/gaia-review-meta-close

Turns the messy, rules-everywhere review/meta close-out into a bounded pipeline: the script owns the mechanical parts, the human owns the judgment parts. It exists because the ingest → appraise → calibrate → suite → name → stage → PR sequence has ~10 precise rules (Origin gate, suite-manifest survival, CRLF churn, badge/Class-S discipline, UTF-8 validate) that are easy to get wrong one at a time.

Backed by scripts/review_meta_close.py (status / stage / validate / check).

When to run

After /ev-pipeline (or /gaia-curate-chain) has verified the evidence and an L4 reviewer approved the batch. This skill lands it; it does not discover or re-verify evidence.

Upstream handoff: /gaia-ingest-batch hands off to this skill once evidence is ingested and appraised — it passes the branch, the affected contributor handles, the per-skill TM/grade, and the intake issues to Resolves. If you arrive here directly (nodes + evidence already in place), run from §3 onward; if the nodes/evidence do not yet exist, do §1–§3 first.

Operating principle

• Programmatic by default. Every registry mutation goes through a gaia dev verb (Programmatic-First Policy). Never hand-edit frontmatter or timelines.
• Human gates catch what the pipes missed. Stop at each GATE below for an explicit decision. These are the four places prior phases most often ship a wrong star, a stripped suite, a capability-vs-upstream name mismatch, or an accidental merge. A gate is a genuine stop — present the finding, wait.
• Prefix every gaia dev call with GAIA_OPERATOR_OVERRIDE=1 PYTHONPATH=src and pass --no-build on every mutation; run exactly one build at the end.

Pipeline

0. Branch

Work on review/meta/<slug> cut from origin/main. Confirm you are on it (git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD) before any edit — a commit landing on the wrong branch is a real failure mode. Commit + push after each logical unit.

1. Create nodes (dependency order)

Named-skill evidence cannot be written until the node exists, and a named node needs its generic ref to exist first. Order:

1. Generic bucket: gaia dev add "<Name>" --id <slug> --type basic --description "..." --no-build (skip if the generic already exists — gaia dev list --generic | grep <slug>).
2. Named skill: gaia dev add "<Name>" --named --contributor <handle> --generic-ref <slug> --description "..." --title "<Title>" --extra-fields '{"links":{"github":"<blob-url>"}}' --no-build.

Contributor handles must be lowercase (Panniantong → panniantong); the display name/title can keep original casing. Blob URL must be blob/<branch>/<path>, never tree/.

2. Ingest evidence (one row at a time)

For each verified row in the data lake, gaia dev evidence <contributor/skill> "<url>" --type <type> <typed-flags> --notes "..." --source-started-at YYYY-MM-DD --no-build. Use the numeric flags the type supports (--stars, --views, --citations, --reviewers, --commits, --contributors, --skill-count-in-repo, --percentile). A benchmark-result needs its full reproducibility payload (attestor, dataset/input hashes) — a mirrored third-party benchmark that can't supply them is EXCLUDED from TM; record it in the lake, not as a registry row with faked hashes.

3. Appraise (use the RIGHT tool)

TM is a derived value read after build — never write it. Read it with the canonical inspector, which loads the named .md evidence:

GAIA_OPERATOR_OVERRIDE=1 PYTHONPATH=src python3 scripts/inspectTrustMagnitude.py --skill <contributor/skill>

Or run scripts/trust_appraise.py --skill <contributor/skill> (which reads the named .md frontmatter, loads generic and named maps, and computes live Trust Magnitude and Grade).

4. GATE — calibration (TM band, branch rules, and Origin)

Per META.md: TM bands map S≥250→5★, A≥100→4★, B≥50→3★, C≥20→2★, ungraded(<20)→1★. Every 4★ promotion requires Overall Trust Grade A (TM ≥ 100) and live verified blob evidence pointing to a concrete implementation file (The Star Bar, META.md §2.4).

However, Origin requirements fork by branch:

• Unique branch (standalone skill, no suiteComponents): 4★ Unique requires bucket-level Origin — being the most-renowned named implementation in the generic bucket (META.md §4.1; exactly one Origin per bucket). Before proposing 4★ Unique, check the bucket: grep -rl "genericSkillRef: <slug>$" registry/named/. If a stronger incumbent holds the bucket, the A-grade skill caps at 3★ unless you move competitors to a different generic (gaia dev update-named <other> --generic-ref <new-bucket>) and set --origin true.
• Suite branch (suite capstone carrying suiteComponents): 4★ Extra does NOT require bucket-level Origin on its generic bucket. The capstone represents a multi-skill suite rather than a single bucket monopoly. Suite origin requirements apply at 5★ Ultimate (where the proposer must hold Origin on ≥1 of the suiteComponents per META.md §4.2). Existing 4★ suite capstone precedents include leonxlnx/taste-skill (4★ Extra, origin: false on generic design-generation, TM 172.43 Grade A) and gsd-build/get-shit-done (4★ Extra).

