--- name: submit-suggestion description: Propose declarative configuration updates securely by committing file changes and submitting pull requests (merge requests on GitLab) for SRE review, including a request to delete a resource, which its "Deleting a resource" section answers with a stated stop, never a pull request. Not for fleet-audit finding fixes — the fleet-audit skill opens and tracks those PRs itself. --- # submit-suggestion - Secure GitOps Pull Request Orchestrator This skill equips the Platform Agent to propose declarative file updates, GKE infrastructure adjustments, or configuration changes securely by committing local repository changes and submitting pull requests (PRs; merge requests on GitLab) for human review. The repository is named as `owner/name` on github.com, `/owner/name` on a GitHub Enterprise Server, or `/` — `gitlab.com/acme/platform/infra` — for one on another forge, exactly as it appears in the managed repository list. ## When to Use - **Declarative File Provisioning:** Triggered when new GKE manifests or configs are requested. - **Configuration Upgrades:** Triggered when upgrading version configurations, security patches, or network policies. - **Governance Policy Syncs:** Triggered when compliance playbooks or settings require updates. - **Deletions:** Triggered when someone asks to delete a resource. See [Deleting a resource](#deleting-a-resource) before Step 1: every case there ends in a stated stop. _Crucially, you are strictly forbidden from executing direct, manual mutations. All changes must flow through a secure PR path — this skill, or the **fleet-audit** skill for fixes of its findings (below)._ ## When NOT to Use - **Answering a request that asked for a diagnosis, not a change.** "Investigate and report the root cause", "why is this crashlooping", "what would you change" are questions; their answer is the finding and the proposed manifest in the reply, marked as a recommendation. Open the pull request only when the request asks for one, or for the change to be submitted or fixed; `SOUL.md` §3, item 3 draws the line, and the unattended case is `fleet-audit`'s own promotion, which `finish` does on a scheduled run, never this skill. A pull request nobody asked for is a write on their repository they now have to triage. - **Fixing a fleet-audit finding.** The bullets above match audit fixes too — a security patch, a policy update — which is exactly why this warning exists. If the change addresses a fleet-audit finding (it carries a finding id, or an `[audit]` ledger issue lists that exact deviation as a finding), the **fleet-audit** skill opens that pull request itself, through its `remediate` subcommand — see `/opt/data/profiles/platform/skills/fleet-audit/references/remediation.md` for the invocation. That path keys the branch on the files the fix touches, so a rerun cannot open a duplicate: a live PR is left untouched rather than force-pushed over, and one the harness withdrew as stale is re-proposed on the same branch. It applies the audit labels, links the ledger, and closes the PR when the finding stops reproducing. A PR opened through _this_ skill gets none of that — nothing dedupes it and nothing ever closes it, which is how one workload's findings once became five near-duplicate PRs. Two cautions when you take that path. `remediate` consumes the findings document the audit run wrote (`start` prints its path); if it no longer exists, stop and say the fix should be requested as `/remediate ` on the ledger — do **not** run `start` yourself to mint a fresh document (it scrubs that stream's workspace, possibly under a scheduled run), and never hand-write one. And a change a user asked for on its own terms is not an audit fix, even when the same file appears in a ledger — this section is about fixes _of findings_, not about files findings happen to mention. ## Execution Instructions Follow these steps to make, commit, and submit your GitOps suggestions asynchronously: ### Step 1: Prepare Never run the plain `git` on this machine and never work from wherever your shell happens to start. That `git` is a different program: it reaches the network with a credential, and it is not the one your working copy answers to. `prepare` brings the repository down and stands you on the branch this change goes on. The script path is spelled out from `$HERMES_HOME` rather than as `./skills/…` because this skill is reached from a kanban card as well as from a cron turn, and a card dispatch starts you in the task's workspace, not the profile directory. `$HERMES_HOME` is the profile directory in both. Use that form everywhere below, including for `vcs.py` in Step 5. If you do meet a `No such file or directory` on one of these scripts, do **not** recover by writing the absolute path out: `/opt/data/profiles/platform/…` is refused by the gateway lifecycle guard, under an error about restarting the gateway that has nothing to do with what you ran. Observed live — the refusal sent one worker on to report a change it had not made. ```bash python3 "$HERMES_HOME"/skills/submit-suggestion/scripts/submit_suggestion.py prepare \ --repo "/" \ --branch "platform-agent/-" ``` _(Example: `--repo "acme/fleet" --branch "platform-agent/provision-mercury-09"` or `--repo "acme/fleet" --branch "platform-agent/upgrade-policy-baseline"`)_ In a multi-repository environment, pass `--repo "/"` for the repository your task targets (identified from cluster annotations or task context per SOUL.md §3, item 6). It prints one JSON line. **Keep it — Step 2 works inside its `workspace`.