v0.9: adoption and upgrade hardening

[jeffhuber]

Goal

Ship Code Mower v0.9 as an adoption and upgrade hardening beta before the v1.0 supervised-autonomous pilot. The bar is: a senior engineer or hosted agent can install or upgrade Code Mower, understand whether the repo is configured, run lanes/Board without local collisions, and see truthful doctor/status output without private coaching.

Source Feedback

Fresh v0.8 install/upgrade reports from Devin, Claude Code, Cursor/Grok Bot, Grok Bot, Antigravity, and Codex converged on the same rough edges:

• Board default port conflicts produce raw tracebacks or require manual port guessing.
• Existing v0.5/v0.6 footprints need an upgrade/drift workflow, not just cold-init docs.
• Doctor posture is too severe/noisy for orchestrator-only and hosted-builder machines.
• Review-hygiene and lane status can report misleading state when config/GitHub visibility is partial.
• Codex CLI smoke docs/probes mention a stale flag.
• Install docs need clearer cold-install vs upgrade and pipx/uv/sandbox guidance.
• Release/unit tests should not accidentally require live package-index access in normal runs.

Deliverables

• Board multi-instance handling: auto-port fallback, friendly explicit-port errors, loopback/locality docs.
• Upgrade/drift command: classify generated setup vs tracked files as same/differs/new/repo-only with safe output.
• Doctor adoption posture cleanup: hosted/orchestrator-only warnings vs failures, less permanent starter-config/env noise.
• Doctor/status truth fixes: review-hygiene checks actual repo/workflow state; lane status never says no active lanes when GitHub is unavailable.
• Codex CLI compatibility: remove stale smoke flag from docs/probes and add non-interactive login guidance.
• Install/upgrade docs: cold install vs upgrade, pipx-to-uv, sandboxed pipx paths, Board locality.
• Test reliability cleanup: keep live package-index checks in release/integration paths, not normal unit tests.
• v0.9 beta release: package/install rehearsal, release-readiness, metadata-only dogfood uploads, GitHub release, PyPI publish, local install update.

Operating Model

One issue per PR. Each behavior change needs focused tests and docs. Use Code Mower labels, peer audits, and code-mower/gate before merge. Upload metadata-only dogfood/reviewer/Board data to CodeMower.com where possible. Do not upload source, diffs, transcripts, issue bodies, raw stdout/stderr, auth output, local paths by default, or secrets.

Out Of Scope

The v1.0 supervised autonomous pilot controller remains a separate epic after this hardening pass. v0.9 makes the ground steady enough for that pilot to dogfood itself.

[jeffhuber]

Starting v0.9 adoption/upgrade hardening.

Child queue:

• v0.9: make Board serve multi-instance friendly #537 Board multi-instance handling
• v0.9: add setup drift report for upgrades #538 setup drift report for upgrades
• v0.9: tune adoption doctor postures #539 adoption doctor posture tuning
• v0.9: make doctor and lanes status truth-preserving #540 doctor/status truth-preserving fixes
• v0.9: update Codex CLI smoke compatibility #541 Codex CLI smoke compatibility
• v0.9: harden install and upgrade docs #542 install and upgrade docs
• v0.9: keep live package-index checks out of normal unit tests #543 package-index test reliability
• v0.9: release beta after adoption hardening #544 v0.9 beta release

I will work one issue per PR through Code Mower gate, upload metadata-only dogfood/Board/reviewer evidence where possible, and keep v1.0 supervised autonomous pilot work out of this epic until the adoption base is steady.

[jeffhuber]

Progress update:

• v0.9: make Board serve multi-instance friendly #537 / PR fix: make Board port binding multi-instance friendly #545 merged: Board now handles multiple local instances by falling forward to nearby available loopback ports unless an explicit port was requested.
• v0.9: add setup drift report for upgrades #538 / PR feat: report Code Mower setup drift #546 merged: added read-only setup drift reporting for upgrade PRs.
• v0.9: tune adoption doctor postures #539 / PR fix: tune adoption doctor postures #547 merged: doctor adoption postures now avoid false alarm local-wrapper env warnings for hosted-builder/orchestrator-only hosts, classify config source more clearly, and keep human automation token gaps blocking only for reviewer-gate/build-loop readiness. Gitar and Claude both raised non-blocking maintainability feedback, and the PR incorporated it before merge.

Starting #540 next: truth-preserving doctor/status output so missing evidence does not render as PASS or no active lanes.

[jeffhuber]

v0.9 is complete.

Merged children:

• v0.9: make Board serve multi-instance friendly #537 / PR fix: make Board port binding multi-instance friendly #545 Board multi-instance friendly serve behavior.
• v0.9: add setup drift report for upgrades #538 / PR feat: report Code Mower setup drift #546 setup drift report for upgrade reviews.
• v0.9: tune adoption doctor postures #539 / PR fix: tune adoption doctor postures #547 adoption doctor posture tuning.
• v0.9: make doctor and lanes status truth-preserving #540 / PR fix: preserve truth in doctor and lane status #548 truth-preserving doctor and lanes status output.
• v0.9: update Codex CLI smoke compatibility #541 / PR Fix Codex runner smoke compatibility #549 current Codex CLI smoke flags.
• v0.9: harden install and upgrade docs #542 / PR Harden install and upgrade docs #550 install and upgrade docs hardening.
• v0.9: keep live package-index checks out of normal unit tests #543 / PR Keep package-index rehearsal opt-in #551 package-index checks are explicit opt-in, not normal unit-test network work.
• v0.9: release beta after adoption hardening #544 / PR Release v0.9.0-beta.1 #552 v0.9.0-beta.1 release prep.

Release evidence:

• Tag: v0.9.0-beta.1 at 015006c.
• GitHub release: https://github.com/codemower-ai/code-mower/releases/tag/v0.9.0-beta.1, regular release and returned by /releases/latest.
• No-publish release workflow: https://github.com/codemower-ai/code-mower/actions/runs/33685744452.
• TestPyPI publish workflow: https://github.com/codemower-ai/code-mower/actions/runs/33685832416.
• Production PyPI publish workflow: https://github.com/codemower-ai/code-mower/actions/runs/33686009196.
• Release-event build/verify workflow: https://github.com/codemower-ai/code-mower/actions/runs/33686319991.
• PyPI clean venv smoke passed for code-mower==0.9.0b1.
• PyPI package-install rehearsal passed with first-user readiness 10/10 after cache bypass.
• This machine's active pipx install now reports code-mower 0.9.0b1.

Cloud dogfood evidence, metadata only:

• PR Release v0.9.0-beta.1 #552 dogfood upload: 33e5142c-2169-47a8-9aab-2076de497a27.
• PR Release v0.9.0-beta.1 #552 Board upload: bb2b53e7-a8ab-4696-980c-b8380df3c76c.
• PR Release v0.9.0-beta.1 #552 reviewer-run upload: ffd3ee48-b05d-41fa-9d23-0de4232ff0c6.
• Final released-install dogfood upload: 9735ec0b-2206-4f54-97a9-081ccfa87698.
• Final released-install Board upload: 071d9ee2-ee9b-46d9-9ca9-a8d295ce42e6.

Notes:

• The first production PyPI smoke ran before index propagation and failed to see 0.9.0b1; PyPI JSON then exposed the release, and the cache-bypassed smoke plus full package-install rehearsal passed.
• Privacy boundary unchanged: no source, raw diffs, transcripts, raw stdout/stderr, auth output, or secrets uploaded.