feat: recursive self-improvement — operational learning + full skill wiring (v0.13.8.0) (#647)

* refactor: remove dead contributor mode, replace with operational self-improvement slot

Contributor mode never fired in 18 days of heavy use (required manual opt-in
via gstack-config, gated behind _CONTRIB=true, wrote disconnected markdown).

Removes: generateContributorMode(), _CONTRIB bash var, 2 E2E tests, touchfile
entry, doc references. Cleans up skip-lists in plan-ceo-review, autoplan,
review resolver, and document-release templates.

The operational self-improvement system (next commit) replaces this slot with
automatic learning capture that requires no opt-in.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

* feat: operational self-improvement — every skill learns from failures

Adds universal operational learning capture to the preamble completion protocol.
At the end of every skill session, the agent reflects on CLI failures, wrong
approaches, and project quirks, logging them as type "operational" to the
learnings JSONL. Future sessions surface these automatically.

- generateCompletionStatus(ctx) now includes operational capture section
- Preamble bash shows top 3 learnings inline when count > 5
- New "operational" type in generateLearningsLog alongside pattern/pitfall/etc
- Updated unit tests + operational seed entry in learnings E2E

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

* feat: wire learnings into all insight-producing skills

Adds LEARNINGS_SEARCH and/or LEARNINGS_LOG to 10 skill templates that
produce reusable insights but were previously disconnected from the
learning system:

- office-hours, plan-ceo-review, plan-eng-review: add LOG (had SEARCH)
- plan-design-review: add both SEARCH + LOG (had neither)
- design-review, design-consultation, cso, qa, qa-only: add both
- retro: add SEARCH (had LOG)

13 skills now fully participate in the learning loop (read + write).
Every review, QA, investigation, and design session both consults prior
learnings and contributes new ones.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

* test: add operational-learning E2E test (gate-tier)

Validates the write path: agent encounters a CLI failure, logs an
operational learning to JSONL via gstack-learnings-log. Replaces the
removed contributor-mode E2E test.

Setup: temp git repo, copy bin scripts, set GSTACK_HOME.
Prompt: simulated npm test failure needing --experimental-vm-modules.
Assert: learnings.jsonl exists with type=operational entry.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

* fix: learnings-show E2E slug mismatch — seed at computed slug, not hardcoded

The test seeded learnings at projects/test-project/ but gstack-slug computes
the slug from basename(workDir) when no git remote exists. The agent's search
looked at the wrong path and found nothing.

Fix: compute slug the same way gstack-slug does (basename + sanitize) and
seed the learnings there.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

* chore: bump version and changelog (v0.13.8.0)

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

---------

Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

feat: community wave — 7 fixes, relink, sidebar Write, discoverability (v0.13.5.0) (#641)

* test: add 16 failing tests for 6 community fixes

Tests-first for all fixes in this PR wave:
- #594 discoverability: gstack tag in descriptions, 120-char first line
- #573 feature signals: ship/SKILL.md Step 4 detection
- #510 context warnings: no preemptive warnings in generated files
- #474 Safety Net: no find -delete in generated files
- #467 telemetry: JSONL writes gated by _TEL conditional
- #584 sidebar: Write in allowedTools, stderr capture
- #578 relink: prefixed/flat symlinks, cleanup, error, config hook

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

* fix: replace find -delete with find -exec rm for Safety Net (#474)

-delete is a non-POSIX extension that fails on Safety Net environments.
-exec rm {} + is POSIX-compliant and works everywhere.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

* fix: gate local JSONL writes by telemetry setting (#467)

When telemetry is off, nothing is written anywhere — not just remote,
but local JSONL too. Clean trust contract: off means off everywhere.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

* fix: remove preemptive context warnings from plan-eng-review (#510)

The system handles context compaction automatically. Preemptive warnings
waste tokens and create false urgency. Skills should not warn about
context limits — just describe the compression priority order.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

* feat: add (gstack) tag to skill descriptions for discoverability (#594)

