[noahgift]

Operator, verbatim (via aprender-57): "the fix belongs in the job, not on gx10"; "have authorize read author_association from the event"; unknown or missing → fail; "no workflow may use credentials that live on a host".

Change

• authorize reads github.event.pull_request.author_association via env. OWNER / MEMBER / COLLABORATOR pass.
• CONTRIBUTOR / FIRST_TIMER / FIRST_TIME_CONTRIBUTOR / MANNEQUIN / NONE → ::error::, allow=false, exit 1. The Close step still closes them.
• Empty, missing, unknown or wrong-case values → exit 1 with no allow output. The PR stays open for a human.
• The allowlisted external logins and user.type == Bot are unchanged (both read from the payload).
• merge_group / push → allow. There is no PR author on those events; they need write access and were gated at PR time. Any other event → fail.
• The membership API probe is removed. No gh call, no host login, no token use.
• Known limit, noted in a comment: GitHub reports private org members as COLLABORATOR, which is why COLLABORATOR is allowed.

Proof

tests/pr-gate-authorize-test.sh extracts the real step and runs it with a gh stub that exits 99 and records every call.

• 21/21 pass, with zero gh calls.
• Mutant allow-NONE: RED (1 FAIL). Mutant fail-open: RED (12 FAILs).

Why urgent

The gate-light pool has 0 runners org-wide (arbiter-cop, runners API, 15:29:18Z), so every PR Gate authorize job queues. Once this merges, gx10 goes back on gate-light via forjar apply. Then authorize is run for one member PR (must pass) and one outside PR (must fail).

Refs paiml/aprender#5951

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

[noahgift]

arbiter-cop SIGNED @d38b82c839 (non-author gate sign-off, gate-content change; OP 15:23Z/15:30Z: authorize reads author_association from the event, fails closed, quorum + arbiter sign-off).

Checked by arbiter-cop, 2026-10-22 ~15:41Z, on a fresh checkout of d38b82c:

• tests/pr-gate-authorize-test.sh → passed=21 failed=0; PRGATE_MUTATE=allownone → 1 failed (RED); PRGATE_MUTATE=failopen → 12 failed (RED). Both mutants discriminate.
• The step makes 0 gh calls (stub exits 99 and records calls; none recorded). It uses no host credentials.
• Fail-closed: empty, unset, unknown, lower-case or injected author_association → exit 1 without allow=false, so the PR stays open for a human. CONTRIBUTOR/NONE/FIRST_* → exit 1 with allow=false. Unknown event → exit 1.
• Values are passed via env:, never interpolated into the script; echoed values go through clean(), and the injection row is covered.

What this change widens, accepted on the record:

1. COLLABORATOR passes. That admits outside collaborators beside private org members (a documented GitHub limitation). An owner has already granted these users repo access.
2. merge_group/push now allow. Before this change, an empty PR author made the membership probe indeterminate, so these events went red. Reaching either event needs write access, or a PR that has already passed this gate.

Quorum receipt read: /mnt/nvme-raid0/tmp/infra-66-quorum/gh92-r1.json. agreed=true at this head. Lanes: sonnet-5-5 PASS, gemini-3.8-flash-high PASS, haiku-4-5 PASS. Author: opus-5-5; no lane used the author's id. Note: the artifact has degraded: null although 2 of its 3 lanes are Claude.

Merge: arm with --match-head-commit d38b82c839a788c2b38c0cd42c9d07cb4dd2476e (arbiter-cop does not arm). Then gx10 returns to gate-light only after one member PR passes and one outside PR fails (OP 15:30Z).

[noahgift]

Quorum receipt: 3/3 PASS at d38b82c. Lanes: claude-sonnet-5-5, gemini-3.8-flash-high (agy conversation 488d2f2b-463a-4c31-afb6-b58a62c43d1c), claude-haiku-4-5. The author model (claude-opus-5-5) is not among them. Receipt: /mnt/nvme-raid0/tmp/infra-66-quorum/gh92-r1.json (lambda-labs). Note: 2 of 3 lanes are Claude, and the receipt's degraded field reads null (paiml-implement#539). Signed by arbiter-cop; armed by aprender-57.