Reeve's rounds: the jobs, the digest and alerts

How the rounds run#

Every 30 minutes, Windows' Task Scheduler runs \Reeve\Rounds, which runs the jobs that are due. Each job is a small script, listed with its interval; its result (ok, warn or alert) is decided by code, and written to the digest (%USERPROFILE%\.reeve\digest.md). Your AI assistant reads the digest with Reeve's digest tool, and Reeve's page shows it under Jobs.

Off duty (Stop on Reeve's card in Castellan), no round runs. Reeve's MCP tools, Run now and the page still work.

The jobs#

A project is a repository with a lockfile Reeve reads (npm, pnpm, yarn, Cargo, Go, pinned requirements.txt). Projects get Reeve's own checkout, docs and dependency health; every repository gets the git jobs. See Your repositories in Reeve.

Jobs that change repositories#

Four jobs change repositories: fast-forward, repo-sync, worktree-tidy and project-branches.

• On a new install each is off. The rounds skip it, and it isn't offered for approval.
• Turn one on with Turn on beside it under Jobs on Reeve's page. Turn off turns it off again.
• Its first run is a dry run. It changes nothing; its report says exactly what it would have done. It acts from the run after. Turned off and on again, it starts with a dry run again.
• Off, it still shows what it would do: Dry run on the page runs it once, changing nothing.

What fast-forward moves

A checkout of main, master, a release branch or origin's default branch is moved to what GitHub has (git merge --ff-only) only when all of these hold:

• no local commits;
• no uncommitted changes to tracked files, staged or not;
• no merge, rebase, cherry-pick, revert or bisect under way, and no other git command running there;
• no file marked assume-unchanged or skip-worktree, whose local edit git would hide.

A detached HEAD and every other branch are never moved: they're fetched for, nothing more.

One exception: a clone left on a finished branch. When a repository's own clone (never a linked worktree) is on a work branch whose every commit is already in origin's default branch, hasn't been touched for a day, and passes the checks above, it's switched back to the default branch (git switch), which is then fast-forwarded with the rest. The work branch is kept. A clone on a branch with commits of its own is never moved; once it has sat a week, the result names it, so you can finish or drop that work.

It never commits, resets, stashes, cleans, pushes, deletes or prunes. When a lockfile changed in the commits it brought, it says to reinstall packages there; it never installs anything in your checkouts.

What worktree-tidy removes

A linked worktree (never a repository's main one) goes when its work is safe elsewhere (merged into origin's default or newest release branch, rebased into it, or pushed to one of origin's branches), and:

• git status shows nothing changed, staged or untracked;
• it holds no git-ignored file but build output (node_modules, dist, .next, bin, obj, target and the like): a .env or a local database keeps it;
• nothing is under way in it, and it isn't locked;
• it hasn't been touched for 2 days, or 7 when it's only pushed.

It removes with git worktree remove, never --force, so git refuses if anything could be lost. A merged local branch goes with git branch -d once its tip is on origin's default branch and 2 days old. It never touches a desktop AI app's own worktrees folder, nor any agent's working folders, and never deletes a remote branch.

What project-branches deletes

For each of your own repositories listed in Castellan (whose Clean up merged branches is ticked): it fetches origin, then deletes the local branches fully merged into the repository's branch. It keeps the repository's branch, main, master, develop, gh-pages, release/*, hotfix/*, any branch checked out, and any with an open pull request.

On GitHub it deletes only for repositories you list under Delete merged branches on GitHub too in Reeve's settings, and only a branch whose pull request was merged at its very tip, at most 20 a round. Squash-merged branches it didn't delete, and branches with no commit for 30 days, are only reported.

Every deletion is logged with its tip, and Reeve's page shows the last ones with the command that puts each back:

git -C "C:\Projects\Example" branch feature/x 1a2b3c4d...
git -C "C:\Projects\Example" push origin 1a2b3c4d...:refs/heads/feature/x

Approving job scripts#

A job's script runs only while its SHA-256 matches the one you approved, so an edited script never runs unseen. A script that's new, or changed by an update, waits under Needs you on Reeve's page, with what it does, View the script, and the fingerprint approving pins.

• Approve all read-only jobs approves the read-only ones together.
• A job that changes repositories has its own card and its own Approve.
• A script changed since the page showed it is refused, and nothing is approved.

Alerts, and how they reach you#

A job whose last result is an alert is open until a round's result for it isn't one. Warnings stay on Reeve's page and in the digest.

• On Reeve's page: At a glance counts the new ones; Mark seen marks them seen.
• In Castellan: each open alert is in Needs you at once, while Reeve is on duty. See Needs you, notifications and quiet hours.
• One Windows notification for each new alert, never two for the same one. Never while Castellan's Notify me is off, or during quiet hours.
• For your assistant: the digest tool lists the alerts not yet acknowledged. At the start of a session, a line in its instructions has it mention any for the repository it's in.

Acknowledging (jobs ack, or Mark seen) clears the digest's list, not the alert itself: it stays open until it's put right.

Running a job yourself#

On Reeve's page, under Jobs: Run now (or Dry run now, for a job whose next run is a dry run), Pause and Resume, and each job's log. From a terminal, see Reeve's command line.