Hands-off mode

The contract every ultrapack skill honors when the task file's **Mode:** header is hands-off. One home for the rules so child skills don't duplicate them.

When this applies

The task file header names the mode:

**Mode:** hands-off

If absent or set to interactive, ignore this skill entirely — normal interactive flow.

What hands-off is for

The user has said "run the full workflow and don't ask me each step." This is permission to proceed, not permission to guess. Hands-off reduces prompts; it does not expand authority. Two directives:

1. Fewer questions after Design. Don't gate progress on "should I fix this?" or "approve the plan?" — just do it.
2. Safest reversible path, least assumptions. When two routes both work, pick the one easier to undo. When a choice lacks an obvious conservative default, don't invent one — defer.

The user trades per-step approval for one end-of-task review against the decision log.

Safety principles

• Always work on a dedicated branch + worktree. Never edit main / master directly in hands-off. If git-worktrees cannot provision one, log under ### Deferred (needs user input) and stop — do not fall back to working on the main branch.
• Prefer additive over subtractive edits. Rename before deleting. Comment-out before removing. Add a new file before replacing the old one in place. The independent reviewer still catches unused cruft; better that than a deleted file the user wanted.
• Never destructive git operations. No reset --hard, no branch -D, no force-push, no clean -f, no overwriting of uncommitted work. If a clean state is needed, stash.
• Never push to remote. Pushing is always user-initiated, even in hands-off. The end-of-task step offers push/PR as an option; it does not execute it.
• Never skip hooks or bypass signing (--no-verify, --no-gpg-sign). If a hook fails, fix the underlying issue, not the hook-skip.
• No mass deletes or rewrites. If the plan calls for deleting many files, flag it and proceed one at a time with commits between. Keep the rollback surface.
• External spec files are read-only. Same rule as interactive.
• Never auto-mark done on an unconfirmed Goal. If the Goal needs a real-world run or an outcome the agent can't observe (training works at scale), the task ends at validating: list the remaining steps under ### Deferred (needs user input) and surface them at end-of-task. The user confirms the Goal later; hands-off does not.

Conservative ≠ inventive. When unsure whether an action is reversible, assume it isn't and defer.

The decision log

Every auto-choice that would normally have prompted the user lands in the task file's Conclusion under:

### Hands-off decisions
- <stage>: <choice> — <rationale>

<stage> is the skill name (make, udesign, uplan, uexecute, ureview). Every entry is one line. The list is what the user reviews at end-of-task.

The deferred log

When a choice has no conservative default — a required argument with no rigid fallback, a failing worktree provision, a smoke test that can't run, an ambiguous finding — do not guess. Append:

### Deferred (needs user input)
- <what was skipped> — <why> — <what the user needs to decide>

Then keep going on the rest, or stop and ask if the blocker is structural. The task can still finish with deferred items open; they're the agenda for the end-of-task prompt.

No-default rule

If a value is required and neither the user nor the plan specified one:

• Don't invent a "safe-looking" default. timeout=30 is not safe — it's invented. The user may have meant 5, or 300.
• Don't pick a "common" value. Commonness is not authorization.
• Either: the rigid path ("same as before", "as the user wrote it"), if one exists.
• Or: defer under ### Deferred (needs user input).

This rule is strictly stronger than the interactive-mode uexecute rule ("no silent fallbacks"). Hands-off keeps it loud.

End-of-task summary

The final stage (the workflow entry point's step 12) presents the ### Hands-off decisions list plus any ### Deferred (needs user input) items to the user with the verbatim prompt:

Here's what I did to make it hands-off. Want to change anything?

Only after the user responds does the workflow offer merge/PR/cleanup options. This is the single required interaction between Design and finish.

Per-stage behavior (summary — see each SKILL.md for details)

• make — auto-classifies size (default Medium), auto-picks branch + worktree (default: new branch + worktree), logs the picks.
• udesign — runs as normal; relaxes "one question per message" to "ask only when genuinely blocking"; logs conservative defaults.
• uplan — skips the approval wait; logs - uplan: plan auto-approved.
• uexecute — behavior unchanged (the interactive rules already match hands-off's safety intent); stop-and-ask list now logs under Deferred.
• uverify — behavior unchanged; infeasible smoke tests log under Deferred.
• ureview — high-confidence actionable findings are announced-and-applied (no pause); low-confidence / ambiguous findings log under Deferred instead of being auto-fixed.

Rules

• Reversibility over speed: a slower path that leaves rollback intact beats a faster path that doesn't.
• Log over guess: one line in the decision log always beats an inferred default.
• The task-file **Mode:** header is the single source of truth; no environment flags, no in-session memory.
• ### Hands-off decisions must exist in every hands-off task's Conclusion and be surfaced at end-of-task.
• If the header is missing, behave as interactive. Do not assume hands-off from other signals.