docs(review): withdraw the Greptile merge requirement it cannot satisfy (GTM-45)

[qmarcelle]

Closes GTM-45.

Greptile Review was promoted to a required status context on 2026-08-12 after a seven-criterion calibration. Criterion 5 — a further push retriggers review against the new head — stopped holding the next day. Greptile kept posting reviews and stopped emitting the check run branch protection matches on, so the required context could not be satisfied by any action available to a contributor, and main became unmergeable for every change including hotfixes.

Evidence — PR #14, four heads

Head	Greptile review posted	Greptile Review check run	Other checks	Unresolved threads
0ee76bc	yes (COMMENTED)	0	8/8 pass	0
c3c17a2 (rebase onto main)	yes (COMMENTED)	0	8/8 pass	0
3aa4531 (fresh push)	yes (COMMENTED)	0	8/8 pass	0
be2e965 (merged head)	—	0	8/8 pass	0

The same statusCheck: true in .greptile/config.json kept producing the check on workspacejson/standard across #34, #35 and #36 in the same window. The configuration is not missing; emission on this repository is not dependable.

Change applied to protection (2026-08-13), read back from the API

before: ["build-and-smoke (20)", "build-and-smoke (22)",
         "standard-candidate-consumption", "SonarCloud Code Analysis",
         "Greptile Review"]
after:  ["build-and-smoke (20)", "build-and-smoke (22)",
         "standard-candidate-consumption", "SonarCloud Code Analysis"]

strict, required_conversation_resolution, dismiss_stale_reviews, enforce_admins, force-push and deletion settings all preserved. App id bindings preserved on the four surviving contexts, so a same-named check from another app still cannot satisfy them.

Greptile was not uninstalled. greptile-apps (app id 867647) remains installed on the org and continues to review. Only its authority over merge eligibility is withdrawn.

What this PR records that is uncomfortable

• PR docs(readme): state that this is one adapter, not the way to consume workspace.json #14 merged by administrator bypass, not by satisfying protection. Four of five required contexts were green; Greptile Review was absent. The GTM-39 receipt therefore rests on four contexts plus conversation resolution. Recorded rather than smoothed over — a gate satisfiable only by bypass is not a gate.
• The calibration protocol did not test durability. Every criterion was measured once, in one sitting; criterion 5 was verified by a single push. A behavioral bar measured once is a measurement, not a guarantee. Future promotions should require the signal to survive a stated interval first.
• main now has no mechanically enforced reviewer context at all. That is a real reduction in enforcement, accepted knowingly: the alternative on offer was not a stronger gate but an unsatisfiable one, which delivered no review authority either while blocking every merge.

Criterion 5 is annotated in place rather than deleted — it is the criterion whose failure the requirement could not survive.

Re-admission

Greptile Review may become merge-authoritative again only after both are observed: a substantive review on the current PR head, and a mechanically enforceable current-head signal compatible with branch protection. Absence of either is reported as absence. Quota, credit-limit and error comments are not review evidence.

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This PR is also the live proof the deadlock is resolved: it should merge on the four contexts that actually emit, with no bypass.

Summary by Sourcery

Update documented merge policy to reflect that the Greptile Review status check has been withdrawn as a required context due to unreliable check-run emission, while the app remains installed and its findings still influence conversation resolution.

Documentation:

• Adjust branch protection documentation to remove Greptile Review from the list of required status checks and describe the resulting reliance on conversation resolution and per-finding protocol for review enforcement.
• Extend the Greptile calibration record with a withdrawal section that documents the deadlock, the failed durability criterion, the before/after branch protection state, and conditions for any future re-admission as a required check.

[Copilot]

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[greptile-apps]

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[sourcery-ai]

Reviewer's Guide

This PR updates the review documentation to record that the Greptile Review status check was briefly required, then withdrawn when its check-run emission became unreliable, and to describe the resulting branch-protection change, its impact on merge policy, and the conditions for any future re-admission as a required check.

