# Steward 2026-10-16 — the Windows box missed its second slot this week (today's option capture), so GitHub took it two hours after the close and, under the rule you signed Thursday, the day does not count; one digest fix tested and held for Monday; one alarm fix parked for you

Window: since the 2026-10-15 steward run (23:00Z) → 2026-10-16 23:00Z.
Read: my last two reports (10-09, 10-15) · the GitHub Actions run list for the
window and every job annotation of today's Fleet Digest run 38951953519
(GitHub API via `gh`) · `outbox/daily-audit` (tonight's 10-16 report, in full)
and `outbox/triage` (no commit since 10-05) · every `beacon/*` branch ·
`main`'s state and skew commits and their `Runner:` trailers (git) · the
`captured_at` stamps in today's committed capture files · open PRs (2) ·
`research/queue/open/` and `approved/`.
NOT-READ: broker truth, `thales fleet status` / `portfolio *` (no broker
credentials here); your Mac and the tbx-win box (no access), so why the box
skipped today's capture is unknown.

## Did

- **marked the four 10-09 `NEEDS-OWNER:` lines `DISCHARGED`** in
  `research/steward/2026-10-09.md`, citing #240. You answered all four on
  10-15, but today's email still listed them as open. The daily audit asked for
  this tonight. The 10-09 report is outside next Friday's window anyway, so
  this changes no future email; it makes the record say what is true.
- **WAIT on #244, merge Monday.** It stops the Friday email cutting each
  steward headline at 90 characters. Today that cut removed the sentence
  telling you four of the seven asks were already answered. The fix removes
  `[:90]` in both the text and HTML versions and adds four tests. Checks on
  `main` + #244: the trading gate passed (1242 passed, 1 skipped); the email
  and docs-consistency tests passed (66). Putting the `[:90]` back in the text
  renderer makes exactly the two text-side tests fail. It is correct. I am
  holding it only because `fleet_digest.py` sits in `src/thales/execution/`,
  which STEWARD.md §3 lets me merge Monday–Thursday only. The next email is
  10-23, so nothing is lost.
- **Parked #245 for you.** It fixes the main-push watcher, which crashed on a
  passing GitHub API error on 10-15 and was reported as a security breach.
  The change adds retries, records each commit it could not read, and gives
  "could not look" its own exit code (2) instead of the "someone bypassed the
  gates" code (1). I read the whole diff and its 17 tests pass. It still fails
  loudly when it cannot look; nothing is weakened. But it edits
  `scripts/main_push_guard.py`, one of the guards I may never merge (§0 limit
  4). See NEEDS-OWNER.
- **No queue approvals.** `approved/` still holds OSR-1 and FRZ-1, both unbuilt
  because the implementer has been dark since 10-07. Its next slot is
  Wednesday 10-21. Adding more would only pile up behind it. Today's finding
  below makes **CQA-3** (capture QA cannot see when a capture was taken) the
  next approval candidate, ahead of PLB-1.

## Alerts

- **No red Actions runs in the window.** Fleet Digest, the three backup trading
  legs, Skew Snapshot, Heartbeat and Main Push Watch were all green.
- **Fleet Digest exception "3 routine(s) dark (queue triage, research
  implementer, thales-weekly-audit)"** → expected, not a new failure. All three
  last ran before the 10-12 scheduler outage, and none has had a slot since.
  The panel came back today at 13:55Z. Monday (triage, weekly audit) and
  Wednesday (implementer) are the test.
- **The Windows box missed today's option capture** → real, and it is the
  **second missed slot this week** (10-13 meanrev, 10-16 skew). The box ran
  its three trading legs on time (vrp 14:37Z, momentum 14:56Z, meanrev 15:01Z,
  each with `Runner: tbx-win`). But there is no `tbx-win` skew commit today.
  On every other day this week the box committed it about 19:08Z. The only
  capture is GitHub's backup leg: `captured_at` 2026-10-16T21:59:02Z, which is
  17:59 ET. On 10-15 you countersigned the B4 rule that a capture must fall
  within 60 minutes of the close (17:00 ET). So **10-16 is not a signal date**
  for the skew test. Under your own rule it is a permanent notch in that
  stream. Nothing flagged it: capture QA went green, because the check that
  would read the capture instant is CQA-3, which is not yet built. The daily
  audit also scored the box "3 of 3" today and missed this, because it counted
  trading legs only. I am leaving the CAPTURES.md entry to the daily audit,
  whose lane that is.
- **Main Push Watch, 10-15** → a crash, not a breach (the daily audit's finding
  2, which I agree with) → the fix is #245, parked for you.
- **Platform notices:** `ubuntu-latest` begins moving to Ubuntu 26 on Monday
  10-19. This is the ask from my 10-15 report, which you saw in today's email.
  I can't check yet whether it landed; Monday's run will.

## NEEDS-OWNER

DISCHARGED (2026-10-19 — #251 found the box captured on time at 12:08 PT and only its push failed; residual restated in the 10-19 report): get the Windows box's skew job looked at — it missed its 12:00 PT slot today (10-16), the second missed slot this week after Tuesday's meanrev. GitHub's backup captured at 17:59 ET, past the 60-minute grace you signed Thursday, so 10-16 is permanently lost as a skew signal date. — My recommendation: next time you or an interactive session is on the box, read its task log for 10-13 and 10-16 together and run `thales --sleeve meanrev portfolio reconcile` (my 10-15 ask, now folded in here). Two different jobs missing on two different days points at the box's scheduler or its wake/sleep settings rather than at one script. Trading itself is covered by GitHub's backup legs. A missed capture is not covered, because the backup runs too late to count. No hard deadline, but every further miss is another permanent gap.
NEEDS-OWNER: merge #245 yourself, then make the two-line change to `.github/workflows/main-push-watch.yml` so its alert says "the watcher could not look" on exit 2 instead of "someone bypassed the PR gates". — My recommendation: merge it. I reviewed it and it is correct: 17 tests pass, and it fails loudly in both cases. I may not merge it because it edits a guard script, and agents may not edit workflow files. Low urgency: the watcher has crashed once in its last 25 runs.

## Carried forward

- **Merge #244 on Monday 10-19** after re-running the trading gate on that
  day's `main`.
- **Runner-image pin:** check on Monday whether `runs-on: ubuntu-24.04` landed
  before the migration started. If not, and something breaks, that is the
  first suspect.
- **Beacons:** `beacon/triage` and `beacon/weekly-audit` on Monday 10-19,
  `beacon/implementer` on Wednesday 10-21. Still dark after their slots → a
  NEEDS-OWNER to restart them at claude.ai/code/routines.
- **Approval candidate once `approved/` clears on 10-21:** CQA-3. Today is the
  first day your B4 grace rule disqualified a capture, and nothing noticed.
  PLB-1 after it.
- **AVB:** 26 refused exit orders since 08-17. Expect a triage row on 10-19.
- **tbx-win:** check all four `Runner:` trailers daily, the skew leg included.
- **Tool surface:** as before, this session exposed the Claude Code Remote
  tools (`add_repo`, PR-activity subscribe/unsubscribe) alongside GitHub's.
  I called none of them. No Gmail, Calendar, Drive or Docs tools were present.
