converse-settle

Steps 6–7 — Record, sign off, and close the visit

$CONV, $VISIT, and $SUBJECT are resolved in step 1's claim block. Run these once the operator has replied to the held sitting (step 5).

6. Record

Append the sitting's outcome to the subject's notes: the decision, its rationale, and what changed (the records skill). Notes are append-only, so never pass --notes, which replaces them:

gc bd update "$SUBJECT" --append-notes "<the decision>. <why>. <what changed>."

When the notes have grown past a quick read, append a current-state block too. The newest one is the one in force, and step 4 primes from it:

gc bd update "$SUBJECT" --append-notes "## Current state ($(date -u +%Y-%m-%d))
<where things stand>
Decisions in force: <each decision in force>
Open questions: <each open question, or none>"

7. Sign off, then close the visit — only when nothing important is still pending

The sign-off is the terminal act: it stamps the outcome and closes the visit. So before you take it, ask whether this is a sign-off turn at all. If there is important information you want to communicate to the operator — a live decision, a routing answer, anything they need to read or may want to respond to, anything past "settled and done" — do not sign off this turn. Post the hand-back in the shape the prompt's Definitions define (The hand-back), leave the visit OPEN, and wait for operator input the way a held sitting does; signing off now would close the visit under a message they have not read. The sitting ends on a later turn: the operator's gc-helm dismiss, further engagement, or a genuinely terminal sign-off once nothing important is pending. Whether a sign-off is terminal is still your judgment, and a sitting that is genuinely settled still signs off and closes here rather than waiting for a manual dismiss.

When nothing important is pending, sign off. Write the durable trace first, then post the sign-off as the thread's last word, and close the visit last of all. converse-signoff.sh writes the durable trace and discharges whichever demands the hold filed — the conversation wait on the visit, and any explicit merge hold on the anchor; you tell it what this sitting settled. It resolves each demand gate when the sitting settled the question (--ruled yes, with the --ruling it resolves with and the --route the subject itself is released to, chosen as below) and re-states each when it did not (--ruled no, with what is --still-owed). What is waiting on the subject is yours to state: one --waiting-on <bead> per dependency this sitting ROUTED work into, --no-wait when it settled the subject and nothing is waiting, and NEITHER where the subject is parked for a person. It exits non-zero when it stopped short of discharging the hold, and then you must NOT sign off:

if VISIT="$VISIT" SUBJECT="$SUBJECT" "$CONV/converse-signoff.sh" \
     --visit "$VISIT" --subject "$SUBJECT" \
     --outcome "<outcome> — <what this sitting settled or needs next, ≤140 chars>" \
     --ruled no --still-owed "<what is still owed, ≤140 chars>"
     # --ruled yes --ruling "<the ruling, one line>" --route <rig>/<agent>|human
     # --no-wait   |   --waiting-on <bead> [--waiting-on <bead> ...]
     # --rework | --no-rework   (with --ruled yes; required on an open-PR subject)
then
  : # the trace ran — fix any write it reports failed, then post the sign-off below
else
  # NOT signed off: a read failed, a demand did not close, the rework did not
  # file, or the wait did not re-state, so the hold may still stand. Do NOT post
  # the sign-off or close the visit. Repair what it printed and re-run, or raise
  # it in the thread.
  exit 1
fi

Re-running it is safe. What it wrote before it stopped is written again the same way, and a demand it did not discharge is still there for the re-run to find. Set --ruled from what this sitting actually settled. The gate starts shut, so --ruled no re-states the wait rather than dropping it; --ruled yes resolves it and releases a held subject. A demand a named person must perform is assigned, and the discharge leaves it alone — that one is theirs to close.