# Steward 2026-10-21 — trading clean on the box again; I merged the fix for a trap in the pre-trade test gate that could have stopped all three sleeves, plus five other PRs; one of my merges landed on the wrong branch and is re-opened; two approvals; two asks for you

Window: since the 2026-10-20 steward run (23:00Z) → 2026-10-21 23:30Z. One
trading day: Wednesday 10-21.
Read: my last two reports (10-19 on `main`, 10-20 in #260) · tonight's
`outbox/daily-audit` report in full, and `outbox/triage` (no commit since
10-19) · every `beacon/*` branch · `main`'s five commits for the day with their
`Runner:` / `Box-Result:` trailers, from an un-shallowed, freshly fetched clone,
read with an explicit-midnight `--since` (git) · the Actions run list for the
window (GitHub REST via `gh api`) · all 9 open PRs, their diffs, comments and
merged result · `research/queue/open/` and `approved/`.
NOT-READ: broker truth, `thales fleet status` / `portfolio *` (no broker
credentials here); the Mac and the tbx-win box (no access), so the box's own
logs are unread; Fleet Digest annotations (the GitHub digest job was refused,
so there are none).

## Did

- **merged #264, the most important merge tonight.** On Monday, #258 added a
  test that made the system's own printed advice for a lost capture day
  illegal. When a capture is lost, the system tells you to "acknowledge it in
  `ACKNOWLEDGED_GAPS`". Doing that for any day after 10-01 turned the pre-trade
  test gate red, and a red gate means all three sleeves trade nothing, with no
  email. #264 replaces the date cutoff with the property the test was meant to
  check: an acknowledged day must be missing from the store. I checked this
  myself in both trees. On old `main`, acknowledging a future gap as instructed
  failed the test. With #264 it passes. Acknowledging a day that was actually
  captured still fails, as it should. It is test-only, so tomorrow's orders are
  unchanged.
- **merged #262** (OSR-1, the implementer's first build in two weeks). The
  broker sometimes rejects an order hours after accepting it. Until now nothing
  recorded that: the order log kept saying ACCEPTED, and 130 such rejections
  in August went unseen. Now, after each run, the system asks the broker about
  recent orders that are still open and appends a separate `status_update`
  line for each one the broker has finished with. The digest counts broker
  rejections as failures, and reconcile reports them without failing the run.
  It touches the trading path, so I read every reader of the order log. All of
  them skip the new record type, so trade counts, TCA and the public site are
  unaffected. The sweep runs after the day's orders are sent, and every broker
  call is wrapped so an error cannot stop the run.
  **What tomorrow's orders do differently: nothing.** After sending them, each
  run makes up to 300 read-only broker lookups and appends a few log lines.
- **merged #260** (my 10-20 report), so its two asks reach Friday's email. A
  report still unmerged when Friday's email is built is dropped from every
  digest for good (the daily audit's finding 4, the panel's DLV-1).
- **merged #265** and **#266** (two corrections to the daily audit's
  procedure). #265: `git log --since=<today's date>` returns nothing from
  earlier today, because git fills the time in with the current time of day.
  I reproduced it: 0 commits with the bare date, 5 with explicit midnight. That
  explains the panel's false "no sleeve traded" on 10-20. #266: a routine that
  finishes with its working copy left on the beacon branch reads that
  branch's three-week-old `CLAUDE.md` if it is woken later. I pushed tonight's
  beacon from a separate working copy for that reason.
- **merged #257** (panel run 41) now that the false "no sleeve traded" section
  has been withdrawn, as I asked on 10-20.
- **#261 (panel run 42) did NOT reach `main`: my error.** It was stacked on
  #257, so its target branch was `research-queue/panel-run-41`, not `main`,
  and I did not check before merging. GitHub squashed it into that dead
  branch. Nothing was lost: I first merged `main` into its branch (one
  conflict, where the branch's version contained all of `main`'s and more), so
  the branch is `main` plus four queue files. I re-opened it against `main` as
  **#267**. A PR I open in this run is merged by the next run, not by me.
  From now on I check every PR's target branch before merging.
- Checks before merging: the trading gate on `main` plus every PR above passed
  (1287 passed, 1 skipped), the full suite passed (1845 passed, 1 skipped), the
  docs-consistency tests passed (24), and the publish scrub found nothing to
  redact in any new research file. Every merge was by hand over the REST API,
  because auto-merge runs on Actions and Actions is still refused.
- **Parked #263** (FRZ-1) for you. It edits `scripts/automerge_guard.py`, one
  of the files I may never merge. I commented on the PR with one concern, in
  the first ask below.
- **Still parked: #245** (main-push watcher fix; it edits a guard script). The
  ask is in my 10-19 report, which is in this Friday's email.
- **approved LAB-1** (legs 1–3 plus a structural guard). Records tests keep
  landing inside the pre-trade gate. It has happened three times this week
  (#253, #258, #263), and leg 3 is triggered by the 11-02 clock change. It has
  to be built by 10-28 to beat that date.
- **approved BGS-1 leg (b) only.** When a sleeve does not run, the box still
  stamps `Box-Result: ok`, so nothing off the box sees it. I approved the
  stamp fix and its test only, and NOT the optional email, which would override
  your weekly-only email setting. Both approvals are in this report's PR. That
  makes two approvals this week, the cap. FRZ-1 stays in `approved/` until
  #263 merges.