** The `workspace` is named for your branch as well as the repository, because `/opt/data/scratch` is shared with every other card: another card suggesting a change to the same repository right now derives a different branch name for it, so it works in a different directory. Different, not protected — every card here runs as the same account and the whole tree is readable and writable from all of them. What keeps two suggestions apart is that no two of them share a branch name, which is why the name has to describe the change. ```json { "workspace": "/opt/data/scratch/vcs/github__acme__fleet__platform-agent__provision-mercury-09", "repo": "acme/fleet", "branch": "platform-agent/provision-mercury-09", "base": "main", "started_from": "main", "proposal": "" } ``` `base` is what the change merges into: the branch the operator configured for this repository when there is one (the broker refuses a pull request onto any other), else the repository's own default branch, not a hardcoded `main` — or, when a pull request for this branch is already open, whatever that one is already targeting. It comes from the broker, never from your environment: exporting `GITOPS_BASE_BRANCH` or any other variable does not change it. If `prepare` is refused with `BASE_BRANCH_MISSING`, the configured base named in the message does not exist on the repository. That is for an operator to fix; report it and stop rather than naming another branch. `started_from` and `proposal` are two halves of one answer — whether this is new work or another round on a change already under review. `prepare` asks the forge rather than taking your word for it. When a pull request is open for the branch, its URL is in `proposal`, the copy is taken **of that branch** so every reviewed revision comes down with it, and `started_from` is the branch itself. Otherwise `proposal` is empty, the copy is taken of the base, and `started_from` is the base. There is one working copy per repository **and branch**, so preparing a second change to the same repository does not disturb the first. If the copy for this branch holds revisions that were never published, `prepare` refuses to replace it. Finishing them is the way past, not the flag: go to the copy the refusal names, publish what is in it and open the proposal, and this `prepare` becomes a second round on that branch instead of a replacement. `--force` deletes those revisions; it is the answer only once you have read them and decided they should not exist. A name can also be spent: the proposal it was last used for is closed or squash-merged, and its revisions are not in the history you just cloned. If the forge still holds that branch, a change cut fresh from the base does not build on it and `submit` would be refused as `BRANCH_DIVERGED`. `prepare` handles this itself: it asks the forge whether the branch is still there and, when it is, deletes it — the broker allows that only for a branch under `platform-agent/`, with no open proposal, whose tip is exactly what a closed proposal from this repository carried, and every proposal on it opened by this install's credential. A credential that cannot name its own login cannot show the last part, so for it the prefix and the same-repository rule are the whole bar. The log line says which happened. Nothing is lost: on GitHub and on GitLab the revisions stay reachable from the closed proposal. If the broker refuses the delete, `prepare` refuses the name and names the code. `NOT_SPENT` means the branch moved on after its proposal closed; `BRANCH_MOVED` means something pushed to it a moment ago — run `prepare` once more, which reads it again; if a person or a sibling card on the same name added to it, that second run refuses it as `NOT_SPENT`. `OPEN_PROPOSAL` means a proposal was opened on the name since `prepare` looked; run `prepare` once more, and it adds to that proposal's branch. `BRANCH_NOT_OURS` means a proposal from it was not this install's, or the name is not under `platform-agent/`, or it has carried a full page of proposals, too long a history to read, or an open proposal targets it (the message says which). Either way, do not delete it another way. `DELETE_REFUSED` means the repository itself refuses to delete the branch (a branch rule, a hook, or a credential without the right), and it will refuse again. Choose a different name where the derived one is only a default, or report the refusal and stop where the name is fixed. `FORGE_CALL_FAILED`, `GIT_FAILED`, or a delete refused with no code is different: the delete did not complete (it may have landed before the failure), and running `prepare` once more, which reads the branch afresh, is the move; a second failure is reported, not retried. `FORGE_RATE_LIMITED` or `FORGE_UNAVAILABLE` from the delete is the forge turning it away for now: wait a few minutes, then run `prepare` once more. The same codes from the read of the branch that comes before the delete get the same moves, and `prepare` says which one. A proxy older than the sandbox cannot read the branch at all; `prepare` then refuses the name with `BROKER_ROUTE_UNSUPPORTED` and says so — use another name, or report it where the name is fixed. ### Step 2: Make the Changes Generate or edit the files **inside the returned `workspace`**. `git` here holds no credential and cannot reach a forge; it works on the working copy and nothing else, and `submit` is what sends the result. ```bash cd # create or edit the declarative files here git add git commit -m "" ``` **CRITICAL SECURITY RULE:** explicitly stage only the targeted declarative files you generated or modified. **Never use `git add .