Support machine

A round can run on two machines at once: main, which holds the round and merges, and a support machine, which works issues in its own slots and opens PRs. The machines share no connection. GitHub is the only shared state: claims, pins, comments and PRs on the tracker.

What you need first is a working round on main: parallel rounds. The support machine needs an issue tracker (GitHub); with GitLab, round start refuses blockedBy: forge while round.support is set.

Setting it up

Two steps, no hand edits:

1. On main, name the support machine and push the config:

   rota round support enable mac     # writes round.support to the tracked .rota/config.json
   git add .rota/config.json && git commit -m "Enable the mac support machine" && git push
   

   rota round support disable removes it again. Change it between rounds, not during one: bounce counts are not carried over.

2. On the second machine, clone or pull the repo and run rota setup. Answer support to the first question (or pass --set round.role=support). Setup checks that the tracked config names a support machine and a tracker, asks only the machine-local questions (dispatch, autonomy, worker and orchestrator harness) and writes them with round.role: support to .rota/config.local.json. It ends with the doctor’s first failing check, or doctor: pass.

Then start a round on each machine as usual. The support machine’s slots are named after it: with round.support at mac, the slot for ben is mac-ben.

Run rota update on either machine to compare the installed version with the latest release.

Which machine takes which issue

The support machine fills free slots with issues pinned to it first, then pulls unpinned issues in its round.scope. Neither machine reserves its slate against the other: the tracker claim decides. When support wins a claim on an unpinned issue, it pins it machine:mac so main can follow it.

On main, pin issues for support with:

rota round support offer 412 418          # adds machine:mac
rota round support offer 418 --withdraw   # takes the pin off again

Seeing who holds what

Every won claim gets a visible label: claimed:ben@main for a slot on main, claimed:ben@mac for support slot mac-ben. The comment claim decides ownership and the label follows it; rota round reconcile --apply repairs missing or stale labels. After upgrading from a version before v0.26, run it once to backfill labels for claims already in flight.

rota round status (and --ui) lists the support queue: waiting until support claims an offered issue, active with its claim, unknown when the claim could not be read. Main never guesses which worker or model runs on the other machine.

Talking between the machines

The issue thread is the channel. Each orchestrator posts notes for the other as issue comments, stamped with the machine they came from:

rota item comment add 412 --kind feedback --body-file note.md   # a plain note
rota item comment add 412 --kind relay --body-file relay.md     # a relayed instruction

Both round watch runs wake on the other side:

• Main wakes on a new PR or a changed PR head for an offered or support-held issue, and on a new comment from the support machine on those issues.
• Support wakes on new comments from main on the issues its slots hold, on main’s comments on the issue of a PR parked for review, and when one of its PRs conflicts with its base.

Handing an issue back

When support cannot work an offered issue (not ready, wrong premise, it collides with main’s work, or you want to keep it), it hands it back right away instead of idling:

rota round support return 418 --reason-file why.md

The reason goes on the issue as a comment, support’s claim is released and the machine: pin comes off, so main’s next round candidates can pick it up. It is refused on main (blockedBy: role) and while a support slot still holds the issue (blockedBy: claimed).

Merging support PRs

Support never merges. Its PRs land through main’s gate like any other. A relay the support orchestrator sends its worker is also posted on the issue as a rota:relay comment, and main’s gate accepts the PR’s approvals citing it. The support offer comment counts as the assignment approval. A cited relay that no trusted comment holds still fails PROVENANCE-FAIL. Only comments by authors with write access count.

What support does not do

The support machine never merges and never writes tracked .rota/ content. Those verbs exit 4 with blockedBy: role. Its workers post learnings as learning comments on the issue; main’s /rota-learn folds them into KNOWLEDGE.md.

When a machine goes quiet

If a claim on the other machine shows no activity (claim, PR update or branch push) for four hours, or eight for Major features, rota round status, candidates and doctor mark it stale-claim. Set the thresholds with round.claimStaleMinutes and round.claimStaleMinutesMajor (0 disables). After you approve, main can take the issue over:

rota round assign 418 --agent dana --reclaim-stale mac-ben@3

Assign rechecks the activity first. The old holder’s PR is then refused claim-lost at the gate. See stale claims on another machine.

Config

The full rules, for contributors, are in Support role.