Every SKILL.md.tmpl description now contains "gstack" on the last line,
making skills findable in Claude Code's command palette. First-line hooks
stay under 120 chars. Split ship description to fix wrapping.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

* feat: auto-relink skill symlinks on prefix config change (#578)

New bin/gstack-relink creates prefixed (gstack-*) or flat symlinks
based on skill_prefix config. gstack-config auto-triggers relink
when skill_prefix changes. Setup guards against recursive calls
with GSTACK_SETUP_RUNNING env var.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

* feat: add feature signal detection to version bump heuristic (#573)

/ship Step 4 now checks for feature signals (new routes, migrations,
test+source pairs, feat/ branches) when deciding version bumps.
PATCH requires no feature signals. MINOR asks the user if any signal
is detected or 500+ lines changed.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

* feat: sidebar Write tool, stderr capture, cross-platform URL opener (#584)

Add Write to sidebar allowedTools (both sidebar-agent.ts and server.ts).
Write doesn't expand attack surface beyond what Bash already provides.
Replace empty stderr handler with buffer capture for better error
diagnostics. New bin/gstack-open-url for cross-platform URL opening.

Does NOT include Search Before Building intro flow (deferred).

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

* fix: update sidebar-security test for Write tool addition

The fallback allowedTools string now includes Write, matching the
sidebar-agent.ts change from commit 68dc957.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

* chore: bump version and changelog (v0.13.5.0)

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

* fix: prevent gstack-relink from double-prefixing gstack-upgrade

gstack-relink now checks if a skill directory is already named gstack-*
before prepending the prefix. Previously, setting skill_prefix=true would
create gstack-gstack-upgrade, breaking the /gstack-upgrade command.

Matches setup script behavior (setup:260) which already has this guard.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

* chore: add double-prefix fix to changelog

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

* chore: remove .factory/ from git tracking and add to .gitignore

Generated Factory Droid skills are build output, same as .agents/.
They should not be committed to the repo.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

---------

Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

fix: community PRs + security hardening + E2E stability (v0.12.7.0) (#552)

* fix(security): skip hidden directories in skill template discovery

discoverTemplates() scans subdirectories for SKILL.md.tmpl files but
only skips node_modules, .git, and dist. Hidden directories like
.claude/, .agents/, and .codex/ (which contain symlinked skill
installs) were being scanned, allowing a malicious .tmpl in a
symlinked skill to inject into the generation pipeline.

Fix: add !d.name.startsWith('.') to the subdirs() filter. This skips
all dot-prefixed directories, matching the standard convention that
hidden dirs are not source code.

* fix(security): sanitize telemetry JSONL inputs against injection

SKILL, OUTCOME, SESSION_ID, SOURCE, and EVENT_TYPE values go directly
into printf %s for JSONL output. If any contain double quotes,
backslashes, or newlines, the JSON breaks — or worse, injects
arbitrary fields.

Fix: strip quotes, backslashes, and control characters from all
string fields before JSONL construction via json_safe() helper.

* fix(security): validate JSON input in gstack-review-log

gstack-review-log appends its argument directly to a JSONL file with
no validation. Malformed or crafted input could corrupt the review log
or inject arbitrary content.

Fix: validate input is parseable JSON via python3 before appending.
Reject with exit 1 and stderr message if invalid.

* fix: treat relative dot-paths as file paths in screenshot command

Closes #495

* fix: use host-specific co-author trailer in /ship and /document-release

Codex-generated skills hardcoded a Claude co-author trailer in commit
messages. Users running gstack under Codex pushed commits attributed
to the wrong AI assistant.

Add {{CO_AUTHOR_TRAILER}} resolver that emits the correct trailer
based on ctx.host:
  - claude: Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
  - codex:  Co-Authored-By: OpenAI Codex <noreply@openai.com>

Replace hardcoded trailers in ship/SKILL.md.tmpl and
document-release/SKILL.md.tmpl with the resolver placeholder.

