Development record

2026-10-23 — The merge gate reads the repository's declaration from the default branch, never from the branch being landed (the technical facilitator on the product thinker's delegation, from the lane-1 review pairs of run-2610222359421510, ruled by abcd-ae as coordinator, 2026-10-23): readMode(o.Roots) takes o.Roots.Repo, which is the landing branch's own worktree when abcd land runs there, so a branch that commits facilitator.mode auto, or deletes a repository-level human, would decide the gate for itself. Step 4 therefore resolves the mode from the default branch's committed .abcd/config.json together with the machine layer, human from either winning, and tests both directions. Every front door that prints a facilitator.mode refusal (the board in step 2, land and the loop in step 4, the guard in step 5) passes it through termsafe.Sanitize, as land already does (land.go:124), because the layered reader returns a hostile key's raw bytes.