Sequence diagram for Greptile Review withdrawal and merge deadlock resolution

sequenceDiagram
    actor Contributor
    participant GitHub
    participant BranchProtection
    participant Greptile_app

    Contributor->>GitHub: push_head_to_main
    GitHub->>Greptile_app: trigger_review
    Greptile_app->>GitHub: post_review_comments

    alt before_withdrawal (Greptile Review required)
        GitHub->>Greptile_app: expect_Greptile_Review_check_run
        note over Greptile_app,GitHub: Greptile Review check run not emitted
        GitHub->>BranchProtection: evaluate_required_status_checks
        BranchProtection-->>Contributor: merge_blocked_missing_Greptile_Review
    else after_withdrawal (Greptile Review not required)
        GitHub->>BranchProtection: evaluate_required_status_checks
        note over BranchProtection: Only build-and-smoke, standard-candidate-consumption, SonarCloud required
        BranchProtection-->>Contributor: merge_allowed_if_checks_green_and_conversations_resolved
    end

Loading

File-Level Changes

Change	Details	Files
Update merge policy docs to reflect removal of Greptile Review as a required status check and clarify the remaining enforcement semantics.	Remove Greptile Review from the documented list of required status checks for main. Adjust the narrative description of what is required to merge into main so it no longer mentions Greptile Review as a gate. Rewrite the section describing Greptile Review to state it is no longer required, explain that only its merge authority was withdrawn, and emphasize that Greptile still posts findings whose threads must be resolved. Annotate criterion 5 in the calibration list as no longer holding and point to a dedicated withdrawal explanation section.	docs/review/merge-policy.md
Add a withdrawal section to the calibration document that records why the Greptile Review requirement failed and the precise branch-protection changes applied.	Introduce a new section documenting the withdrawal of the requirement, explicitly tying it to the failure of criterion 5 (no retriggered check-run on new heads). Provide a table of observations on PR docs(readme): state that this is one adapter, not the way to consume workspace.json #14 across multiple heads showing reviews without corresponding Greptile Review check runs but with all other checks passing. Document that statusCheck: true continues to work on another repository, attributing the issue to unreliable emission on this repo rather than missing configuration. Add a before/after table of branch-protection settings from the GitHub API, highlighting removal of Greptile Review while preserving other protections and app-id bindings. Explain that Greptile remains installed, that PR docs(readme): state that this is one adapter, not the way to consume workspace.json #14 merged via administrator bypass due to an unsatisfiable required context, and that main now relies entirely on conversation resolution and written protocol for review semantics. Define conditions under which Greptile Review may be re-admitted as merge-authoritative, requiring both substantive head review and a dependable, enforceable status signal.	docs/review/calibration-2026-08.md

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[sonarqubecloud]

Quality Gate passed

Issues
0 New issues
0 Accepted issues

Measures
0 Security Hotspots
0.0% Coverage on New Code
0.0% Duplication on New Code

See analysis details on SonarQube Cloud

[sourcery-ai]

Hey - I've left some high level feedback:

• The PR-14 evidence and withdrawal narrative are now duplicated across merge-policy.md and calibration-2026-08.md; consider consolidating the detailed account in one file and referencing it from the other to avoid future drift.
• The withdrawal and re-admission criteria for Greptile Review are restated in both documents with slightly different wording; it may be clearer to define the re-admission conditions once and link to them, so the policy remains single-sourced.

Prompt for AI Agents

Please address the comments from this code review:

## Overall Comments
- The PR-14 evidence and withdrawal narrative are now duplicated across `merge-policy.md` and `calibration-2026-08.md`; consider consolidating the detailed account in one file and referencing it from the other to avoid future drift.
- The withdrawal and re-admission criteria for `Greptile Review` are restated in both documents with slightly different wording; it may be clearer to define the re-admission conditions once and link to them, so the policy remains single-sourced.

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