` or `git add -A`** — this is a real clone on a filesystem you also scratch in, and a blanket add sweeps transient debugging output, logs and anything else that landed there into a public pull request. _(Example: `git add config/manifest.yaml && git commit -m "feat(fleet): provision GKE operator for mercury-09"`)_ Committing here is optional. Uncommitted changes **to files the copy already tracks** are recorded as a single revision under the `--title` you pass when you run Step 3, which is what a single-purpose change wants. Commit yourself when the change deserves more than one revision, or a message that is not the pull request's headline. The rule above still holds at Step 3: a file the copy has never seen is not swept in for you. `submit` refuses and names it, because it cannot tell a manifest you generated from a log you left behind. Stage the ones that belong (`git add `) and delete the rest. ### Deleting a resource A request to delete something (a namespace, a Deployment, a ConfigMap) is answered with a stated stop, not a pull request, in every case below. The only delete a pull request can carry is the removal of a manifest the repository already has, and this skill does not yet propose that removal. Never add a file, an annotation or a label to say "delete": nothing reads one you invent, and a manifest you add declares its object, so merging it keeps the object. 1. **The repository first.** Before Step 1: ```bash python3 "$HERMES_HOME"/scripts/gitops_preflight.py ``` Any line other than `REGISTERED: ...` is the answer: block with that line as the reason (`kanban_block(kind="needs_input")`), change nothing, and do not look for another way to delete it. 2. **Find the declaration.** After Step 1's `prepare`, search the `workspace` for the object's name, then read each file found and keep the one whose `kind`, `metadata.name` and, for a namespaced object, `metadata.namespace` match. A namespace is also declared without a Namespace manifest: by objects placed in it, a `kustomization.yaml` whose `namespace:` names it, a Flux `HelmRelease` or `Kustomization` whose `targetNamespace:` names it, a `namespaces//` directory (Config Sync's hierarchical layout), or an Argo CD `Application` with `CreateNamespace=true` deploying into it. Any of those counts as declared. The search matches the key anywhere on the line, so JSON and flow-style manifests are found too: ```bash grep -rlE "[\"' {,]?(name|namespace|targetNamespace)[\"']?: *[\"']?[\"']?([ ,}#]|$)" find -type d -path "*/namespaces/" ``` 3. **The repository declares it.** Stop with: "`` declares `/` in ``. Deleting it means removing those files (and anything else there that would recreate it) in a pull request, which I don't propose yet. Someone with write access to `` can open that pull request. I have changed nothing." Block with that line as the reason, and list every file step 2 found. 4. **The repository does not declare it.** Stop with: "`` does not declare `/`, so a pull request cannot delete it: removing a declaration is the only delete a pull request carries. Someone with write access to `` has to run the delete. I have changed nothing." Block with that line as the reason. Do not write a manifest for it. 5. **Words.** Never describe the request as an action under way or done ("deleting", "deleted"), and never name a GitOps controller, or say what one will do, unless you read it syncing that path: a stop changes nothing, and says so. ### Step 3: Call the Secure Submit Suggestion Script The same helper with `submit` publishes the branch and opens the pull request — or updates the one already open. It finds the working copy Step 1 made, so the only thing to pass back is the branch name. Write the description to a file first and pass the path. Inside double quotes bash expands backticks and `$(...)`, and a pull request body is full of backticks — through `--body` a benign one silently deletes its own text and a hostile one runs in the working copy you are about to publish: ```bash BODY=$(mktemp -p /opt/data/scratch pr_body.XXXXXX.md) cat > "$BODY" <<'EOF' This Pull Request was generated automatically by the **Platform Agent** control plane. ### 🚀 Functional Impact: Please review the code diffs and merge this PR to trigger the GitOps CI/CD rollout! EOF ``` The quoted `<<'EOF'` matters as much as `--body-file`: unquoted, the heredoc expands the same constructs the argument would have. `mktemp` matters because `/opt/data/scratch` is shared with every other card running right now, and a fixed name there is two cards writing one file — one card's description on the other's pull request. Keep the file directly in `/opt/data/scratch`, the only directory `--body-file` reads from, and **not** inside the `workspace`: a file written there is untracked, and `commit` refuses rather than guess — it names the file and tells you to name the paths that belong in the change — so a description left in the working copy stops the submit instead of riding along in it. ```bash python3 "$HERMES_HOME"/skills/submit-suggestion/scripts/submit_suggestion.py submit \ --repo "/" \ --branch "platform-agent/-" \ --title "" \ --body-file "$BODY" ``` `--base ` names what the change merges into, for the rare case where it is not the `base` Step 1 reported. It may not name the branch you are submitting: a head branch that is its own base carries nothing for anyone to review, and `prepare`, `submit` and the broker each refuse it. That covers the repository whose trunk is called something other than `main` — the name is read from the remote, not from a list. On a repository with a configured base, a new pull request may only target that base: a `--base` naming anything else is refused with `TARGET_NOT_BASE` before anything is published, and the message names the configured base. If you passed `--base`, drop it and submit again. If you did not, the copy was prepared before the base was configured or moved: read the change in the old copy, run `prepare --force` with the same `--branch`, reapply the change, and submit from the new copy. `submit` recorded the change as a revision before the publish was refused, so a plain `prepare` refuses to replace that copy. `--force` is safe here: the revision it deletes is the one you have read and are about to reapply. Do not try another target, and do not pass the named branch as `--base` from the old copy: it was cut from another branch, and the broker refuses it `BASE_MOVED`. The script returns the clean, live pull request URL. If a pull request for this branch is already open, it updates that one's title and body in place and returns its URL — resubmitting is not an error. `--keep-description` (Step 5) is the one exception: it leaves the open pull request's title and body as their author wrote them. Older invocations carried `--workspace`, `--lease`, `--handle`, `--from`, `--delete` and `--base-sha`, and had `list` and `fetch` as commands of their own. The flags are still accepted, and read and ignored with a line saying so; the two commands refuse with a line saying where the files are now. That is all any of it buys: a command written against the old shape fails on what is actually wrong with it — there is no working copy here, take the branch with `prepare` — rather than on "unrecognized arguments" or "invalid choice", which say nothing and hide the real cause. A card that prepared before an upgrade cannot submit after one; its clone was on a volume this script no longer has. Prepare again. Do not write new commands with these flags. ### Step 4: Confirm Suggestion Record the PR link returned by the script, update the pending status inside your local state registry (if applicable), and present a clean, human-readable confirmation containing the PR URL link back to the user. ### Step 5: Addressing Review Feedback on an Existing PR When you are asked to **address review comments / reviewer feedback** on an existing PR, **read the comments yourself — never expect them pasted into the task.** The `version-control` skill reads and writes them through the same broker this skill publishes through; there is no forge CLI to authenticate and no token to refresh. 1. **Read the pull request and all its feedback** — the conversation and the inline review comments arrive together, each carrying the file and line it sits on where it has one: ```bash V="$HERMES_HOME"/skills/version-control/scripts/vcs.py python3 "$V" proposal view --repo "/" --comments ``` Add `--diff` for the change under discussion. The `source` field of that answer is the branch to work on in the next step. 2. **Apply the requested changes on the PR's own branch.** Run Step 1 against that branch — `prepare --repo "/" --branch ` — then Steps 2 and 3 exactly as written. Two things differ from a first submission and both are handled for you: the copy comes down with the revisions already under review on it and yours go on top, and `submit` adds to the branch rather than replacing it, refusing outright if somebody else has moved it in the meantime. Edit the files the reviewer commented on in the `workspace` — what is on the branch is what you are being asked to change, and rewriting a file from memory loses the rest of it. Stage only those specific files (**never `git add .` / `-A`**). Pass `--title` and `--body-file` again so the description matches the revisions now on the branch — or `--keep-description` and no body-file, when what you were asked for does not alter what the pull request is for. That flag keeps the title along with the body, so a `--title` passed beside it does **not** reach the pull request, and the run says so. It is not inert, though: it is still the message any uncommitted edits are recorded under, so pass the one you would want on that revision and not a placeholder. Pass one whenever you left edits uncommitted at Step 2 — without it the run is refused for having changes and no message to record them under. `--keep-description` also needs the pull request to still be open: a merged or closed one is not a description to keep, and the script refuses before publishing anything rather than opening a fresh pull request with no description at all. 3. **Reply on the PR** summarizing what changed, then relay a clean confirmation (PR URL + what you changed) back through your kanban result. Through a file, for the reason Step 3 gives. A reply is a summary of edits you just made and often quotes the comment you are answering — backticks in your own text, and `$(...)` in somebody else's. `proposal comment` takes no `--body-file`, so the file is read by a command substitution you write yourself; what it expands to is an argument and is not expanded again. ```bash REPLY=$(mktemp -p /opt/data/scratch pr_reply.XXXXXX.md) cat > "$REPLY" <<'EOF' EOF python3 "$V" proposal comment --repo "/" --body "$(cat "$REPLY")" ``` Never ask the requester to paste the comment text — fetching it and addressing it is your job.