mission-lifecycle

Mission lifecycle

A mission is a validated DAG of MCP tool calls executed in-process with an explicit least-authority policy. Refusals are preserved verbatim; a structural success is never presented as a scientific one.

Mission shape (the fields that trip people)

{
  "mission_id": "my-mission-1",
  "goal": "compile the reference world",
  "steps": [{
    "id": "compile",
    "domain": "fiber",
    "capability": "context_compile",
    "objective": "compile at L0",
    "tool": "fiber_compile",
    "arguments": { "world": "fixtures/fiber-v0.1/radiogenomic_world.json",
                    "query": "fixtures/fiber-v0.1/leakage_query.json" },
    "depends_on": []
  }],
  "policy": { "execute": true, "allowed_tools": ["fiber_compile"],
               "allow_side_effects": false, "max_steps": 4 }
}

• Every step requires domain AND capability (labels retained for routing and audit; the server does not infer semantics). Missing either → invalid_mission.
• policy.allowed_tools is an allow-list; a step naming a tool outside it is refused: "agent mission refused: step X requests tool Y, which is not allow-listed".
• Step bindings are validated JSON pointers pulling upstream results into dependent arguments; agent_mission cannot recurse into itself.

Three dispatch paths, one kernel

1. Preflight (POST /v1/missions/preflight on the gateway): validates and plans; returns preflight: true, dispatch: "not_started", the digest-bound wave plan, and an operations_evidence block. Nothing executes. Report dispatch and the gate decision verbatim.
2. Synchronous (agent_mission MCP tool): executes immediately, returns the full report — mission_status, per-step results[] (raw JSON-RPC envelopes preserved, including refusals), a clock-free execution_trace, and claim_lineage (claim_status: "unreviewed", readiness_claimed: false until evaluator evidence exists — report these verbatim).
3. Async (POST /v1/missions): queued with retry/lease semantics — but fail-closed: without a current operator gate acceptance covering every selected domain evidence gate it refuses with operations_gate_acceptance_required. That is working as designed, not a bug. The acceptance is an operator decision recorded via POST /v1/operations/gate-reviews with {gate_digest, reviewer, rationale, group_ids, accepted_gates} — it does not make the evidence better, and preflight's dispatch_prerequisite: "acceptance_required" names the gap.