idkmesh

ACE Cohort Observer v0

Status: Experimental, metadata-only observability.

This observer exists because IDKMesh must distinguish activity, cohort exposure, candidate work, and causal verified-descendant evidence.

Its role in the ACE stack is intentionally narrow:

ACE Cohort Observer (#40)
  -> trusted Bootstrap Cohort inventory
  -> external-interest / claim / candidate funnel
  -> bootstrap exposure denominator + review-capacity context

ACE Lineage Protocol (#48 / #25)
  -> parent -> seed -> descendant causal receipt
  -> verification evidence

ACE generational controller (#68 / #57)
  -> consumes validated evidence
  -> learns bounded community strategy in shadow mode

The observer must not duplicate the lineage parser or claim the full community reproduction number from labels alone.

State funnel

For each trusted issue labelled growth-seed in Bootstrap Cohort 1, the observer tracks:

trusted visible seed
  -> external interest
  -> claim
  -> candidate PR
  -> merged candidate
  -> bootstrap verified-descendant signal

Cohort admission requires all of:

• growth-seed label;
• explicit cohort=bootstrap-1 marker;
• trusted repository author association (OWNER, MEMBER, or COLLABORATOR).

This prevents untrusted marker text from manufacturing cohort membership even before the broader ACE workflow-hardening PR is integrated.

External interest

A non-owner, non-bot contributor comment or contribution signal associated with the seed. Interest is diagnostic evidence, not a descendant.

Claim

A seed is considered claimed when an external non-bot contributor is assigned, comments /claim, or authors a PR that GitHub cross-references from the seed. /claim grants no repository permission or exclusive ownership.

Candidate PR

An external-human-authored PR cross-referenced from the Growth Seed. A candidate is not automatically useful or verified.

Bootstrap verified-descendant signal

A candidate PR enters the observer’s bootstrap verified set only when it is merged and carries ace:verified-descendant.

This label is an explicit trusted acceptance signal. It is not equivalent to the full ACE lineage record. After the lineage protocol is accepted, a real causal claim should be represented by a validated ACE_LINEAGE receipt with verification evidence. The label can support that receipt; it cannot replace it.

Metric scope

The observer reports:

SeedReproductionRatio
  = bootstrap verified descendant PRs
    / trusted Bootstrap Cohort Growth Seeds

This is a bootstrap exposure metric, not the full R_community.

The full quantity remains conceptually:

R_community(W, t)
  = verified causal descendants
    / eligible matured verified parents

Computing it requires two independent inputs:

1. a denominator inventory that keeps zero-descendant eligible parents visible and handles right-censoring;
2. validated causal lineage receipts from the ACE lineage contract.

The cohort observer contributes useful denominator/exposure evidence for the bootstrap experiment, but its Growth Seeds are not automatically identical to all future verified parents. It therefore sets full_r_community_ready: false in its snapshot and must not overclaim causal reproduction.

Capacity-aware expansion recommendation

The observer may report HOLD_COHORT_1 or EVALUATE_COHORT_2.

EVALUATE_COHORT_2 currently requires at least two bootstrap verified descendant PRs, at least two claimed seeds, no more than three open external candidate PRs, and ACE capacity >= 0.60 when capacity evidence is available.

These are bootstrap hypotheses. The observer never creates Cohort 2. Expansion remains a human/community decision until the evidence and security gates justify a higher authority tier.

Public status identity

The workflow maintains one observatory issue using workflow-owned label:

ace:cohort-observer

The title [ACE] Bootstrap Cohort Observatory is for humans, not authority. During migration, an old title-matching issue is adopted only when it already contains an ACE_COHORT_STATE block.

The machine snapshot includes:

• metric_scope: bootstrap_growth_seed_exposure;
• full_r_community_ready: false;
• trusted seed numbers;
• claim/candidate/merge counts;
• bootstrap verified descendant PR numbers;
• participant count;
• seed reproduction ratio;
• capacity/review-load evidence when available;
• advisory recommendation.

Security boundary

This workflow uses pull_request_target metadata with issue-write capability, so the critical boundary is explicit:

Never check out, import, build, install, evaluate, or execute PR-controlled code in this privileged workflow.

Additional guards:

• actions/github-script is pinned to immutable reviewed commit f28e40c7f34bde8b3046d885e986cb6290c5673b;
• bootstrap seed membership requires trusted author association;
• observatory identity is label-owned rather than title-owned;
• ACE ledger state is read only as advisory capacity evidence;
• no auto-merge;
• no automatic application of verification from raw activity;
• no automatic Cohort-2 creation.

Anti-Goodhart rule

comment != claim
claim != candidate
candidate != merge
merge != verified causal descendant
bootstrap verified label != complete lineage proof
verified descendant != durable retained contributor
owner/bot activity != external community reproduction

Future versions should add reviewer-time accounting, contributor return/retention, matured parent inventories, and validated lineage integration rather than simply adding event counters.

Related

• COMMUNITY_GROWTH_ENGINE.md
• docs/community/ACE_BOOTSTRAP_EXPERIMENT.md
• .github/workflows/ace-community-growth.yml
• .github/workflows/ace-cohort-observer.yml
• issue #23 — ACE Growth Ledger
• issue #25 / PR #48 — ACE lineage evidence
• issue #57 / PR #68 — generational controller

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