bug: orchestrator dispatches quality gate before rebase — race condition

[microsasa]

Problem

The orchestrator dispatches the quality gate (step 4) BEFORE rebasing the PR (rebase step). Both happen in the same run. This creates a race condition:

Current sequence (single orchestrator run)

1. Check CI ✅, check threads ✅, check Copilot review ✅
2. Dispatch quality gate — quality gate agent starts (takes 2-4 minutes)
3. Rebase — git push --force-with-lease completes in seconds

The race

The quality gate agent was dispatched at step 2 but takes minutes to clone, evaluate, and approve. Meanwhile the rebase at step 3 pushes a new commit in seconds.

• If quality gate checks out AFTER rebase lands (common case): It evaluates the rebased code and approves the rebased commit. Works by coincidence.
• If quality gate checks out BEFORE rebase lands (possible): It evaluates pre-rebase code, approves the old commit. Then rebase pushes → dismiss_stale_reviews dismisses the approval. PR stuck until next orchestrator cycle re-dispatches.

Observed on PR #200 (2026-03-21)

• 14:49:00 — Quality gate dispatched
• 14:49:03 — Rebase pushed
• 14:53:33 — Quality gate approved (happened to evaluate rebased code)
• 14:53:35 — Auto-merged

Worked by coincidence — quality gate was slow enough to see rebased code.

Fix

Move rebase BEFORE the quality gate dispatch. If a rebase is needed, do it and continue — let the next orchestrator cycle (triggered by CI/Copilot workflow_run completing) handle the quality gate dispatch after all checks pass on the rebased commit.

Correct sequence

1. Orchestrator cycle 1: Rebase needed → rebase → continue
2. CI runs on rebased commit, Copilot reviews rebased commit
3. Orchestrator cycle 2 (triggered by CI/Copilot completing): CI ✅, threads ✅, Copilot review ✅ → dispatch quality gate
4. Quality gate approves → auto-merge

No race — quality gate only runs after the final commit is settled.

Related

• bug: quality gate dispatched before Copilot review completes #178 — quality gate timing (partially fixed in PR fix: quality gate waits for Copilot review and checks actual approval state #202)
• fix: quality gate waits for Copilot review and checks actual approval state #202 — added Copilot review check before quality gate
• fix: pipe gh output to jq for Copilot review check #206 — added Copilot code review to workflow_run triggers