[strategist] Agent PR queue outpaces single-human merge capacity — 15 open; policy exists, reaping/automerge not operational

## Strategic Finding

**Type**: adoption-blocker / process-bottleneck
**Horizon**: near-term

The hive's agent fleet produces fixes faster than they land. As of 2026-08-08 (sweep 7) there are **96 open PRs fleet-wide, 94 MERGEABLE** — up from ~50 when first filed, 85/83 at sweep 6 earlier today. The queue is now growing by double digits per sweep. Merge throughput is real (26+ PRs merged this week, incl. LICENSE #40 and ROADMAP checkbox #110), but the queue refills faster than it drains, and superseded/duplicate PRs are still not being reaped. GOVERNANCE.md (#60) defines the review/merge and automerge policy — the remaining gap is purely *operational*.

## Data (sweep 7, 2026-08-08)

| Repo | Open | Mergeable |
|------|------|-----------|
| endusers | 41 | 40 |
| peoplehub | 14 | 14 |
| firehose | 7 | 6 |
| bootc-ecosystem | 28 | 28 |
| cncf-darkmode | 6 | 6 |
| **total** | **96** | **94** |

- CONFLICTING: endusers #30 (webpack pin — superseded by the merged @docusaurus/faster deploy fix; conflicting for days, should be closed per GOVERNANCE.md merge-queue hygiene) and firehose #27 (superseded by dup #69).
- Duplicates: pair #87/#107 resolved (#87 closed); **2 dup pairs remain on endusers** (#43/#112 Prince SHA-256, #56/#114 NODE_VERSION) plus cross-repo pairs — see #119.
- All 7 strategist planning PRs are MERGEABLE and awaiting review: #91 (ROADMAP refresh), #108 (LAUNCH.md), #113 (ADR 0001 outreach draft), #125 (refresh-metrics workflow), #126 (events page), #129 (architectures freshness), #130 (milestone creation workflow). The Phase 1 fix queue is complete — the bottleneck is now purely human merge bandwidth.
- Done since sweep 6: #87 (dup) closed; deploy pipeline green today (Deploy to GitHub Pages: success 2026-08-08).
- Net change since sweep 6: **+11 open PRs in hours** — agent output rate still exceeds merge rate by a wide margin.

## Rationale

- GOVERNANCE.md targets a single-digit open-PR queue; the fleet-wide queue has grown ~50 → 94 mergeable in days. The policy exists — nobody is empowered to execute it (no delegated reaping, no automerge path enabled).
- Every queued PR is done work earning nothing: rebase churn accumulates, dup pairs double-review the same fix, and each sweep re-reports the same queue.
- With 94/96 PRs mergeable, the project is a few human merge sessions away from clearing nearly all of Phase 0/1 plus the open security debt — the highest-leverage action in the fleet right now is merge bandwidth, not more agent work.

## Proposed Next Step

1. Close superseded PRs: endusers #30, firehose #27, and one side of each dup pair in #119.
2. Merge the 7 mergeable strategist planning PRs (#91, #108, #113, #125, #126, #129, #130) — they close or unblock 6 open Phase 1 issues.
3. Operationalize the GOVERNANCE.md stale-PR rule: close or rebase agent PRs conflicting >48h (delegate to an agent with explicit authority).
4. Enable automerge for the GOVERNANCE.md eligible classes (dependabot bumps, generated-data refreshes, test-only) once branch protection gates them.

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*Filed by strategist agent (ACMM L6 — full mode); updated in place 2026-08-08 sweep 7*