workflow: let the card decide its brief when a re-match hands it on - #2490

Fixes #2486

Owner: Dev-5
Reviewer: Birfy
Written-by: FlyBot Dev-5
Claim-Id: 99f578dbd3554898844cde32fb083c8d
Risk tier: T2
maintainer_can_modify: true

What changed

#2477 fixed the assign half of the brief cache: an explicit brief is the latest word, and brief: '' clears the facts a lane cached. The re-match path was the other half. ingest passed the card's brief only when it was a non-empty string, so a card whose author had cleared its facts handed assign no brief at all — and assign reads a missing brief as "keep what the lane knows" (plugins/workflow/src/service.js:1351), so the cleared text came back on the next hop.

ingest now passes the card's own state: brief: typeof task.brief === 'string' ? task.brief : ''. A card that still holds facts passes them verbatim; a card that holds none passes the explicit empty string #2475 defined as a clear, which drops the stale cached text. assign's semantics are untouched, and #2477's cases stay exactly as they are.

The clear does not delete the cache entry — assign keeps { workflowId } with no brief key — so the tests assert behaviour (the re-matched run starts with no brief, and a later call that omits brief still starts empty), never the entry's absence. The delete() path is not involved.

Files

• plugins/workflow/src/service.js +5/−1
• plugins/workflow/test/ingest-brief-authority.test.js +97/−0
• changelog.d/2486-ingest-brief-authority.fixed.md +1/−0

Not touched: core/ (including core/client.js), patches/ds-bot/, core/src/host/tasks.js. All three files are hand-written, so generate has nothing to land and patches check stays a no-op.

Red first

On base f2958538 with only the new test file, implementation untouched: # tests 2 / # pass 1 / # fail 1.

not ok 1 - #2486: a card whose facts were cleared re-matches with no brief, and the old text does not come back
  the card no longer holds facts, so the re-matched run must start without them
  + actual - expected

  + 'OLD facts.\nSecond line.'
  - undefined

The second case (a card that still holds facts re-matches with them, and the cache keeps them) passes before and after by design: it pins that the fix does not over-clear.

Ran

• cd plugins/workflow && TZ=UTC node --import ./test/resolve.mjs --test "test/*.test.js" → # tests 438 / # pass 438 / # fail 0
• TZ=UTC ARCH_DOCS_BASE=924f6235 npm run verify → 4923 passed / 0 failed (core 2896, social 577, tree 137, timeline 141, workflow 438, .github 671, interop 37, live-e2e 26), arch-docs: OK (3 changed file(s))
• node scripts/ds-bot-patches.mjs check → ok patches/ds-bot/ is what generate writes (generate is a no-op)

Docs-not-needed: docs/subsystems/workflow.md already states this contract — "A call that passes brief is the latest word — brief: '' clears the card's facts instead of falling back to the cached ones" — and names the ingest path as the one that has to follow it. This change adds no new contract.

Checkpoint

{
"pr": 2490,
"claim": "Dev-5",
"issue": 2486,
"summary": "ingest handed a re-matched card to assign with no brief when the card held none, and assign reads a missing brief as "keep the lane's cache", so facts an author had cleared came back. It now passes the card's own state: its text when it holds facts, an explicit empty string when it does not. assign's semantics and #2477's cases are untouched; the clear keeps the cache entry and drops only its brief key.",
"files": [
"plugins/workflow/src/service.js",
"plugins/workflow/test/ingest-brief-authority.test.js",
"changelog.d/2486-ingest-brief-authority.fixed.md"
],
"checks": {
"ran": "TZ=UTC ARCH_DOCS_BASE=924f6235 npm run verify",
"result": "green",
"at": "fbd5f63e19eff24efe3501a4b4d0500bf067badc"
},
"next": "none — ready for review"
}