developer-experience: wire real merge state into ledger signals (zeroMergeStreak always-true bug)

[ruvnet]

Nightly Dream Cycle, 2026-08-14. DEEP=developer-experience, SCAN=cli,tui. Full report: docs/dream-cycle/2026-08-14-developer-experience-report.md. Issue: #8.

Hypothesis

Given zeroMergeStreak (the field this pipeline's own compiled STEP 1.1 uses to bias candidate selection), when the CLI is given an optional --merged "7,12" flag threading known-merged PR numbers into the existing, already-correct learningSignals(rows, { mergedPrNumbers }) library option, then the signal should correctly report false once the window's PR is in the supplied set, and stay byte-identical to today when --merged is omitted. Frozen before implementation.

Candidate

+48/-2 across 2 files (no new files besides the report). One conceptual change: packages/cli/src/index.ts's ledger signals handler now accepts --merged, parses it into a Set, and passes it through — the @dream-machine/ledger library itself is untouched (it was already correct).

Evaluation Receipt

Real evaluator: npm test (vitest, this repo's bench entrypoint).

	Baseline (7bbb851)	Candidate
Tests	96	101 (+5, 0 removed/modified)
Result	96 passed	101 passed
Lint	clean	clean

Baseline

Parent commit 7bbb851d337067d16ede31175896bb5e587a7d22, 96/96 tests passing, clean build, clean lint.

Darwin Lineage

Not run — DARWIN=not-applicable. No evolvable population for a single CLI flag surfacing an already-correct library option.

Evidence

Reproduced live tonight (grade A, first-hand): node packages/cli/dist/bin.js ledger signals against this repo's real docs/dream-cycle/LEDGER.md → zeroMergeStreak: true, even though mcp__github__pull_request_read on PR #7 independently confirms merged: true, merged_by: ruvnet, merged_at: 2026-08-13T22:05:44Z. Post-fix: ledger signals --merged 7 → zeroMergeStreak: false, matching real GitHub state.

Reward-Hack Check

Self-critique pass (no second agent spawned tonight — disclosed limitation, see report). CLEAR of reward-hacking — only intended files changed, no test/gold/threshold tampering, default (no-flag) behavior byte-identical to before. Found + fixed before finalizing: the first draft's --merged crashed (mergedFlag.split is not a function) on a value-less invocation (parseArgs returns boolean true, not a string, for a flag with nothing after it) — fixed with an explicit type guard and a clear usage error; regression test added. Two things deliberately left out of scope, not silently dropped: (1) renderDashboard/TUI has the identical gap but is documented as a pure, dependency-free function — extending it is a second conceptual change and an open design question; (2) the CLI does not fetch merge state itself (no network/gh call added) — that would stack a second network-facing responsibility onto a tool whose io.exec already carries a flagged unsanitized-shell-exec risk (from PR #7).

Security Review

No new exec/network/file-write surface — --merged is pure string→Set parsing. No credentials touched. No LLM calls (N/A for prompt injection). IO/io.exec unaffected — no existing call site gains new capability.

Regression Analysis

0 pre-existing tests modified or removed. All 96 baseline tests still pass unchanged; 5 new tests added (default-unchanged, flag-flips-signal, whitespace/#-tolerant parsing, unrelated-PR-stays-true, value-less-flag usage error).

ADR

None. This is a CLI-wiring fix (a small flag threading an existing, already-correct library option), not an architectural decision — no new ADR filed tonight.

Gist

No gh gist create/gist tool available this session. Report committed at docs/dream-cycle/2026-08-14-developer-experience-report.md instead. GIST=LOCAL.

Issue

#8

Witness

report_sha256 : f488881084bea3ac273fe8e62710533eb1c225040e763cdc8b0ae26ef975017c
session_commit: 7bbb851d337067d16ede31175896bb5e587a7d22
witness       : e55f641310751223e98c72c55a72388cedfe47dffa64c4f60166d027ded095e9

Verify: sha256sum docs/dream-cycle/2026-08-14-developer-experience-report.md, then printf '%s%s' "<hash>" "7bbb851d337067d16ede31175896bb5e587a7d22" | sha256sum must equal the witness above. Confirmed tonight via dream-machine witness verify (✓ VALID).

Merge Policy

Draft — human review required. This PR does not carry the automerge-safe label. Per this repo's guarded-auto-merge policy (.github/workflows/automerge.yml), that label is a deliberate human decision this session never applies to itself, even though this candidate is small and touches no evaluation/gate/safety infrastructure — the session never merges and never self-labels.

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