Gates

A gate is a quality checkpoint that runs after a stage completes. It evaluates conditions against the stage's output and produces a verdict that tells the pipeline what to do next.

Gates decouple quality policy from execution. You don't need to change the skill or driver to add a cost cap or a retry limit — you change the gate rules.

Gate modes:

Mode	Behavior
auto	Always proceed without evaluating any rules
rules	Evaluate the ruleset; route based on results
hold	Always pause and wait for manual approval
manual	Alias for hold
skip	Bypass this gate entirely; always proceed

Gate verdicts:

Verdict	Meaning
proceed	Move to the next stage
hold	Pause the run; wait for human approval, rework, or abort
rework	Route to the configured rework stage
abort	Stop the pipeline immediately; mark the run failed

Important: A stage can exit with code 0 (success) and still fail its gate. Gate failure is independent of whether the subprocess ran cleanly. See Signal Types for how skills influence gate outcomes.

For rule syntax and field reference, see Gate Rules.