Goal: let TF fully *autonomously* work on quick-wins

[brillout]

Use case: when I create a new ticket, I don't know whether it's a quick-win to implement => I don't know whether I should let AI implement it.

So let's do this:

• For each new ticket => always autonomously spike & plan it (via the Routine work)

• If spike & plan determines it's a consensual quick-win => autonomously implement it

• We'll need to add the "Update tickets from GH" prompt to the routine task.

• Ensure the squash-merge commit contains (fix #1234), otherwise the tickets stays open

Dogfooding => highest-prio.

[brillout]

OP udpated — added:

• Ensure the squash-merge commit contains (fix #1234), otherwise the tickets stays open

[suleimansh]

Live evidence (2026-07-31) on the setReadyForMerge requirement that #1392 wired in: whether the signal fires is a function of the model tier, not of the prompt wording.

Eight merge-relevant trivial runs (the Fable row added 2026-07-31 evening, on the post-#1425/#1427 build), all with the tightened "required" instruction in their system prompt, none with any signal hint in the task prompt:

Model	Runs	Committed its own work	Called setReadyForMerge()	Outcome
Haiku	5	no (once staged-only)	0/5	draft PR + "merge withheld: the session never signalled ready-for-merge" (e.g. #1399, #1404)
Sonnet	1	yes	1/1, unprompted	#1405 — fully autonomous merge
Opus	1	yes	1/1, unprompted	#1407 — fully autonomous merge, plus the full session protocol on its own: named the session (create-test20-md), emitted the analysis view, kept the gitignored scratch file out of the commit
Fable	1	yes	1/1, unprompted	#1428 — fully autonomous merge, single turn, launch→merge in 50s ($0.39): named the session (create-test22-md), committed, signalled, self-ended

(The one Haiku run that did merge, #1400, only signalled because the task prompt explicitly said to call it — which a real quick-win prompt never will.)

The gate itself works exactly as settled in #1390 — withheld runs fail safe as draft PRs. But since the launcher routes trivial prompts to Haiku, the practical default today is: auto-merge armed + stock quick-win = always withheld, and a human still finishes every run. That blocks this issue's goal.

Two fix directions, which VISION.md already touches:

1. Model floor: merge-armed runs never go below the tier that reliably follows the terminal protocol — on this evidence, Sonnet (Fable confirms the pattern from above: 1/1, and the fastest full-protocol run of the set). This is also a hard constraint for the "Auto-model chooser" candidate: a chooser that routes a merge-armed run to Haiku silently disables autonomy.
2. Haiku-proof the system prompt ("Improved system prompt → No laziness"): possible, but the "required, the work is never merged without it" wording is already there and Haiku ignores it 5/5, so this looks like the harder path.

Related: with the signal firing, merges currently land seconds after the PR opens, before CI runs (#1428: created 16:16:21Z, merged 16:16:25Z) — #1406, since the fix is repo settings, not code.

Small observability gap noticed while adding the Fable row: the run journal never records which model the launcher selected, so tier evidence relies on the operator remembering the dropdown — worth a model field on the run meta if this table keeps growing.

[brillout]

Sounds good. (Interesting that Haiku consistently fails here.)