--- title: "The closing gate: how work is allowed to close | CommitCycle" description: "The check that closes a task — diff ⊆ declared zones, evidence per quality gate, and an audit record a skeptic can read without trusting the tool." url: https://commitcycle.com/docs/operations/closing-gate/ language: en --- # The closing gate > The check that closes a task — diff ⊆ declared zones, evidence per quality gate, and an audit record a skeptic can read without trusting the tool. Done is not a column you drag a card into. **In Review → Done** is the quality gate, and it checks two things: ## Diff ⊆ declared zones The whole diff, compared against the task’s _Affected zones_ — every touched path either falls in a zone declared for write, in unprotected space, or in a `generated:` exemption. A renamed file counts at its old path as well as its new one, because moving a file out of a zone changes that zone as much as moving one in (CC-1382). Anything else fails the close, with the surplus named, and a change inside a zone the task declared only for **read** fails it the same way (CC-1300). The board’s close also refuses a declared `high` risk write zone that never had its owner’s approval for this task. In [memory mode](https://commitcycle.com/docs/concepts/modes/) no zone is judged, so the comparison reports what the work touched and refuses nothing for it. [Layer 3](https://commitcycle.com/docs/concepts/three-layers/#layer-3--the-ci-check) runs the same comparison on the pull request where it runs at all: where the board answers and merges wait for green, a laptop that lied about its hook stops mattering by merge time. Today it runs only in CommitCycle’s own CI, and [its limits](https://commitcycle.com/docs/concepts/three-layers/#how-layer-3-fails) are on that page. The inventory comes from **observation, not memory**: the hook logs every mutation as it happens, and the close cross-checks that log against the git diff. Disagreement between the two is itself a finding. ## Evidence, per quality gate Each task carries a quality gate chosen at scoping — `none`, visual review, API contract check, regression suite, or QA sign-off. The gate demands its evidence — a URL, an attached capture, a green run — and **CC never executes anything to get it**. Demanding evidence and checking it keeps the product out of your execution path; anything that runs on your behalf would be blast radius added, not removed. ## The audit record Every close writes a markdown record: what was declared, what was touched, what evidence closed it, who approved what, and — the section that makes the records worth reading — the **exceptions**: every block, closing warning and override, placed above the narrative. It also says when something was not observed: a file list the closer reported, rather than one taken from git, is labelled as reported. The record is legible without the tool, which is the point: it’s the artifact you hand a skeptical CTO, not a database row you export for them. ## Running it ```bash cycle verify # the checks, without closing cycle verify --close # close it, and write the audit record ``` Two flags matter at the edges. `--evidence ` attaches what the quality gate asked for. `--override "reason"` closes when the checks cannot pass for a reason a person will put their name on — it **records** the bypass rather than hiding it, which is the only version of an override worth having. An override does not answer the evidence check, because a signature cannot stand in for the evidence itself. Run `cycle verify --close` again with `--evidence` and a URL, or a path committed in this repository. There is also `--from-history`, for work that merged before it closed. Such work cannot be verified from its branch — the merge base is the tip, so the diff is empty — so the manifest is rebuilt from the task’s own commits in the trunk, and labelled as such so no record mistakes it for a branch diff. It takes several task ids, and checks and closes each on its own (CC-1383). The other doors run the same gate. Over the connector, `cc_close` takes the file list the agent reports, and the record says it was reported. In the console, **Review and close** is a signed-in reviewer’s act: it refuses while a pull request is still open, and it needs a merge GitHub confirmed — from the signed webhook, or by the board asking GitHub at close — rather than one a client reported (CC-1330, CC-1346). Without one it sends the reviewer to `cycle verify --close`, which checks the branch is in the trunk. For a task handed in before the board recorded files, it reads the diff from the task’s verified pull requests (CC-1352). The record’s field-by-field format lives in [the audit record](https://commitcycle.com/docs/operations/audit-record/). Rounding this page out — the full format beside the gate that produces it — is **CC-66** on the board.