceling, completed, failed, canceled, skipped}}
   

   Poll run status and census for progress; a nonzero failed count is the first machine-readable failure signal. The dashboard's run page (/city/<city-name>/runs/<run-id>) is the human view of the same objects.

2. Bead graph — gc bd --rig <rig> ready --json and show <id> --json. This is workflow-state truth, but a claimed bead cannot reveal a wedged pane.

3. Pane truth — tmux -L <socket> capture-pane -pt <session>. This exposes trust prompts, update nags, API/DNS failures, and interactive wedges. A pane parked on Codex's Do you trust the contents of this directory? (or the later Press t to trust all hooks dialog) means that session directory was not pre-seeded — the workflow queues dispatches as pending with no active worker and reports no error. Almost always the home was created after the last ao gc prepare; re-run prepare, then restart that session. ao gc check names the untrusted directory or hook before you spend a dispatch on it. Gas City also appears to auto-answer this dialog by sending keys into the pane, so a wedge may clear on its own — treat that as a race you do not want to depend on, not as a reason to skip the pre-seed.

4. Health machinery — gc doctor, gc order history, storage health, and events. This proves metabolism, not semantic acceptance.

When layers disagree, trust the more direct observation: pane over roster for a session wedge, bead/run state over prose for workflow completion.

gc status may return a partial no_agents_running snapshot while gc session list --json shows a live Mayor or worker. Treat that as an observability disagreement, not permission to restart. Use session and pane truth for liveness, bead/run state for workflow progress, and Doctor for metabolism. A supervisor with abnormal CPU, a timed-out native stop, or a recurring hook rewrite remains an upstream operational defect; this helper reports it but never kills or patches GC processes.

The caller-owned input bead and the generated workflow root have separate lifecycles. A successful build-basic run may close its workflow root while leaving the input bead open. Likewise, push=false and open_pr=false produce a successful no-op publish while the approved commit remains in its source anchor worktree. Neither state is semantic completion by itself.

Boundaries

• GC quests, runs, attempts, stalls, cancellations, and internal close state stay in GC. They never become AgentOps Plan, Candidate, RPI, or verdict state.
• A GC close or completed run is not AgentOps completion. Only a fresh Validate context issues the semantic result or, when requested, persists verdict.v2.
• This skill performs no automatic selection, retry, semantic validation, Git, integration, closure, release, or delivery.
• The operator lane into a city is a closed set: author source intent beads, gc mail (work dispatch and city tending both go to the Mayor), gc doctor [--fix], supervisor start/stop from outside, ao gc prepare|check|recover-affinity, and reading state. The Mayor authors workflow beads and dispatches; creating, scaling, or repairing pack-owned sessions by hand is outside the lane, and the reconciler owns session lifecycle.