A back-off leaves no trace: when abcd reserve or a build backs off another copy's live hold (exit 3), nothing is written that the holder or another copy can read (a build lane's widening back-off is noted only in that lane's own local run record), so neither the holder nor a person can later tell who was held back, from which paths, or whether they tried again once the hold ended. On 2026-10-31 a hand reservation of iss-2610311224444576 held eleven record files it never changed for almost four hours (23:09:38Z to 03:06:16Z); answering who that held back took a hand search of every reservation chain on origin, every local run record and origin's history, which found none, and could not rule out a refused attempt on another machine or account, since a refusal pushes nothing. Two open records touch neighbouring parts of the same remedy: iss-2610241424428420 (nothing tells a backed-off build or drain when the hold is released) and iss-2610311604123786 (a widening's back-off is re-handed with no wait); a fix here should build on them, not repeat them.

Frontmatter

.abcd/work/issues/open/iss-2611011010338815-a-back-off-leaves-no-trace-when-abcd.md
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mentions4

• iss-2610241424428420A build or drain lane whose footprint overlaps a peer's live reservation backs off with exit 3, and nothing tells it when the reservation is released: on 2026-10-24 a planned build waited on a drain lane's reservation of internal/core/implement/loop, and the two sessions coordinated by cross-session messages, the drain promising to say when it released. A session with no peer messaging, or a hosted one, can only poll abcd peers.
• iss-2610311224444576On 2026-10-31 nine of thirteen intent builds the product thinker chose were refused at the reservation check by one hold: iss-2610252214522207, whose found_at is the single file internal/core/surface/examples.go, holds a live reservation on origin until 2026-10-31T18:42:23Z whose footprint names dozens of paths (brief chapters 01-product, 02-constraints and 04-surfaces, commands/*.md among them) and which carries no run stage, unlike the build lanes beside it. A hold many times wider than its record's own scope, kept for hours with no lane showing progress, starves every autonomous build that touches the brief or the command pages, and nothing flags it: abcd peers lists it like any other live hold.
• iss-2610311604123786An issue lane whose widening backed off (abcd implement widen, exit 3) has its implement stage handed out again at the very next step, with no wait for the hold that refused it to end: a host or runner stepping the run dispatches a fresh implementer that meets the same hold, as often as it steps, spending an agent each time on a lane that should wait for another copy's hold to end. A runner's end without a receipt is refused outside the step that counts refusals, so nothing bounds the repetition either.
• iss-2611011010445156A hand reservation was renewed with eleven paths its work never changed: widening the hold on iss-2610311224444576 to one test file, the footprint was rebuilt by hand from a two-dot diff against a default branch that had moved, so the renewal also named a decision record and ten issue records other merged changes had written, and held them from 2026-10-31T23:09:38Z until the release at 03:06:16Z. reserve replaces the footprint wholesale with whatever paths it is given and asks nothing about them. No copy that left a trace met the extra paths in that window, by the search iss-2611011010338815 records; a refused attempt that left none cannot be ruled out.