ac-tidy

You are the pipeline janitor. Reconcile backlog, plans and beads against live state.
Apply what is provable. File a bead for what is not. Never guess.

Modes

Mode	When	Step 1	Step 3	Step 4
INTERACTIVE (default)	a human asked	skip — work in the live checkout	show each change, AskUserQuestion, apply on approval	show findings, file on approval
NIGHTLY (headless)	your scheduler, in the app checkout, cadence in ac-pipeline/references/schedule.md	isolate	apply without asking	file as beads, no AskUserQuestion

1. Isolate (NIGHTLY)

Do NOT reconcile in the live checkout. APP_ROOT=$(git rev-parse --show-toplevel) is the live
app checkout. Fetch origin/main, git worktree add --detach "$WT" origin/main, cd "$WT", then
export BEADS_DB="$WT/.beads/beads.db" and br sync to rebuild the beads DB from issues.jsonl
(br auto-discovery ignores worktree cwd, bd-6kwqo — the exported var directs every br call).
Skill files resolve only through $APP_ROOT/.claude/… (relative symlinks); if the worktree cannot be created, Slack degraded, exit, nothing written.

2. Scan

Read the board per ac-pipeline/references/board-scan.md (closed beads: Scan A's
br_call list --all --status closed --json, never a raw br list). Print the docket-health line,
then post-merge-tail: <n> — open beads still labelled post-merge (beads-standards/reference/bead-conventions.md
§ Claim semantics; a failed read is an error, never a 0); reclaiming one is judgment: step 4.
Then run scripts/tidy-scan.sh — read-only; its rows are the baseline for steps 3–4: decide each yourself, record skips and additions in step 5.

2b. Surviving-gate verify

For each open human-gate bead: br show and confirm it is still blocked on a human. If
$APP_ROOT/.beads/issues.jsonl and the worktree's copy disagree on its status, skip it (the live
checkout disagrees; a newer updated_at is not newer semantics). Stamp the others verified: <date>; never de-gate, close, or edit a body.

3. Reconcile — provable, apply

Condition	Action
backlog item: every task checked, or status: complete	move to _backlog/_done/
backlog captured but a plan names it	status: planned, add plans:
plan beadified: and its epic closed	move to _plans/_done/, stamp delivered:
plan with no frontmatter	infer status from content, add it, report the inference
closed bead still labelled unrefined	br label remove
open non-epic bead with none of unrefined / refined / human-gate	br label add unrefined (never refined)
label beads-standards does not name	correct or remove, report it
open pipeline-proposal bead whose target epic is closed	record DECISION (ac-tidy): moot — target <epic> closed, then close-gate.sh <id> --reason "obsolete: moot — target closed"

Open human-gate and qa-blocker beads are untouchable except by the last row. A condition needing a judgment call ("looks done", "probably a duplicate") is not provable: step 4. A task-typed proposal skips the ruling path (routed by issue_type) and LEG-2 NOT-CHECKs; report that exit as the skip, not a failure.

4. Findings — judgment, never apply

One bead per finding: br create "<title>" -t decision --labels "origin:ac-tidy,human-gate,pipeline-proposal",
body with a Gate-reason: line per beads-standards/reference/bead-create-contract.md. Skip a
target an open bead already names. Findings: an epic with zero open children and no Probe:
line · a blocks edge touching an epic (I2, board-scan.md) · a _done/ plan whose
beadified: and delivered: disagree with its epic's state · an item that looks done but
fails its row above · duplicate or mergeable items · a post-merge tail bead (§ 2) — strip the label or re-queue it by ruling here, never by applying step 3.

5. Land

Commit the exact paths touched, per ac-pipeline/references/commit-discipline.md: AGENT_NAME=FoggyCreek git commit -m "chore(tidy): <what>" -- <paths>, then push (NIGHTLY: git push --no-verify origin HEAD:main, then verify from the live checkout that git -C "$APP_ROOT" rev-parse origin/main equals HEAD — rejected means degraded, do not retry).
Slack card via slack-send --card --status <healthy|degraded> on the app's ops channel, one line of counts (drift-skipped: — § 2b gates skipped on ledger-copy disagreement — plus post-merge-tail: (§ 2) and the since-last-run app-board counts foreign status: / off-canon receipts: / unrecorded closes: against D4/D1's canon grammar).
Before committing, append one line to .claude/state/tidy-runs.jsonl at the repo root you commit from (history — never rewrite a line): {date, mode, machine, counts, scan, applied, match} — scan the tidy-scan mechanical rows, applied the step-3 actions taken, match whether they are equal. It rides the commit unless the project ignores .claude/state/.
Remove the worktree and prune. Teardown runs on every exit path, abort included.

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Housekeeping only. Strategy fit and promotion: /ac-align. Capture: /ac-backlog. Docket: /ac-human.