Signon

---
name: signon
description: Session-start — consume/derive orientation, poll mail since last signoff, re-derive carryforward gates, present next-steps for operator ruling
---

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Session-start bring-up. **Read-only** — no mutations, no dispatches, no board edits until the operator rules on next steps (Proposal 295 d2: read-only orient + grounded next-work). Solo — no agent fleet (`feedback_session_start_derive_cheaply`: cheap derivation IS the validation dogfood).

0. **Derive the seat FIRST — before orient, before any journal read, before any knowledge search** (mmnto-ai/totem#2801). Read the INHERITED `TOTEM_SELF_AGENT` this session was launched with; `totem mail --derive-seat` is the probe — one stdout line `seat=<id> source=env` and exit 0 when the inherited env names exactly one seat this repo hosts, otherwise a stderr refusal (exit 2) naming the supplied value (or `unset`) and every seat this repo hosts. **Hosts** means one thing everywhere: config.json `host_agents`, else the seat dirs, else the cohort map keyed on the origin repository — never the env you supplied, which is the thing being checked. **Set → that is your seat: use it, and never write a different one.** An inline `TOTEM_SELF_AGENT=<seat>` on any later command may only RESTATE the inherited value; writing a different seat over it silently re-points every step below at a seat that is not yours, and once overridden the tool can no longer see what you inherited — the operator's account is the only witness left. **Set but REFUSED** (the probe exits 2 while the env names a seat): your declaration and this repo disagree, so act as if you have no seat — put the refusal line itself in front of the operator, verbatim, and change nothing to make it pass; signon is read-only, so `totem seat add` is never run here. On a repo with no seat registration at all the refusal says the repo cannot CORROBORATE you, not that your seat is wrong: `totem mail --as <your-seat>` and a per-shell poll still serve your declaration, because a declaration on the command line is yours to make and this probe only checks one. **Empty → STOP and ask the operator.** Do not guess, do not fall back to the crown, do not derive a seat from the repo basename, the branch, or the only seat in sight; a bring-up on an unknown identity is worse than no bring-up. Report exactly one line and wait: `Failure Mode: Hook-less session launched without TOTEM_SELF_AGENT set.`

1. **Assignment mail before orient — poll since last signoff, seat-anchored.** On a hook-less seat the order is fixed: assignment mail before orient, before any journal read, and before any knowledge search — an assignment can turn every one of those into a disclosure (step 2), and the managed hook derives neither the poll nor the journal for you (step 3). Poll AS YOUR SEAT: per-shell `TOTEM_SELF_AGENT=<your-seat>` (the mmnto-ai/totem#2629 scope ruling — never user/machine scope; prefer the inline form `TOTEM_SELF_AGENT=<seat> totem mail` where shell state does not persist between tool calls, and on a session whose step-0 env is already set that inline form RESTATES that seat and never another) or `totem mail --as <your-seat>`. **S0 identity check:** the banner's `Self agents:` line must name exactly your seat. Since @mmnto/cli 1.117.0 an identity-less multi-seat poll gates itself (broadcast-only serve, directed mail withheld as a count, exit 2 — the mmnto-ai/totem#2204 deterministic floor), so the residual S0 catches is the WRONG-single-identity class: a mis-scoped or inherited env naming a foreign seat resolves single-seat, ungated, and serves that seat's directed mail. A banner naming a FOREIGN seat = STOP: act on nothing served, propagate nothing from it, fix the identity, re-poll. A GATED poll's LISTING is broadcast-only by construction — but warning lines can still name an unclassifiable or unresolvable file (an ECL basename is recipient + compressed subject — the CLI's named limit), so propagate nothing from a gated poll's warnings either: fix the identity and re-poll for your directed mail. An `Error:` line is the same surface: since the mmnto-ai/totem#2685 fix a poll whose OWN outbox (one this repo hosts for a resolved seat) carries a dispatch with an unresolvable `to:` exits 4 (SENDER FAULT) — the verdict IS derived, read it, but the `to:` is yours to fix first (one recipient per dispatch, or broadcast; a comma list is never a recipient), and propagate nothing from the fault line; exit 2 stays NOT-DERIVED and wins when both hold. Unread = inbound − handled: consumption is tracked by `processed/` marks (`feedback_check_outbox_before_replying`), so the CLI path needs no cutoff stamp. Read every hit before proceeding — new mail can reprioritize everything below. (Fallback — a seat that must stamp-poll instead derives the cutoff from the newest journal's CONTENT date, the filename stamp or frontmatter, **never file mtime**, which git resets on clone/worktree and silently reports "inbox clean" over waiting mail; mmnto-ai/totem-strategy#813.)

