stack/docs/plans/2026-09-28_queue-owner-not-reviewer.md

Queue: a row's owner can't be its reviewer

Brief for one queue row under #1508. Written by Sage on 2026-09-28 from Filbert's n2 in the Piece D round 2 review (agents/filbert/work/queue-d-review-r2-2026-09-27.md). It is also the piece a fresh seat starts in Gate G.

Refuse the owner as a reviewer at add, set reviewers and assign

Problem

queue set ID reviewers, queue add --reviewer and queue assign accept the row's owner as a reviewer. review record refuses the owner (packages/queue/src/queue.mjs, the check near "only a listed reviewer other than the owner"), but the approval check still waits for every listed reviewer. So a row whose owner is on its reviewer list can't reach done or waiting-on-jason until a privileged actor edits the list. The refusal names the owner as a missing approval, which reads as a bug. Nothing is unsafe today. It fails closed, but it can stall a row. The item is on docs/plans/DEFERRED.md under "Queue: an owner listed as a reviewer blocks the row".

Owner and reviewer

• Owner: rocko.
• Reviewer: filbert, who found it.

Files owned

• packages/queue/src/queue.mjs
• packages/queue/tests/ (new or changed test files)
• packages/queue/README.md (one sentence on the rule)

What ships

• add refuses a row whose --owner is also among its --reviewers.
• set ID reviewers refuses a list that includes the row's owner.
• assign ID SEAT refuses a SEAT that is on the row's reviewer list.
• Each refusal exits 2, names the seat and the row, and writes nothing (no log entry, no witness change).
• Do not fix it by dropping the owner from the required approvals. With reviewers [owner] that list would be empty and the row would pass with no review.
• Tests for each refusal and for the unchanged accept paths. node --test packages/queue/tests/ and bash scripts/test-queue.sh pass.

Out of scope

Rows already in queue.json: none has its owner as a reviewer today, so no migration. The other DEFERRED queue items (the queue-commit message when HEAD moves, calendar checks on dates) stay separate.

Gate

Filbert approves through the queue: the owner moves the row to in-review with --candidate, and Filbert records an approval with queue review record. Sage then commits the candidate, and the suites above must pass on it.