change-dag-lifecycle

Change DAG lifecycle

Nyx owns lifecycle control. dag_executor owns deterministic application. Change-DAG-Author performs one initial semantic dag_create and exits; the controller — the deterministic, Nyx-invoked construction-control surface (dag_construction_state, dag_construction_review, dag_construction_start, dag_semantic_repair_start) — owns construction motion, serialized Worker admission, mandatory review, repair routing, and final validation. Change-DAG-Reviewer is optional, bounded, and read-only. This skill operates the existing runtime; it does not define or modify it.

Start

1. Confirm the DAG is present, schema-valid, and executable through the lifecycle tools.
2. Call dag_start(slug, retry?) for whole-DAG execution only.
3. If the root is already runtime-satisfied, dag_start returns an idempotent root_satisfied result instead of launching: no queue entry, execution lock, marker, launch, or checkpoint. retry=true never relaunches a satisfied DAG.
4. Interpret running as executor launched and queued as waiting for the workspace execution slot.
5. Unresolved semantic nodes may remain while authoring, but such a DAG is not executable: dag_start refuses any non-executable DAG — unresolved semantic state or a deterministic compiler/context conflict — surfacing all admission issues.
6. anchor_commit is provenance, not a commit binding. Live repository drift can produce ordinary terminal failure and recovery.

Status

Poll dag_status(slug?) until the DAG is root_satisfied or idle/not active. Inspect failed and in_progress terminal nodes when execution stops. There is no durable quiescent state.

Stop and recovery

• dag_stop(slug) is lifecycle control, not rollback. Satisfied work remains satisfied; a queued DAG may be removed. Nyx owns this operation but does not decide semantic construction or repair content.
• The runtime handles process termination and interrupted-work reconciliation. Interrupted mechanical work is reconciled; an interrupted run becomes failed.
• A running DAG is immutable. Do not mutate nodes or work while it runs.
• When execution stops with failed mutable work, route the bounded scope through the controller: exact terminal defects to change-dag-fixer, semantic/graph defects to change-dag-semantic-repairer, and authority issues to escalation. After the stopped DAG is repaired and validated, call dag_start(slug, retry=true) to retry the whole DAG.
• There is no node- or subgraph-execution mode.

Completion and archive

• When the root becomes satisfied, the executor records inherited starting-worktree evidence, creates the executor-owned local checkpoint, and records it in the Work Log. Nyx does not stage or create this checkpoint manually; it is not publication.
• Provenance logging is enabled by default and disabled by SKYSCOW_CHANGE_DAG_MUTATION_LOGGING=0, false, or off; append failure after DAG persistence is nonfatal and exposed only as success metadata warning. No agent-facing mutation-log reader is provided.
• Call dag_archive(slug, reason) when retiring a DAG from the pending working set. reason is required and non-empty. The bundle separates DAG.json (current construction state), optional DAG_MUTATIONS.jsonl (construction provenance), EXECUTION_STATE.json (execution lifecycle), and WORK_LOG.jsonl (execution evidence); archival moves all of them as-is, adds an ARCHIVE.json disposition record (archived_at, reason, state_at_archive, artifacts_moved), and moves the bundle to artifacts/change-dags/archived/. Construction provenance is not merged into the Work Log. Provenance logging is enabled by default and disabled by SKYSCOW_CHANGE_DAG_MUTATION_LOGGING=0, false, or off; append failure after DAG persistence is nonfatal and exposed only as success metadata warning. No agent-facing mutation-log reader is provided.
• Archival is cleanup, not certification: a DAG may be archived after success, failure, abandonment, supersession, or cancellation. It does not require resolution, executability, root satisfaction, a failure-free state, or QA. Only operational safety applies: stop a running DAG first, and cancel a queued DAG with dag_stop. Read the disposition record for the outcome; archive location is not success evidence.

QA boundary

Route completed work to independent QA after execution. QA is not a DAG phase or archive gate. A completed DAG is never reopened for QA: use a bounded raw repair for a small defect, or create a new remediation DAG for a substantial or cross-cutting defect.