2. **Kit-first — while a BLIND round is in flight, read the kit and nothing else.** The BLIND-kit marker is the dispatch SUBJECT's literal prefix `BLIND round: `, followed by the round's name and, in the same subject, the deposit clause `— deposit to <orchestrator-seat> by <ISO-8601 deadline>`; no frontmatter key carries it, so the subject line is what you read. **A round is in flight while such a dispatch has an unpassed deadline and no deposit received.** In flight, signon ENDS here: read the kit and the artifact the kit names, and nothing else — no `totem orient`, no journal, no knowledge search, no board or PR read — because live repository detail is precisely what a blind classification must not carry. The kit-first rule has no partial arm: if any step ran before you reached the kit, report the exposure to the round's orchestrator seat by directed mail and do not classify; a disclosed round is re-armed in a fresh session, never repaired in place.

3. **Consume the injected orientation — the managed hook injects exactly two blocks.** The managed SessionStart hook injects exactly two briefing blocks — `totem describe` and `totem orient --session` — and injects nothing else: no journal and no mail (it does other work at boot, none of which reaches your context), so your latest journal (step 4) and your seat-anchored mail (step 1) are derived BY HAND on every seat, hook or not — never assumed present. Do not re-run the two blocks it did inject. A repo may also run its own session hook; whatever such a hook injects serves the seat it is CONFIGURED for, not a derived identity, so confirm the injected material is YOURS: a visiting session receives the HOST seat's, and your carryforward derives from `.totem/orchestration/<your-seat>/journal/` (step 4), never from a foreign journal. On a hook-seat MISMATCH (an injected journal or mail banner naming another seat), consume NONE of the injected material — treat the session as hook-less and derive it all: `totem orient` plus your own seat-anchored poll (step 1). Everything else the bring-up needs (the full board in-flight set, corpus freshness, doctrine currency) is derived on demand via `totem orient`. On a hook-less seat (other vendors, cold starts), derive it all: `totem orient`.

4. **Re-derive the carryforward gates — don't trust the journal's framing** (Tenet 20 read-side twin). For each carryforward item in YOUR SEAT's latest journal (`.totem/orchestration/<your-seat>/journal/` — on a multi-seat repo another seat's newer journal is not your carryforward), freshly derive its gate state (the PR it waits on, the issue, the date, the release train) via `gh` / `git` reads. Cross-repo gates resolve through the frozen cohort roster — `totem` / `strategy` / `status` / `lc` → `mmnto-ai/{totem, totem-strategy, totem-status, liquid-city}` (mmnto-ai/totem-strategy#611 gates any change). An item whose gate fired leads the next-steps list; an item still gated is reported as waiting, not worked.

5. **Surface owed-now sensors.** Anything the injected/derived orientation flags as owed (corpus `⚠ stale`, strategy-doctrine `⚠ publish owed`, board drift) goes on the list as a candidate — sensors report, they don't gate (Tenet 13).

6. **Present and stop.** One message: state summary (seat, inbox, gate states, owed-now items) + ranked next-steps with a recommendation. Then wait for the operator's ruling — signon ends at the judgment handoff; mutations belong to the ruled work, not the bring-up.

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