Fixes #282. Fixes #383.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

* fix: auto-upgrade marker no longer masks newer remote versions

When a just-upgraded-from marker persists across sessions, the update
check would write UP_TO_DATE to cache and exit immediately — never
fetching the remote VERSION. Users silently miss updates that landed
after their last upgrade.

Remove the early exit and premature cache write so the script falls
through to the remote check after consuming the marker. This ensures
JUST_UPGRADED is still emitted for the preamble, while also detecting
any newer versions available upstream.

Fixes #515

* fix: decouple doc generation from binary compilation in build script

The build script chains gen:skill-docs and bun build --compile with &&,
so a doc generation failure (e.g. missing Codex host config, template
error) prevents the browse binary from being compiled. Users end up
with a broken install where setup reports the binary is missing.

Replace && with ; for the two gen:skill-docs steps so they run
independently of the compilation chain. Doc generation errors are still
visible in stderr, but no longer block binary compilation.

Fixes #482

* fix: extend security sanitization + add 10 tests for merged community PRs

- Extend json_safe() to ERROR_CLASS and FAILED_STEP fields
- Improve ERROR_MESSAGE escaping to handle backslashes and newlines
- Replace python3 with bun for JSON validation in gstack-review-log
- Add 7 telemetry injection prevention tests
- Add 2 review-log JSON validation tests
- Add 1 discover-skills hidden directory filtering test

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

* fix: stabilize flaky E2E tests (browse-basic, ship-base-branch, dashboard-via)

browse-basic: bump maxTurns 5→7 (agent reads PNG per SKILL.md instruction)
ship-base-branch: extract Step 0 only instead of full 1900-line ship/SKILL.md
dashboard-via: extract dashboard section only + increase timeout 90s→180s

Root cause: copying full SKILL.md files into test fixtures caused context bloat,
leading to timeouts and flaky turn limits. Extracting only the relevant section
cut dashboard-via from timing out at 240s to finishing in 38s.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

* docs: add E2E fixture extraction rule to CLAUDE.md

Never copy full SKILL.md files into E2E test fixtures. Extract only
the section the test needs. Also: run targeted evals in foreground,
never pkill and restart mid-run.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

* fix: stabilize journey-think-bigger routing test

Use exact trigger phrases from plan-ceo-review skill description
("think bigger", "expand scope", "ambitious enough") instead of
the ambiguous "thinking too small". Reduce maxTurns 5→3 to cut
cost per attempt ($0.12 vs $0.25). Test remains periodic tier
since LLM routing is inherently non-deterministic.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

* remove: delete journey-think-bigger routing test

Never passed reliably. Tests ambiguous routing ("think bigger" →
plan-ceo-review) but Claude legitimately answers directly instead
of invoking a skill. The other 10 journey tests cover routing
with clear, actionable signals.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

* chore: bump version and changelog (v0.12.7.0)

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

---------

Co-authored-by: Arun Kumar Thiagarajan <arunkt.bm14@gmail.com>
Co-authored-by: bluzername <bluzer@gmail.com>
Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Co-authored-by: Greg Jackson <gregario@users.noreply.github.com>

feat: GitLab support for /retro, /ship, and /document-release (v0.11.20.0) (#508)

* feat: multi-platform BASE_BRANCH_DETECT (GitHub + GitLab + GHE + git-native)

Update the shared BASE_BRANCH_DETECT resolver to support GitHub, GitLab,
GitHub Enterprise, self-hosted GitLab, and a git-native fallback chain.
Platform detection uses remote URL matching plus CLI auth status for
custom domains. Add glab issue create alternative in test failure triage.

