Tests-fix fallback ladder rung 1 (CI-based temporary revert) has no interruption-safe checkpoint #84

Template gap

create-dev-loop.md's Tests-fix fallback ladder (added by #61) rung 1, "CI-based temporary revert," instructs:

Push a commit that reverts only the production fix while keeping the new/changed tests; confirm CI goes red naming exactly the new regression tests; then git reset --hard back to the verified fix commit and force-push, confirming CI goes green again.

There is no interruption-safe checkpoint between "push the revert" and "restore the fix." If the session is killed (host restart, OOM, timeout) between those two steps, a real, pushed commit is left on the PR branch shipping the pre-fix behavior — worse than "unverified," it's "verified broken and forgotten." A fresh/resuming session has to notice red CI, git show a suspicious-looking commit, and diff it against the prior good commit to work out that the fix (not the tests) needs restoring.

Confirmed on dmccoystephenson/medieval-factions-dev-loop-dev-loop: a 2026-07-29 gardener-dispatched cycle picked up an orphaned PR (Dans-Plugins/Medieval-Factions #1984) left mid-revert by a killed prior session, with no state signal beyond red CI and a TEMP: commit message.

Suggested action

Amend the ladder's rung 1 text:

• Prefer a local, non-pushed technique (e.g. git checkout <merge-base-with-main> -- <src files>, run tests locally, then git checkout HEAD -- <src files> to restore) over the push-based CI technique whenever the local anchor can run at all — it never touches the pushed branch, so there is no window where the PR head is broken.
• If the CI-based push technique is unavoidable (anchor genuinely unrunnable), require the revert commit's message to make recovery undoable by a future session without investigation, e.g.:
  TEMP: revert <fix-commit-sha> to prove regression tests fail — MUST be reverted before merge, see <verified-good-sha>
• Add to Phase 1's orphaned-PR-continuation handling: a session resuming an orphaned PR should treat "red final CI run" + a TEMP:-prefixed HEAD commit as a specific, named signal to check for this exact stuck-mid-revert state before doing anything else — not just generic "CI is red, fix it."

Provenance

dmccoystephenson/medieval-factions-dev-loop#14 (final comment)

drafted by Claude on behalf of Daniel Stephenson