docs: autonomous orchestrators p1 — shift brief formats, watcher exemption, Lane:

REFERENCE.md

@@ -330,6 +330,7 @@ Free-form markdown. Strong conventions:
   Status: draft
   Consequence: glance       # notify | glance | judge — how much review it needs
   Witness: ids bit-identical, 62 -> 9.7 ms   # what makes it checkable in minutes
+  Lane: any                 # any | local-dev | ral | gpu | wsl-data; the last three imply local-dev
   Review-minutes: 3         # a seed, not a measurement
   Unattended: ready         # ready | needs-slicing | never
   Filed: 2026-07-09         # optional; the day the prompt was written
@@ -496,6 +497,14 @@ faculty at conception and all overridable by declaring them:
   **compaction rule** — a task that would need context compaction to finish is
   too big to run unattended — so a single-repo `large` task is still `ready`
   while a `large` one across four repos is not.
+- **`Lane:`** `any` | `local-dev` | `ral` | `gpu` | `wsl-data` — not a cost but
+  a resource: where the work can run at all. `any` runs anywhere, a cloud
+  session included; `local-dev` needs the laptop; `ral`, `gpu` and `wsl-data`
+  each **imply `local-dev`** and refine it (RAL test runs, the laptop GPU, data
+  under `/mnt/c`). Write `any`, never `none`. A `ral` task never submits on its
+  own: the Science orchestrator is the single RAL gateway, and a dev worker
+  hands it a **RAL test packet** (what to run, at which commit, the pass/fail
+  rule) — planned for phase 5 of the autonomous-orchestrators epic.
 
 Measured over the 153 backlog prompts the day this shipped: **151 grade `judge`,
 because three carry a witness.** Given one, the same backlog grades 33 `notify` /

batches/AGENTS.md

@@ -155,3 +155,114 @@ wrote here at dispatch. A run classifying a new reason as its sibling's doing on
 its own authority is an autonomous acknowledgement, which the hard invariants
 forbid (`AUTONOMY.md`, "Leg 4 under a batch launch", 2026-08-31 amendment). No
 line, no match, the run parks.
+
+## Shift brief (2026-11-03)
+
+A **shift brief** is a batch record with a `brief:` block. It is the same file in
+the same folder, under the same ledger-merge rules; every key above keeps its
+meaning, `heart-ack:` and `expected-effects:` included. What changes is who
+picks the work: the human writes the brief, and **writing it with `review-at:` is
+the dispatch** (`PyAutoBrain/AUTONOMY.md`, "Shift briefs and unattended
+`glance`" — 2026-11-03). The grant covers the named tasks plus the brief's
+backlog policy, until `review-at:`. The deterministic watcher that starts
+sessions under it is the one exemption to `policy/end_at_deliverable.md`, and
+only while a brief is open (`policy/shift_watcher.md`).
+
+```markdown
+# Batch 2026-11-04 am
+- dispatched: 2026-11-04T08:30Z
+- review-at: 2026-11-04T11:30Z      # stated by the human; the grant expires here
+- shift: morning
+- issue: https://github.com/PyAutoLabs/PyAutoMind/issues/<n>   # the digest is posted here once
+- packet: yes                       # optional; the HTML packet is opt-in under a brief
+- heart-ack:
+  - <reason line>
+- expected-effects:
+  - <member>: <what it may legitimately change>
+- brief:
+  - goals:                          # in order; the first outranks the rest
+    - 1. land the next cluster-strong-lensing slice
+    - 2. clear review-ready glance PRs on PyAutoArray
+  - tasks:                          # named prompt paths, done first, in this order
+    - draft/feature/autolens/<name>.md
+    - draft/bug/autoarray/<name>.md
+  - backlog: scoped                 # none | fill-idle | scoped
+  - scoped:                         # only with backlog: scoped
+    - epics: cluster-strong-lensing, autonomous-orchestrators
+    - tags: jax-gradient
+    - tiers: notify, glance
+  - exclude:
+    - draft/feature/autofit/<name>.md
+    - epics: euclid-dr1
+  - review-minutes: 45
+  - lanes: any local-dev ral         # any subset of: any local-dev ral gpu wsl-data
+  - merge-cap: 3                     # unattended glance merges this shift, at most
+  - token-budget: <n>                # tokens the shift may spend, all sessions
+  - ral-allowance:                   # only when lanes includes ral; phase 5 consumes it
+    - packets: 2
+    - partition: ral
+    - cpu-hours: 64
+```
+
+`backlog:` decides what happens once the named tasks are done or blocked:
+`none` — nothing more; `fill-idle` — the planner's own ranking, under every
+batch constraint; `scoped` — only prompts matching the `scoped:` epics, tags or
+tiers. `exclude:` removes prompt paths or epics from either dip. Backlog the
+brief does not cover is **never** dipped.
+
+**Calibration rule.** A new brief is not accepted while the previous record
+lacks `review-minutes-actual:`. The planned figure is a seed; the 2026-08-31
+record never closed it, and an estimate nobody measures never improves.
+
+`batches/examples/` (phase 2) holds validator fixtures. It is **not** a record:
+nothing in it was dispatched, and `lifecycle.py` does not read it as one.
+
+### Digest
+
+Appended to the record at collect, under a `## Digest` heading, and **posted
+once** as a comment on the shift's `issue:`. The record plus that comment is
+the review surface; the HTML packet is written only when `packet: yes`.
+
+```markdown
+## Digest
+
+### Brief work
+- <slug> — PyAutoLens#<n> — HEALTHY — glance, auto-merged (1/3)
+- <slug> — parked: awaiting-input (question on the issue)
+
+### Backlog picks
+- <slug> — PyAutoArray#<n> — HEALTHY — why: scoped epic cluster-strong-lensing, next phase, notify
+- <slug> — draft filed — why: decomposed from goal 2; needs bulk approval
+
+### Proof packets
+<one proof packet per task, in the order above>
+
+### Counters
+- merges: 2
+- glance-auto-merges: 1
+- reverts: 0
+- pushes: 0
+- drafts-filed: 1
+- packets-sent: 0
+- workers-crashed: 0
+- tokens: <n> of <token-budget>
+- review-minutes-planned: 45
+```
+
+Brief work and backlog picks stay separate, and **every backlog pick carries a
+one-line reason** — the brief's rule it was picked under. A pick the human
+cannot trace to the brief is a finding.
+
+### Proof packet
+
+One screen per task — if it does not fit, the task was too big:
+
+```markdown
+#### <slug> — <PR url>
+- claim: <one sentence — what is now true>
+- before/after: <numbers, or a figure path>
+- witness: `<the Witness: command>`
+    <its output, trimmed to the lines that decide it>
+- not checked: <what this packet does not show>
+- revert: `<one command>`
+```

