# ADR: MCP restart governance and authorization policy

- **Status:** Accepted (policy effective immediately for LLM and operator sessions; enforcement tooling may lag)
- **Date:** 2026-07-23
- **Tracking issue:** [#656](https://gitea.prgs.cc/Scaled-Tech-Consulting/Gitea-Tools/issues/656)
- **Policy version:** `restart-governance/v1`
- **Related:**
  - Umbrella: [#655](https://gitea.prgs.cc/Scaled-Tech-Consulting/Gitea-Tools/issues/655) — governed MCP restart coordination and zero-disruption recovery
  - Vision: [#652](https://gitea.prgs.cc/Scaled-Tech-Consulting/Gitea-Tools/issues/652) — MCP Control Plane Web Console product vision (§A system health and process control)
  - Roadmap: [#653](https://gitea.prgs.cc/Scaled-Tech-Consulting/Gitea-Tools/issues/653) — Control Plane Web Console phased delivery (Phase 2 restart controls)
  - Contamination guard: [#630](https://gitea.prgs.cc/Scaled-Tech-Consulting/Gitea-Tools/issues/630) — blocks manual process-kill recovery
  - Console restart UX: [#642](https://gitea.prgs.cc/Scaled-Tech-Consulting/Gitea-Tools/issues/642) — sanctioned restart and graceful reload
  - Existing restart / reconnect paths to inventory: [#591](https://gitea.prgs.cc/Scaled-Tech-Consulting/Gitea-Tools/issues/591) — auto-restart on master advance (closed); [#584](https://gitea.prgs.cc/Scaled-Tech-Consulting/Gitea-Tools/issues/584) — host auto-reconnect on transport flap
  - Stable-control runtime split: `docs/architecture/mcp-stable-control-runtime-policy-adr.md` (#615)
  - Client-namespace health: `docs/mcp-namespace-health.md` (#543)
  - Reconnect-only EOF recovery: `docs/mcp-namespace-eof-recovery.md`

## 1. Context

The Gitea MCP server is the **control plane** for real issue and PR mutations
(create, comment, lock, review, merge, reconcile). The same process serves every
role namespace (`gitea-author`, `gitea-reviewer`, `gitea-merger`,
`gitea-reconciler`, `gitea-controller`) and holds the in-memory capability-gate
code loaded at startup.

Restarting that process is destructive to concurrent work:

- It resets every session's identity, preflight, and capability-lease binding.
- It can interrupt a mutation mid-critical-section (a lock acquire, a review
  submit, a merge), leaving durable state half-written.
- Relaunching from the wrong checkout or worktree silently changes which code
  the control plane runs, defeating master-parity gates (#420 / #615).

Today there is **no durable written policy** stating who may restart MCP, under
what conditions, that restart is a last resort, and how controller approval,
automated safety gates, and break-glass interact. Operators and LLM sessions
therefore invent restart behavior ad hoc, which makes concurrent multi-role work
unsafe. #630 and #642 need this policy as their backbone.

This ADR defines that policy. It does **not** implement coordinator code or HA
multi-instance restart (those are later children of #655).

## 2. Decision

### 2.1 v1 decision (recorded)

**Restart authority in v1 is `controller approval + automated safety gates`.**

A restart of the stable control runtime is authorized only when **both** hold:

1. A **controller** role explicitly approves the restart, recording an audit
   entry (who, why, scope, affected sessions), **and**
2. The **automated safety gates** pass: a completed drain acknowledgement (no
   affected session is mid-critical-section) or a declared break-glass incident
   (§2.5).

Quorum among multiple controllers is **not** required day-one. It is deferred
unless a later investigation (tracked under #653) proves single-controller
approval is insufficient. This ADR records the v1 decision so enforcement code
(#630) has a fixed target; changing it requires a superseding ADR.

### 2.2 Restart is a last resort — the recovery ladder

Restart is the **last** rung. Before any restart, exhaust the narrower
recoveries, in order:

1. **Reconnect** the IDE/client MCP namespace (transport EOF, `client is
   closing: EOF`, transient `#584` flap). No process change. See
   `docs/mcp-namespace-eof-recovery.md`.
2. **Refresh / rebind** the session workspace: re-run `gitea_whoami`,
   `gitea_resolve_task_capability`, and pass an explicit validated
   `worktree_path`. Fixes stale session context without touching the process.
3. **Scoped restart** of a single misbehaving namespace/service (where the
   deployment supports per-service restart) rather than the whole control plane.
4. **Full restart** of the stable control runtime process — operator-owned,
   controller-approved, drained.
5. **Host / infrastructure restart** — the broadest action; same authorization
   as a full restart plus infrastructure ownership.

A session **must** try rungs 1–2 and record why they were insufficient before
requesting a restart at rung 3 or above. Skipping straight to restart is a
policy violation.

### 2.3 Authorization matrix

| Role | Reconnect (1) | Refresh/rebind (2) | Scoped restart (3) | Full restart (4) | Host restart (5) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| **author** | self | self | request only | **forbidden** | forbidden |
| **reviewer** | self | self | request only | **forbidden** | forbidden |
| **merger** | self | self | request only | **forbidden** | forbidden |
| **reconciler** | self | self | request only | **forbidden** | forbidden |
| **controller** | self | self | **approve** (+gates) | **approve** (+gates) | request to operator |
| **operator** | self | self | execute (controller-approved) | execute (controller-approved) | execute (controller-approved) |
| **admin** | self | self | execute | execute | execute (break-glass) |

Legend: *self* = may perform for its own client session; *request only* = may
raise a restart request but not authorize or execute it; *approve* = may
authorize under §2.1 gates; *execute* = may perform the process action after the
authorization is recorded.

