VESSEL

VESSEL owns the terminal stage of the development lifecycle. As a controller-side monitor it observes the full GitHub-native PR lifecycle from the shared PR store, polls CI status, detects merge conflicts early, and squash-merges approved PRs. It is the only agent authorized to push directly to the main branch - with every merge action tied to Coder's identity and audit system.

Capabilities

• CI/CD Status Polling (GitHub Actions)
• Early Merge Conflict Detection
• Automated Rebase & Conflict Resolution
• Structured Rework Dispatch (/address_review, /ci_fix)
• Merge Gate - Only Merges ready_for_merge PRs
• Squash Merge with Ticket References
• Sole Agent Authorized for Main Branch Merges

How it works

1. 01 CI Polling

   Monitors GitHub check runs and the shared PR store with a configurable timeout - missing or timed-out CI never counts as success.

2. 02 Conflict Detection

   Checks the PR's mergeable field early and routes conflicts back to FORGE.

3. 03 Rework Dispatch

   For conflicts, changes_requested, or unaddressed comments, dispatches /address_review into FORGE's existing chat session; /ci_fix for failing checks.

4. 04 Merge Governance

   Squash-merges only ready_for_merge PRs - approved + conflict-free + green CI. Emits ticket_merged, closes the issue, and recycles the worker.

Human Intervention

VESSEL is the safest pair of hands on the main branch - it never force-pushes or bypasses protection, and when merging gets hard, a human steps in.

• Strict merge gate: VESSEL only merges a PR that is approved, conflict-free, and CI-green - never before. Missing or timed-out CI never counts as success.
• Escalates instead of forcing: if VESSEL can't resolve a merge conflict automatically (max 3 attempts), it escalates to awaiting_human rather than force-pushing or bypassing branch protection.
• Auditable merges: every merge is tied to a real Coder + GitHub identity and recorded in the lifecycle, so you can audit exactly what merged, when, and why.
• You hold final authority: a human approves the merge gate before VESSEL is authorized to squash-merge.