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+# Bounded self-healing qualification
+
+Owner approved this priority on 2026-10-03. This extends the adaptive-company
+plan and existing authoritative backlog; it is not a second work queue.
+
+## Outcome
+
+TORCH recovers authorized interrupted work without external babysitting. It
+preserves unfinished work, assignments and evidence, never duplicates executors,
+and escalates a genuine decision once with an actionable explanation. Managers
+resolve coordination within delegated authority; deterministic machinery must
+also detect manager/controller failure without relying on the failed agent.
+
+## Execution order and existing owners
+
+1. Provider Runtime / Kernel: finish `TASK-company-runtime-recovery`, including
+   exact stopped-process proof, retained guard/controller-lock recovery, fresh
+   instructions and preservation of dirty work. Qualification and native source
+   adoption/integration remain prerequisites, not gates to bypass.
+2. Release / Runtime / Kernel: finish `TASK-conversation-persistent-operations`;
+   installer-owned services survive reboot, reconcile idempotently and uninstall
+   only manifest-owned resources. Keep dormant-install and explicit activation.
+3. Runtime / QA: prioritize the failure/backoff portion of
+   `TASK-conversation-usage-governor`. Distinguish transient failure, quota,
+   authentication, unavailable model, unknown outcome and owner pause. Circuit
+   breakers must suppress repeated launches for the same unresolved cause.
+4. Kernel / Work: complete the authority/event prerequisites and
+   `TASK-company-reconciler`, with existing `TASK-conversation-event-driven-wakes`
+   and `TASK-conversation-queue-watchdog`. Observe, reserve, recheck authority
+   and revision, execute one bounded action, record and reconcile. No duplicate
+   grant, event, task, messaging or recovery stores.
+5. Manager / Console / QA: report the current wait owner, reason, age, last
+   recovery attempt, next eligible action and exact evidence. Chase dependencies
+   and approvals without inventing permission or sending repeated notices.
+
+Urgent recovery does not preempt a running gate or steal an assignment. Managers
+should resolve existing test/file-boundary handoffs and assign QA-owned tests
+explicitly rather than circulate the same approval request indefinitely.
+
+## Failure-injection acceptance matrix
+
+Run against isolated fixtures and then an installed, owner-approved qualification
+project. Do not intentionally kill the live development fleet to prove recovery.
+
+| Fault | Required observable outcome |
+| --- | --- |
+| Specialist exits mid-task | Retain task/session/evidence and dirty bytes; prove old process stopped before one authorized resume |
+| Process alive but quiet | Inspect tools/check queues and progress evidence; quiet alone never permits kill or guard release |
+| Manager exits | Independent deterministic controller discovers the loss and performs one policy-authorized resume |
+| Controller crashes after reservation | Reconcile exact invocation and durable reservation; no lost or duplicate execution |
+| Crash leaves turn/controller lock | Recover only with exact ownership/process proof; unknown or foreign state fails closed |
+| Reboot or service restart | Restore approved desired state once; preserve explicit manual pause and detached status |
+| Missed/duplicate/out-of-order notification | Periodic reconciliation finds the wait; duplicates and stale revisions cannot repeat effects |
+| Dependency or approval wait | Route to correct authority, record acknowledgement and escalate overdue wait without self-approval |
+| Check/integration conflict | Preserve failed evidence and candidate; return actionable work to its owner without relaxing checks |
+| Transient provider fault | Bounded retries with persisted backoff; no immediate unbounded restart loop |
+| Quota/auth/model unavailable | Persist scoped hold/circuit breaker; report once, no paid fallback or unrelated-provider switch |
+| Pause or authority revoked during recovery | Recheck immediately before effect and stop further launches |
+
+Every accepted case needs exact candidate, controlled conditions, observable
+assertions, original failure evidence and independent QA. Record recovery latency,
+duplicate launches, lost work, retry count and owner interventions. A running
+process, green command, task-state churn or acknowledgement is not itself useful
+delivery. Finish with verified integration and next-work continuation.
+
+## Current spending policy
+
+The owner explicitly enabled unlimited automatic daily turns in alpha.4.2;
+missing subscription telemetry must remain unknown, not become a false credit
+estimate. Do not silently restore a finite cap as part of governor work. This
+specific authorization supersedes older pilot cap instructions, not approval,
+ownership, concurrency, no-progress or provider-failure boundaries. Unlimited
+eligible work is not unlimited retries. No paid API fallback was authorized.
+
+## Completion boundary
+
+Do not close recovery/reconciler umbrellas from focused source tests alone.
+Require installed-runtime failure injection, independent QA, reboot/pause
+qualification and an observed unattended work cycle. Report remaining limitations
+plainly; intentional owner decisions may remain blocked, forgotten handoffs may
+not. No new permanent supervisor is required merely to implement this loop.
diff --git a/docs/TODO.md b/docs/TODO.md
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 # TORCH remaining work
 
+## Owner-approved self-healing priority (2026-10-03)
+
+Follow [bounded self-healing qualification](SELF_HEALING_QUALIFICATION_PLAN.md).
+Prioritize the existing runtime-recovery, persistent-operations, provider-failure
+governor, event/reconciler and queue-watchdog work without duplicating their
+backlog records or bypassing dependencies. Require installed failure-injection
+evidence and independent QA, not merely active executors. The owner subsequently
+enabled unlimited daily continuation in alpha.4.2; older cap/resume statements
+below are historical and do not override that specific authorization. Retry
+circuit breakers, concurrency and approval/ownership gates still apply.
+
 ## Current owner priority: reliability first (2026-10-03 UTC)
 
 End-to-end repair qualification is still open. Runtime reported exact converged