Key invariants:

- **No LLM worker role (author/reviewer/merger/reconciler) may perform or
  authorize a full or host restart.** They may only reconnect/rebind their own
  client and file a restart request.
- **Controller approval authorizes; operator/admin executes.** The approving
  controller and the executing operator may be the same human, but both the
  approval and the execution are audited.
- Privileged process actions (full restart, host restart) are reserved to
  **operator/admin**, never to an automated worker.

### 2.4 Approved conditions

A restart at rung 3+ is approved only under one of these recorded conditions:

- **No affected sessions:** the control plane has no live session that would be
  interrupted (verified, not assumed).
- **Full drain acknowledged:** every affected session has drained
  (no open critical section — no held mutation lease mid-write) and the drain is
  acknowledged in the audit record.
- **Controller + gates:** controller approval plus passing automated safety
  gates (§2.1), the standard v1 path.
- **Quorum:** not required in v1; reserved for a future superseding ADR.
- **Break-glass:** an incident-backed emergency exception (§2.5).

Restart **never** bypasses mutation gates mid-critical-section. Drain before
restart is mandatory except under break-glass with a declared incident.

### 2.5 Break-glass

Break-glass is a **separate, narrower** authorization path for emergencies where
the normal drain-and-approve path cannot complete (e.g. the control plane is
wedged and cannot drain).

Break-glass conditions:

- A declared incident record exists (id, timestamp, declarer) **before** the
  action.
- The action is taken by **operator or admin** authority only — never by an LLM
  worker role, and never unilaterally by an operator with active peers when a
  controller is reachable.
- The scope is the minimum necessary rung of the ladder.
- A **mandatory post-hoc audit** entry is filed: what was restarted, why the
  normal path was impossible, which sessions were affected, and the incident id.

Break-glass suspends the drain requirement, not the audit requirement.

### 2.6 Explicit prohibitions

- **A unilateral LLM or operator full restart while active peer sessions
  exist is forbidden.** An LLM worker role must not kill, restart, or relaunch
  the MCP process; a lone operator must not full-restart over live peer work
  without controller approval or a break-glass incident.
- Process-kill recovery is forbidden as a routine tool (#630). This ADR does not
  introduce a kill path.
- Ambiguous policy state **denies** restart (§4).

## 3. Security requirements

- Full restart and host restart are **privileged**; only operator/admin execute
  them, only after a controller approval or break-glass incident is recorded.
- Break-glass is a distinct authorization path with its own audit mandate; it is
  never the default and never silent.
- **Every approval and every restart action is audited** (who approved, who
  executed, scope, affected sessions, condition, policy version). No restart is
  authorized without a durable audit entry.

## 4. Failure behavior

**Ambiguous policy → deny restart.** If it cannot be established that a
restart is authorized under §2 — unknown affected-session state, missing
controller approval, absent break-glass incident, or an unclassifiable request —
the safe action is to **refuse** the restart and stop with a recovery report,
never to restart on assumption.

## 5. Policy IDs (for enforcement code)

Enforcement code — the restart coordinator (a later child of #655), the #630
contamination guard, and the #642 console restart UX — binds to these stable
policy identifiers rather than to prose:

| Policy ID | Statement |
|---|---|
| `RG-01` | Restart is last resort; rungs 1–2 must be tried and recorded first (§2.2). |
| `RG-02` | v1 authority = controller approval + automated safety gates (§2.1). |
| `RG-03` | No LLM worker role performs or authorizes full/host restart (§2.3). |
| `RG-04` | Full/host restart executed by operator/admin only, post approval (§2.3). |
| `RG-05` | Drain before restart is mandatory except break-glass with incident (§2.4). |
| `RG-06` | Break-glass requires a pre-declared incident and post-hoc audit (§2.5). |
| `RG-07` | Unilateral LLM/operator full restart with active peers is forbidden (§2.6). |
| `RG-08` | Ambiguous policy state denies restart (§4). |

The `restart-governance/v1` **policy version** field is emitted on future
restart audit events so approvals can be reconciled against the policy revision
in force.

## 6. Dogfooding

Gitea-Tools governs its own MCP control plane by this policy. Author, reviewer,
merger, and reconciler sessions operating on this repository use the recovery
ladder (§2.2) — reconnect and rebind, never self-restart — and any real restart
of the Gitea-Tools stable control runtime follows the controller-approval +
drain path defined here.

## 7. Acceptance and cross-links

This ADR is the authoritative restart-governance policy. It **must** stay
cross-linked from the safety model and the web-console deployment boundary:

- `docs/safety-model.md` § Process restart governance references this ADR.
- `docs/webui-deployment.md` references this ADR for restart/reload disposition.

It is linked to its issue lineage — umbrella **#655**, vision **#652**, roadmap
**#653**, contamination guard **#630**, and console restart UX **#642** — in
§ Related above.

## 8. Non-goals

- Implementing the restart coordinator or approval state machine (#630, later
  children of #655).
- Implementing HA multi-instance restart or quorum machinery.
- Introducing any process-kill or auto-restart tool; existing auto-restart
  behavior must be inventoried before any new restart tool is enabled.