policy/shift_watcher.md

@@ -0,0 +1,30 @@
+## The shift watcher — the one exemption to "sessions end at their deliverable" (2026-11-03)
+
+`policy/end_at_deliverable.md` stands as written for every Claude session,
+orchestrator and worker alike, and its hook keeps blocking them. This page
+names the single thing that is allowed to keep time.
+
+**The watcher is a deterministic script, not a session** (built in phase 3 of
+the autonomous-orchestrators epic; a systemd user timer or cron entry). It polls
+`gh pr checks`, the project `hpc/sync jobs` verb (never raw `squeue`) and Mind
+state, and starts a Claude session (`claude --bg`) only when there is work to
+do. No tokens are spent watching.
+
+What keeps the exemption narrow:
+
+- It **calls no Claude tool** and **arms nothing inside a session**. A session
+  it starts is an ordinary session: it ends at its deliverable, and
+  `send_later`, `ScheduleWakeup`, `CronCreate`, `RemoteTrigger` and `/loop`
+  stay blocked for it.
+- It **dispatches nothing without an open shift brief** — a
+  `PyAutoMind/batches/<slot>.md` record carrying a `brief:` block whose
+  `review-at:` has not passed (`PyAutoBrain/AUTONOMY.md`, "Shift briefs and
+  unattended `glance`"). A tick with no open brief does nothing.
+- **Kill switch:** it checks for a `STOP` file in its slot directory **first**,
+  before reading anything else, and does nothing while that file exists.
+
+Why it is this narrow: the timer rule was written after five batch members armed
+hourly check-ins on 2026-08-31, and a mobile `/prm` re-armed a 60-minute
+`send_later` hourly all night on 2026-09-03 with no task active, draining usage.
+Both were sessions keeping time. The watcher keeps time so that no session has
+to; anything wider than this page reopens those two nights.