werkrevisor/docs/prs/2026-10-14-PR#107-gate-weakened-category.md

PR#107: A Weakened Merge Gate Waits for the Human

WARNING: This document describes only the change applied in this PR. It may already be outdated once the next PR is merged. Historic PR documentation is not maintained along with new PRs; treat it as a snapshot.

Related Links

• PR#106: the severe gate test that werkrevisor did not see.
• PR#46: the risk categories.

Problem

In PR#106 a defect let the approval of the bot count as a human approval for the Codex gate. werkrevisor saw the change, but rated it GREEN-worthy: Jev rated weakens_checks 0.18 and security 0.66 for werkrevisor/codexrunner.py. werkrevisor is the merge gate of all werk repositories, so a change that weakens it must wait for the human.

Non-Goals

• No change of the code; the category is configuration of this repository.
• No ORANGE: four weakened gates are too few to calibrate orange_min.
• Werkator gets its own category in its repository; see Follow-up PRs.

Specification

Feature: a weakened merge gate waits for the human

Scenario#107.01: Jev rates a weakened gate as likely

So that a change that lets PRs merge with less review never merges without the human.

• Given the configuration of werkrevisor
• When Jev rates a main-code file at 0.75 or more for gate_weakened
• Then the review is YELLOW with the reason risk_gate_weakened

Verified by

• test_risk: test_werkrevisor_holds_a_weakened_gate_for_the_human

Scenario#107.02: a gate change below the threshold passes

So that the usual changes of the review, which all touch the gate, need no human.

• Given the configuration of werkrevisor
• When Jev rates a main-code file below 0.75 for gate_weakened
• Then the category gives no YELLOW

Verified by

• test_risk: test_werkrevisor_holds_a_weakened_gate_for_the_human

Solution

• .werkrevisor.toml: a category gate_weakened of its own, for main code, action = "yellow", yellow_min = 0.75.
• Version 0.42.0.

Measurement

On 2026-10-14 Jev judged each changed main-code file of the 22 merged PRs #85 to #106, the defects of PR#105 and PR#106, and three weakenings made for the measurement. Two questions were compared: merge_gate asked whether the change alters who or what may approve, hold or release a merge; gate_weakened asked whether it makes it easier to merge without the required review.

Case	merge_gate	gate_weakened
PR#106 defect: the bot approval counts	0.91	0.84
hints_hold_merge defaults to false	0.95	0.82
an approval before the result counts	0.90	0.88
a failed Codex review gives success	0.91	0.89
highest of the 22 merged PRs	0.91 (PR#94)	0.68 (PR#98, a diagram generator)
PR#105 defect: one review more per run	0.87	0.56

merge_gate rates most feature PRs of werkrevisor high, since werkrevisor is the gate. gate_weakened separates: the four weakenings from 0.82 on, the merged PRs at most 0.68. 0.75 lies between both; two runs differed by about 0.02. The measurement cost less than 0.01 USD.

Open Questions

None.

Follow-up PRs

• werkator PR#159: Werkator gets the category status_misreported and a hard path, since gate_weakened rated its weakened statuses at most 0.46.