STOP. Present a table (skill | branch | TM | grade | bucket occupancy / suite status | proposed star) and get explicit operator approval. Then apply approved calibrations: gaia dev calibrate <contributor/skill> <N★> --no-build (star glyph, not bare int). A skill landing at 1★ is not Named — that is a legitimate outcome for ungraded Stage-1 skills; the redaction validator handles it, status: named is fine.

5. GATE — suites (use gaia dev fuse, not update-named)

If the batch includes a suite capstone: gaia dev update-named --suite-components alone does NOT survive gaia dev build — gaia dev docs strips suiteComponents from frontmatter unless a suite manifest at registry/suites/<contributor>/<slug>.json backs it. Establish suites with:

gaia dev fuse <generic-id> --name "<Name>" --description "..." \
  --prereqs <comp-generic-ids> --named-capstone <contributor/capstone> \
  --suite-components <contributor/comp-1>,<contributor/comp-2>,... --no-build

Verify after build that grep -c suiteComponents registry/named/<contributor>/<capstone>.md is ≥1. STOP for the capstone rank decision (recipe-driven TM can overstate a young repo — a founder ruling may hold it below its TM band).

6. GATE — upstream naming

The intake slug is often the capability name, not the real upstream skill (e.g. ux-audit for ui-ux-pro-max, format-output for i-have-adhd). Compare each named id against its links.github folder/file. STOP and confirm which should be corrected — intentional command-name divergences (documented in the intake issue) are left alone. To correct: gaia dev rename <contributor/old> <contributor/new> (named-skill rename is supported), then gaia dev update-named <contributor/new> --name "<Upstream Name>" --title "<Upstream Name>". The genericSkillRef (capability bucket) does not change — only the named id + display.

7. Build once, then hygiene + stage

GAIA_OPERATOR_OVERRIDE=1 PYTHONPATH=src python3 -m gaia_cli.main dev build   # single build
python scripts/review_meta_close.py status -v          # classify real / EOL-noise / leaks
python scripts/review_meta_close.py stage --contributor <h1,h2,...> --apply   # stage intended only
python scripts/review_meta_close.py check               # must be CLEAN

The script stages ONLY: registry/{named,nodes,suites}, tracked registry/*.md, docs/graph/* (Class S — Guard E), docs/badges/registry.json, and docs/badges/_assets/<h>/ + docs/og/<h>/ for the handles you pass. It renormalizes to LF (killing CRLF churn) and never stages a leak. Badges are only 2★+ (1★ carry none). Everything else the build touched (version-bump churn on unrelated profiles, other contributors' badges) is intentionally left out — never git add -A. If stage lists real changes OUTSIDE the allowlist, review them: they are either version-churn (discard) or need another --contributor.

8. Validate + commit + push

python scripts/review_meta_close.py validate    # gaia dev validate, UTF-8-safe, must PASS
git commit -m "..."   # conventional; note calibrations, renames, suite in body
git push

Merge conflicts land only in generated docs/graph/* — take --ours, complete the merge, re-run the single build, re-stage docs/graph/*. Never hand-merge them.

9. PR

Open (or edit) the PR with --body-file (real newlines):

• Resolves #<n> for each fully-closed intake issue. A suite issue with sub-skills held for separate promotion is listed but NOT auto-resolved — say so explicitly.
• Summary table: skill | TM | grade | calibrated stars.
• Note the pre-ingest fixes (e.g. a tree/→blob/ correction) and any renames.
• Include an Entrypoints section (usually "registry-data + CLI PR; no new user-facing pages" for a pure ingest).
• Verify: gh pr view <n> --json body,mergeable.

10. GATE — merge

Do not merge. Report the PR URL, CI status, and the calibration table. The final merge to main is a human decision (this skill never merges).

What the script owns vs what you own

Mechanical (script)	Judgment (you, at a GATE)
classify real vs EOL-noise vs leaks	which star each skill lands at (§4)
LF-renormalized allowlist staging	Origin bucket resolution (§4)
refuse/flag leaks, never git add -A	suite capstone rank (§5)
UTF-8-safe gaia dev validate	which names to correct vs leave (§6)
staged-EOL-noise + conflict preflight	which issues to Resolves (§9); merge (§10)

Known tooling frictions (worked around here; report persistent ones)

• gaia dev build strips suiteComponents without a suite manifest → use gaia dev fuse (§5).
• gaia dev validate crashes on Windows (cp1252 on ✓) → the script runs it UTF-8-safe.
• trust_appraise.py --skill resolves named frontmatter and computes live TM/Grade (fixed in Issue #1742).
• Windows checkouts introduce CRLF churn on every touched file → the script's LF-renormalized allowlist drops it.