Add 7 new test assertions covering GitLab CLI presence, git symbolic-ref
fallback, and platform-specific output in retro and ship generated files.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

* feat: GitLab support in /retro — use shared BASE_BRANCH_DETECT resolver

Replace retro's custom gh-only default branch detection with the shared
BASE_BRANCH_DETECT resolver (DRY — same as 10 other skills). Update
PR/MR number extraction to match both GitHub #NNN and GitLab !NNN
patterns. Remove hardcoded github.com URL from the personal card footer.
Regenerate all SKILL.md files affected by the resolver update.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

* feat: GitLab MR creation in /ship + /document-release

Ship Step 1.5 now checks .gitlab-ci.yml for release workflows alongside
GitHub Actions. Step 8 routes to glab mr create on GitLab repos with
correct flag mapping (-b, -t, -d). Falls back to manual instructions
when no CLI is available. Document-release now reads MR body via
glab mr view -F json and updates via glab mr update on GitLab repos.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

* chore: add P2 TODO for land-and-deploy GitLab support

Track the remaining work to support GitLab in /land-and-deploy — MR
merge, CI polling, and deploy workflow detection using glab equivalents.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

* fix: adversarial review — GitLab gate, shell safety, MR prefix preservation

Three fixes from adversarial review:
1. land-and-deploy: add GitLab gate after Step 0 — prevents detection/
   execution mismatch where agent detects GitLab but all subsequent
   steps are GitHub-only
2. document-release: use heredoc for glab mr update body to avoid shell
   metacharacter mangling ($, backticks, !) in MR descriptions
3. retro: preserve original #/! prefix in PR/MR number extraction —
   GitLab !42 stays as !42, not incorrectly converted to #42

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

* fix: resolve merge conflicts — deduplicate gen-skill-docs resolvers

The merge from main created duplicate RESOLVERS records in gen-skill-docs.ts
(inline functions shadowing the imported module versions). Removed the inline
duplicates so the modular resolvers from scripts/resolvers/ are used.
Also added missing E2E_TIERS entries for plan-completion/verification tests.

* chore: bump version and changelog (v0.11.20.0)

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

---------

Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

feat: worktree isolation for E2E tests + infrastructure elegance (v0.11.12.0) (#425)

* refactor: extract gen-skill-docs into modular resolver architecture

Break the 3000-line monolith into 10 domain modules under scripts/resolvers/:
types, constants, preamble, utility, browse, design, testing, review,
codex-helpers, and index. Each module owns one domain of template generation.

The preamble module introduces a 4-tier composition system (T1-T4) so skills
only pay for the preamble sections they actually need, reducing token usage
for lightweight skills by ~40%.

Adds a token budget dashboard that prints after every generation run showing
per-skill and total token counts.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

* feat: tiered preamble — skills only pay for what they use

Tag all 23 templates with preamble-tier (T1-T4). Lightweight skills
like /browse and /benchmark get a minimal preamble (~40% fewer tokens),
while review skills get the full stack. Regenerate all SKILL.md files.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

* feat: migrate eval storage to project-scoped paths

Move eval results and E2E run artifacts from ~/.gstack-dev/evals/ to
~/.gstack/projects/$SLUG/evals/ so each project's eval history lives
alongside its other gstack data. Falls back to legacy path if slug
detection fails.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

* fix: sync package.json version with VERSION after merge

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

* feat: add WorktreeManager for isolated test environments

Reusable platform module (lib/worktree.ts) that creates git worktrees
for test isolation and harvests useful changes as patches. Includes
SHA-256 dedup, original SHA tracking for committed change detection,
and automatic gitignored artifact copying (.agents/, browse/dist/).

12 unit tests covering lifecycle, harvest, dedup, and error handling.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

* feat: integrate worktree isolation into E2E test infrastructure

Add createTestWorktree(), harvestAndCleanup(), and describeWithWorktree()
helpers to e2e-helpers.ts. Add harvest field to EvalTestEntry for
eval-store integration. Register lib/worktree.ts as a global touchfile.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

* feat: run Gemini and Codex E2E tests in worktrees

Switch both test suites from cwd: ROOT to worktree isolation.
Gemini (--yolo) no longer pollutes the working tree. Codex
(read-only) gets worktree for consistency. Useful changes are
harvested as patches for cherry-picking.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

