bug(deep-interview): active rounds ask whether to continue instead of converging to ambiguity threshold

[Yeachan-Heo]

Report

A Discord user reported that Deep Interview no longer keeps asking questions until the configured ambiguity threshold (normally 5%). Instead, after each answer it asks whether the user wants to continue the interview.

Source report: Discord playground-ko message 1538226816978788455 at 2026-08-15T16:44:12.040Z.

Independently verified contract conflict

Current dev documents both of these contracts in packages/coding-agent/src/defaults/gjc/skills/deep-interview/SKILL.md:

• DIPP-9: do not proceed until ambiguity is at or below the resolved threshold and explicit execution approval exists.
• Active interview behavior: score after every answer and continue targeted questioning.
• Phase 0.5 suitability gate: if existing state already contains rounds/topology/spec metadata, preserve it and ask whether to continue, cancel, or explicitly clear.

The reported behavior is consistent with the suitability/resume choice being surfaced repeatedly during an already-active interview, rather than only at invocation/resume boundaries. That turns the 5% ambiguity gate into per-answer consent friction and changes the intended continuation contract.

Maintainer-defined scope

Reproduce on current dev, identify the exact path that emits continue/cancel/clear after an ordinary answered round, and ensure an active interview automatically advances to scoring and the next weakest-dimension question until a legitimate terminal condition occurs:

1. ambiguity is at/below the resolved threshold and closure/restatement gates are reached;
2. the user explicitly exits/cancels/clears;
3. a genuine resume/suitability ambiguity exists at invocation boundary;
4. the bounded continuation safety cap requires an explicit recovery state.

Do not remove explicit user exit controls, threshold transparency, or the resume safety gate. Add a focused regression test proving ordinary answered rounds do not prompt for generic continuation approval.

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[repo owner's gaebal-gajae (clawdbot) 🦞]

[Yeachan-Heo]

Accepted as a current-dev behavior regression. A dedicated one-issue implementation lane is active from origin/dev@d332b7890e on fix/issue-4589-deep-interview-continuation, reproducing the per-answer continuation prompt and tracing the boundary between ordinary round continuation and the invocation/resume suitability gate. The accepted scope is a narrow contract repair with focused regression coverage; no threshold/default/invocation redesign.

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[repo owner's gaebal-gajae (clawdbot) 🦞]

[Yeachan-Heo]

Lane status for #4589 — fix implemented, PR open, CI running.

Head/base: fix/issue-4589-deep-interview-continuation @ a8138dc9e03911d359dc5d28f280996f67e8166c → dev @ d332b7890e. PR: #4590 (closes this issue).

Reproduction on exact dev (d332b7890e): packages/coding-agent/src/defaults/gjc/skills/deep-interview/SKILL.md Step 2f (lines 604–612) — "Tiered Confirmation Cadence" — instructs: "Rounds 4-15 (ask to continue): after each round, ask 'Continue, or proceed with current clarity ({score}%)?' so the user controls depth" and rounds 16+ keep asking with a diminishing-returns warning. Pinned green by deep-interview-skill-contract.test.ts:154 on base. That is the exact reported behavior (Discord playground-ko 1538226816978788455).

Root cause: the ouroboros ooo-interview parity port squash-imported in 10144d55f5 (2026-08-14, in current dev ancestry). No runtime code emits the prompt — the bundled skill instruction is the emitting path; it contradicts DIPP-9, the Phase 2 loop (Repeat until ambiguity ≤ threshold OR user exits early), Step 2d next-target reporting, and the runtime stop-gate reminder that already auto-continues with score/persist/next-question (bounded 2 continuations/prompt in agent-session.ts#checkActiveDeepInterviewCompletion).

Fix: Step 2f rewritten as Check Continuation Contract (issue #4589) — ordinary answered rounds never ask for generic continuation approval; the only legitimate terminal conditions are (1) threshold + closure/restatement gates, (2) explicit user exit, (3) invocation/resume suitability ambiguity at the invocation boundary only, (4) bounded continuation safety recovery (Round 100 hard cap / budget). Explicit exit controls, Phase 0.5 resume gate, threshold transparency, DIPP-9, and the hard cap are preserved. Contract + agent-session regression tests pin it (round 6, inside the retired band, auto-continues with no generic continue/cancel/clear surface).

Local verification: deep-interview contract 20/20, session continuation 23/23, family suites 144/144 + 105/105 + 127/127, check (biome+tsc) clean, visible-definitions/default-definitions/skill-docs/plugins/schemas gates pass. verify-g002-gates.ts fails identically on base and head (pre-existing 가재씨 bin allowlist + MCP quarantine gate) — inherited, not introduced.

Next: exact-head CI verdict + non-author review, then terminal verdict here.

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[repo owner's gaebal-gajae (clawdbot) 🦞]

[Yeachan-Heo]

Correction + review request for #4589 (PR #4590).

The PR #4590 body was previously contaminated with a stale unrelated Windows lock PR description (Fixes #4544, stale heads/digests). It has been replaced wholesale via REST with the accurate #4589 body bound to exact head/base a8138dc9e03911d359dc5d28f280996f67e8166c / d332b7890ed95ff71d1a80e00bd4d31809558e69 (code head untouched — no amend/push). REST-verified: Fixes #4589 present; zero occurrences of Fixes #4544 / index.jsonl / PowerShell / Telegram / c20a6725 / 71b9fa; exactly one fresh verdict line with newly computed canonical digest sha256:c4772ea6b81b6afb75aaec6b1c9d058a94c51344afb85258b0d9663e31dc1982.

CI: product jobs on run 31897570999 were 13/13 green (gjc-state-gates all shards; Affected path validation plan, native-build, both focused deep-interview tests, ts-build, evidence producer; Virtual integration validation) — the sole red was PR contract bootstrap, caused by the contaminated body. The corrected body triggered replacement run 31898171653 on the same head; being tracked to terminal.

Review: fresh non-author exact-head review requested — @probepark primary, @HaD0Yun backup. Verdict stays needs-human until an APPROVED review on exactly a8138dc9e03911d359dc5d28f280996f67e8166c.

Evidence trail: PR comment 5303380862; earlier technical evidence in issue comment 5303330015.

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[repo owner's gaebal-gajae (clawdbot) 🦞]

[Yeachan-Heo]

Resolved and integrated into dev by PR #4590 (fix(deep-interview): retire per-round tiered continuation asks for active interviews), merged at 2026-08-18T03:58:42Z. The merged change removes generic per-round continuation consent from active interviews while retaining real exit/resume/terminal gates. Closing this issue as completed.

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[repo owner's gaebal-gajae (clawdbot) 🦞]