Problem
When an automated review cycle fails and the rework budget is exhausted (fab/project/code-review.md's Max cycles), every documented continuation path in _pipeline.md / fab-continue.md re-enters automated review (fail → reset → apply → re-review, or the interactive rework menu). There is no sanctioned path for "a human directly verified the outstanding findings and wants to proceed without another automated cycle."
What happened
On a real change (kube-all 260804-a9dp-1argo-drift-check), the final (3rd) cycle review returned fail on one must-fix + three should-fix items. The must-fix required a cross-repo infra change; once that landed, a human verified all four findings directly (script runs, live IAM checks, gcloud/practice-matrix checks) rather than re-running review, and the user explicitly chose to proceed to hydrate/ship on that basis.
Because there's no supported way to record this, the operator drove the state machine directly (fab status finish <change> review) instead of going through fail. This skipped the fail event entirely — no fail was ever written for that cycle. The result:
.status.yaml now shows review: done, iterations: 3 — indistinguishable from three genuinely passing cycles.- The PR's own
## Meta block (rendered by fab pr-meta) shows Review: ✓ 3 cycles, which reads as "all three cycles passed" when the last one did not.
This is a state-integrity divergence: the recorded history no longer matches what actually happened, and there's no way to represent "human-verified override" as a distinct, honest state.
Suggested direction
A distinct terminal state for review (e.g. review: overridden or a human_verified: true flag alongside done), settable only when the rework budget is exhausted and a human explicitly confirms proceeding — surfaced differently in fab pr-meta (e.g. ⚠ 3 cycles, cycle 3 overridden) so the PR's own provenance stays honest. Happy to discuss the exact shape — this report is the gap, not a prescribed fix.
Workaround used
Manually corrected the affected PR's body text after the fact; no change made to the fab CLI's own state files.
Problem
When an automated review cycle fails and the rework budget is exhausted (
fab/project/code-review.md'sMax cycles), every documented continuation path in_pipeline.md/fab-continue.mdre-enters automated review (fail → reset → apply → re-review, or the interactive rework menu). There is no sanctioned path for "a human directly verified the outstanding findings and wants to proceed without another automated cycle."What happened
On a real change (
kube-all260804-a9dp-1argo-drift-check), the final (3rd) cycle review returnedfailon one must-fix + three should-fix items. The must-fix required a cross-repo infra change; once that landed, a human verified all four findings directly (script runs, live IAM checks,gcloud/practice-matrix checks) rather than re-running review, and the user explicitly chose to proceed to hydrate/ship on that basis.Because there's no supported way to record this, the operator drove the state machine directly (
fab status finish <change> review) instead of going throughfail. This skipped thefailevent entirely — nofailwas ever written for that cycle. The result:.status.yamlnow showsreview: done, iterations: 3— indistinguishable from three genuinely passing cycles.## Metablock (rendered byfab pr-meta) showsReview: ✓ 3 cycles, which reads as "all three cycles passed" when the last one did not.This is a state-integrity divergence: the recorded history no longer matches what actually happened, and there's no way to represent "human-verified override" as a distinct, honest state.
Suggested direction
A distinct terminal state for review (e.g.
review: overriddenor ahuman_verified: trueflag alongsidedone), settable only when the rework budget is exhausted and a human explicitly confirms proceeding — surfaced differently infab pr-meta(e.g.⚠ 3 cycles, cycle 3 overridden) so the PR's own provenance stays honest. Happy to discuss the exact shape — this report is the gap, not a prescribed fix.Workaround used
Manually corrected the affected PR's body text after the fact; no change made to the fab CLI's own state files.