* fix: skip symlinks in copyDirSync to prevent infinite recursion

Adversarial review caught that .claude/skills/gstack may be a symlink
back to the repo root, causing copyDirSync to recurse infinitely
when copying gitignored artifacts into worktrees.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* chore: bump version and changelog (v0.11.12.0)

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* fix: relax session-awareness assertion to accept structured options

The LLM consistently presents well-formatted A/B choices with pros/cons
but doesn't always use the exact string "RECOMMENDATION". Accept
case-insensitive "recommend", "option a", "which do you want", or
"which approach" as equivalent signals of a structured recommendation.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

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Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

feat: natural language skill routing + proactive suggestions (v0.7.1) (#195)

* feat: add trigger phrases to /debug and /office-hours

These two skills had zero "Use when asked to..." phrases, making them
completely invisible to natural language. Users saying "debug this" or
"brainstorm an idea" would get no skill invocation.

* feat: add proactive triggers to all workflow skills

Every skill now has "Proactively suggest when..." language so Claude
surfaces skills at natural moments — not just when the user says
specific trigger phrases.

* feat: lifecycle map + proactive preference system

Root gstack description now includes a developer workflow guide mapping
12 stages to skills. Preamble reads proactive preference via gstack-config.
Users can opt out with "stop suggesting things" and re-enable with
"be proactive again" — natural language toggle, no CLI needed.

* test: 11 journey-stage E2E routing tests + trigger phrase validation

Each test simulates a real development stage (ideation, plan review,
debug, QA, ship, retro...) with realistic project context and verifies
the right skill fires from natural language alone. 11/11 pass.

* chore: bump version and changelog (v0.7.1)

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

---------

Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

feat: add trigger phrases to skill descriptions for better model matching (v0.6.4.1) (#169)

* feat: add trigger phrases to skill descriptions for better model matching

Anthropic's skill best practices: "the description field is not a summary —
it's when to trigger." Add explicit "Use when asked to..." phrases to 12 skill
descriptions so Claude's auto-discovery works with natural language requests
like "deploy this" or "check my diff", not just explicit /slash-commands.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

* docs: add on-demand hooks and telemetry to TODOS.md

Captures two ideas from Anthropic's skill best practices post:
- /careful, /freeze, /guard on-demand hook skills (P3)
- Skill usage telemetry via preamble JSONL append (P3)

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

* chore: bump version and changelog (v0.6.4.1)

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* docs: exclude internal details from CHANGELOG style guide

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

---------

Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

feat: /document-release skill — post-ship doc updates (v0.4.3) (#109)

* docs: update project documentation for v0.4.2

- README: skill count 9→10, added /document-release to skills table,
  install/uninstall sections, and dedicated section with example
- CHANGELOG: added /document-release bullet to v0.4.2 entry

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

* feat: add /document-release skill with smart VERSION handling

New skill runs after /ship but before PR merge. Reads every doc file,
cross-references the diff, auto-updates factual changes, asks about
risky edits. CHANGELOG clobber protection: never uses Write tool on
CHANGELOG.md, only Edit with exact old_string matches.

Smart VERSION logic: instead of silently skipping already-bumped
versions, compares CHANGELOG entry scope against full diff and asks
if significant uncovered changes exist.

Also fixes gstack-upgrade/SKILL.md missing from skill-check.ts
SKILL_FILES array (existing inconsistency with gen-skill-docs.ts).

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

* feat: /review Step 5.6 — documentation staleness check

Review skill now cross-references code changes against doc files.
If a doc describes a feature that changed but the doc wasn't updated,
flags it as INFORMATIONAL with a pointer to /document-release.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

* test: /document-release E2E with CHANGELOG clobber guard

E2E test creates a repo with existing CHANGELOG entries, runs
/document-release, and asserts original entries survive. Critical
guardrail against the incident where an agent replaced CHANGELOG
entries during conflict resolution.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

* chore: bump to v0.4.3 — /document-release skill

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

* chore: regenerate SKILL.md files after merge

* chore: regenerate SKILL.md files after merge

---------

Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>