## Alerts

- **The box: 5 of 5 on time, all `Runner: tbx-win`, `Box-Result: ok`** →
  healthy, third day in a row with no GitHub backup. vrp 14:36:52Z, momentum
  14:56:05Z, meanrev 14:59:11Z, site 15:30:22Z, skew 19:09:25Z.
- **Actions refused, day 3** → transient platform; the remedy is owner-only
  (spending, asked 10-19). 52 runs in the window: 39 failed, 13 skipped, 0
  succeeded. I re-ran nothing.
- **The pre-trade gate trap (#258)** → a real defect within my authority →
  fixed by #264, merged tonight. It never fired. Your 10-19 decision about the
  box's failure email (my ask #2 that day) mattered more than it looked: this
  trap was a concrete way for all three sleeves to stop silently. My
  recommendation stands, because #264 removes this trigger and LAB-1 attacks
  the whole class.
- **Implementer awake** → it built both approved items (#262, #263), so the
  restart ask I planned is not needed.
- **AVB** → 29 refused exit orders since 08-17 (the daily audit's count). No
  new action. #262 now makes rejections like this visible.

## NEEDS-OWNER

NEEDS-OWNER: merge #263 (FRZ-1, which you approved on 10-15) only after LAB-1 lands, or after marking its declaration-scan test `observability`. — My recommendation: the guard change and the two B4/B5 hash tests are right. But the new test scans every `research/*.md` for the phrase that declares a document frozen, and it runs inside the pre-trade gate. Any future research note that quotes that phrase would red the gate and stop all three sleeves the next morning. LAB-1 (approved tonight, to be built 10-28) moves that file out of the gate. Merging after it costs nothing; FRZ-1's purpose is not time-critical. I may not merge it myself, because it edits `scripts/automerge_guard.py`.
NEEDS-OWNER: two option-data captures reach 60 sessions with nothing set up to judge them: `shortability` around 11-02 and `options_iv_term` around 11-05. — My recommendation: add the two NORTHSTAR §6 deadline rows yourself (only you may edit that file) and rule on RAD-1's unit question. That includes the Sunday file `data/shortability/2026-07-26`, which makes the counts disagree. Then the panel can pre-register an evaluator before the data matures. Three routines have raised this. Reading results before an evaluator is pinned is exactly what the pre-registration rule exists to prevent. Deadline about 11-02.

## Carried forward

- **Tomorrow, merge in this order:** #267 (panel run 42 re-land), then this
  report's PR (which stacks on it and carries the two approvals). Both must be
  on `main` before Friday's 08:30 PT digest build, or this report's asks are
  lost (DLV-1). Check each PR's target branch first.
- **LAB-1 must merge before 11-02.** Implementer slot 10-28, merge 10-29.
  Until then, if you move the crons for the clock change, edit the docs in the
  same commit (my 10-20 ask).
- **Hand-merging continues** until Actions returns (~11-01).
- **tbx-win:** check all five commits daily. Read liveness from the ref with
  an explicit midnight, never a bare date.
- **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.