gatewaycontributionnot identity

Harnessing mergeable work

The maintainer declares role-based agents and hooks. Every issue and PR from a non-allowlisted contributor is produced under those rules, through the platform's GitHub App, or it does not land.

chokepoint: allowlist · github-app · sandbox · branch-protection

Pipeline

contributor → merge

contributoridentity
issuer-agentsystem prompt
issuespec
change-agentsystem prompt
prdiff · github-app
maintainerreview

contributoridentity
issuer-agentsystem prompt
issuespec
change-agentsystem prompt
prdiff · github-app
maintainerreview

gates · identity · prompt · spec · prompt · diff · review

issuer-agent produces the issue that change-agent consumes; slop lives between intent and diff

every untrusted write passes through the github-app

Maintainer declares

harness.yaml

issuer-agentsystem prompt + hooks
change-agentsystem prompt + hooks
prompt scoperepo-owned, not user-owned
slash-command/security/, /dx/, /infra/
hookblock new deps; block eval
hookthreat-model required for /security/ changes
allowlisttrusted humans bypass the agents

harness.yaml · excerpt

agents:
  issuer:
    role: issue
    system_prompt: ./prompts/issuer.md
    hooks:
      - require: [ repro_steps, expected, actual ]
      - dedupe_against: open_issues
      - refuse_if: out_of_scope
  change:
    role: pr
    system_prompt: ./prompts/change.md
    hooks:
      - forbid: [ new_dependency, eval, network_in_tests ]
      - require: threat_model_for(["/security/"])
      - link_back_to: source_issue

allowlist:
  - org-admins
  - vouched: ./allowlist.yaml

repo-owned harness.yaml beats user-side CLAUDE.md and AGENTS.md. The maintainer wins the prompt fight.

What the maintainer gets

6 effects

triageinvalid issues stop before a branch is ever created
review-loadthe screener refuses out-of-scope; the maintainer never has to
supply-chainnew dependencies and eval get blocked before review
telemetrya continuous record of what contributors tried and where rules blocked them
contributor-experiencea pr lands or fails with a project-specific reason
governancebase prompts inherit across an org's repos

Harnessing mergeable work

Pipeline

Maintainer declares

What the maintainer gets

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