FORGE

FORGE is the senior engineer of the team. It runs inside an isolated, ephemeral Coder workspace on its own pair branch (forge-{worker-id}/{ticket-id}), drives the gated phase machine through the openflows worker harness CLI, implements code segment by segment, runs tests, and opens pull requests - all without holding a single LLM API key or raw credential.

Capabilities

• Isolated, Ephemeral Coder Workspace + Pair Branch per Ticket
• Gated Planning Checkpoint - no code until SENTINEL approves the plan
• Segment-by-Segment Implementation with Conventional Commits
• Automated Test Execution via the Harness
• A2A Verification Executor - allowlisted, audited test delegation for SENTINEL
• Adversarial Review + Rework Loop (/address_review, /ci_fix)
• Secret Scanning & Redaction Before Push
• Zero LLM Keys / Zero Raw Credentials in the Workspace

How it works

1. 01 Workspace Setup

   NEXUS assigns a ticket and provisions an isolated Coder workspace; FORGE checks out the pair branch forge-{id}/{ticket}.

2. 02 Gated Planning

   FORGE writes and uploads a plan to the SharedStore, sets plan_ready, and halts. SENTINEL must approve the gate before any code is written.

3. 03 Build & Test

   FORGE implements segment by segment with conventional commits, runs the test suite, and moves through building → testing.

4. 04 Review & Verify

   SENTINEL reviews the diff adversarially and can verify in FORGE's workspace via A2A. Rework loops back through building.

5. 05 Merge

   FORGE opens the PR; SENTINEL approves; VESSEL watches CI, resolves conflicts, and squash-merges. Humans stay in the loop at decision points.

Human Intervention

FORGE can't act without human-backed approval - it is gated at every step, and when it can't proceed safely it asks you an exact question instead of guessing.

• Gated at both ends: FORGE writes no code until SENTINEL approves the plan gate, and it opens no PR until a human approves the testing gate.
• It never guesses: if FORGE hits an ambiguous spec, a missing dependency, or an unresolved conflict, it sets blocked and asks an exact, answerable question. You unblock it by answering in the Coder chat, commenting on the GitHub issue, or running openflows tenant clean.
• Rework is always traceable: when VESSEL routes a conflict or CI fix back, FORGE reuses its existing workspace and branch - you always know exactly which change is being reworked.
• Visible and audited: every plan revision, review round, and commit head is recorded, so nothing ships without a human-auditable trail.