Lanes

Coordination lanes are Herdr panes, never subprocess agents created by Maestro. The Lead owns topology and delivery; Maestro owns the durable contract and return packet.

Lane types

• scout performs no-write discovery and reports state.
• decision investigates alternatives and recommends without writing.
• delivery owns bounded writes inside the declared mutation scope.
• challenge tries to break a premise or candidate and returns findings, not fixes.

Open a dispatch

After the Lead creates the work item and opens an unwatched Herdr lane pane, it stores the complete contract:

maestro dispatch open <work-id> --objective "<observable outcome>" --owned-scope "<paths or responsibility>" --excluded-scope "<explicit non-goals>" --mutation "<no-write or write-bounded paths>" --stop-condition "<done or blocked boundary>" --lane delivery --evidence-required "source: <falsifier>" --pane <pane-id> --target-session <session-id>

For a Codex pane whose session does not exist until its first turn, the Lead opens the pane-bound dispatch without --target-session, sends the real stored contract as the first prompt, then verifies the holder after acceptance.

The Lead reads the stored contract and work context before sending it:

maestro dispatch show <dispatch-id>
maestro dispatch list <work-id>

Accept the lane

The Peer begins by accepting exactly the stored dispatch:

maestro dispatch accept <dispatch-id>

Acceptance binds the session to the Peer role without taking the work write lease. A delivery Peer starts the assigned work separately when the contract requires the write lease.

Return a handback

The Peer stops at the contract boundary and files the complete return packet:

maestro handback file <dispatch-id> --status DONE --claim "<current belief>" --proof "source: <falsifier>" --assumptions "None" --residual-risks "None" --incidental-findings "None"

The Lead reads the handback, checks its evidence, decides whether the work is complete, and only then closes or reuses the lane pane. A handback is a claim, not acceptance.

Herdr procedure

The full ~/maestro/lane.md procedure has the Lead create an unwatched lane tab, split panes, start the requested harness, resolve session identity, store and send the exact dispatch, wait for working, then wait for any terminal Herdr state. Both idle and done mean to read the handback; blocked needs inspection. A wait that returns without a state is re-armed. No Maestro verb pushes a brief into a pane or calls Herdr.

Councils

Concurrent dispatches in one generation on the same work item form a council. The council remains sealed until every lane returns, which prevents one view from biasing another. The Lead reconciles the complete set; it does not count votes. Implementation of the ruling belongs on separate work, not as a later dispatch that silently changes council membership.