Ticket Ownership

Apply this contract only in ticket mode, after gh authentication and repository identity have been verified.

Caller responsibility: ## Inspect ownership (read-only) below performs zero GitHub writes and may run at any point before substantive work. ## Claim ownership (mutating) performs a real GitHub mutation (gh issue edit --add-assignee) — it must not run before the calling workflow's own authorization gate (e.g. a Confirm/Decline confirmation). Adding Working or doing substantive work must never precede the claim.

Inspect ownership (read-only)

Resolve the current user

Run:

gh api user --jq .login

Trim the result and validate it against ^[A-Za-z0-9-]+$. Stop if the command fails or the login is empty or invalid. Never infer a GitHub login from Git user.name or user.email.

Check for a conflict

Use assignees from the caller's fresh ticket fetch when available; otherwise fetch:

gh issue view <number> --repo <owner>/<repo> --json assignees

Compare logins case-insensitively:

• Exactly one assignee matching the current login: continue — already owned by the caller, no claim needed.
• Exactly one different assignee: stop and report that ticket #<number> is owned by @<login> and cenci will not replace the existing assignee.
• Multiple assignees: stop, list them, and report that cenci requires one exclusive owner. Do not add or remove anyone.
• No assignees: no conflict — the caller's write phase may proceed to ## Claim ownership (mutating) below, at the appropriate point in its own authorization boundary.

Claim ownership (mutating)

Reached only once the calling workflow's own authorization gate has been passed. Re-verify first — the assignees may have changed since the inspection above ran, so re-fetch rather than trusting the earlier read:

gh issue view <number> --repo <owner>/<repo> --json assignees

Re-apply the same conflict comparison as above. If it is still unassigned, claim it:

gh issue edit <number> --repo <owner>/<repo> --add-assignee <current-login>

Then re-fetch assignees. Continue only when the current login is the sole assignee. If the edit or fetch fails, or another assignee appeared concurrently, stop and report the observed state. Do not remove or replace assignees to repair a conflict automatically.

Ticket creation is not a claim. Split children remain unassigned until a primary workflow is invoked for each one.