the-own-lab/pipeline-gate

Pipeline Gate

The backbone skill that enforces progression control across all pipelines.

Hard Gate Protocol

When a stage is annotated with a hard gate:

1. Stop — Do not proceed to the next stage.
2. Present deliverable — Show the user the artifact(s) produced by the completed stage.
3. Ask the approval question — Clearly state what is being approved and what happens next.
4. Wait for explicit response — Do not assume approval. Do not prompt twice. Wait.

Accepted Responses

| Response | Action | | ----------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------- | | approved / yes / lgtm / proceed | Continue to next stage | | Feedback text (anything else substantive) | Redo the stage incorporating feedback | | skip | Log the skip with a warning, advance to next stage | | abort | Terminate the pipeline, preserve all artifacts produced so far |

Soft Gate Protocol

When a stage is annotated with a soft gate:

1. Evaluate the gate condition — Run the check specified by the gate (e.g., tests pass, lint clean).
2. Pass — Auto-proceed to the next stage. Log that the soft gate passed.
3. Fail — Escalate to a hard gate. Present the failure to the user and follow the Hard Gate Protocol.

Pipeline State

Track the following state throughout pipeline execution:

• Current pipeline — Which pipeline is active (e.g., feature, bugfix, refactor).
• Current stage — Which stage is currently executing.
• Stage statuses — Status of each stage: pending, in-progress, passed, failed, skipped.
• Artifacts produced — List of files created or modified at each stage.

Exception Handling

When any failure occurs during pipeline execution:

1. Write a FAILURE.md file documenting what failed, at which stage, and with what error.
2. Pause the pipeline immediately.
3. Present the user with options:
   • retry — Re-run the failed stage.
   • skip — Skip the failed stage (with warning logged).
   • abort — Terminate the pipeline, preserving all artifacts produced so far.