Warp-Drive State Reference

The warp-drive state machine, exhaustively. State file shape, the state-machine CLI, and the full phase-transition table. Extracted from the warp-drive guide's internals section.

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Internals Reference

For contributors and power users.

State File

Location: <project>/.claude/.warp-drive-state.json

This is what state-machine.js init produces (with a few rows populated after the first transitions). Keep this in sync with the state object literal at the bottom of init() in scripts/warp-drive/state-machine.js.

{
  "version": 1,
  "session": {
    "started_at": "2026-05-08T15:56:59.401Z",
    "started_at_epoch": 1778255819402,
    "pid": 51506,
    "level": 3,
    "github_user": "paulirv"
  },
  "phase": "coding",
  "requirement": "42",
  "branch": "feature/issue-42-title",
  "chunk": { "index": 1, "total": 5, "acs": [["AC-01","AC-02"],["AC-03"]] },
  "checklist": {
    "docs_updated": false,
    "tests_passed": false,
    "committed": false,
    "report_filed": false
  },
  "budgets": {
    "phase_started_at": "2026-05-08T15:57:53.487Z",
    "retry_count": 0,
    "coding_cycles": 0
  },
  "aborted": false,
  "edit_counts": { "src/file.ts": 3 },
  "doom_loop_events": [],
  "gates": {
    "code_complete": { "semantic": "diff_relevance_check" },
    "docs_updated":  { "semantic": "ac_count_check" }
  },
  "completed_chunks": [],
  "history": [
    { "phase": "prerequisites", "at": "..." },
    { "phase": "discovering", "at": "...", "from": "prerequisites", "event": "prerequisites_ok" }
  ],
  "metrics": {
    "commits": 0,
    "reports_filed": 0,
    "tests_run": 0,
    "chunks_completed": 0,
    "session_duration_minutes": 0
  },
  "token_usage": {
    "session_total": null,
    "chunk_snapshots": [],
    "current_chunk_started_at": null
  },
  "main_branch": "master",
  "session_branch": null,
  "merge_target": "master",
  "merge_strategy": "ff-only"
}

Fields appear roughly in this order in the file. Notes on the less-obvious ones:

• session.started_at_epoch and session.github_user are populated at init; the latter comes from gh api user -q .login (empty string if gh is unauthenticated, which silently disables @mention notifications).
• aborted: false flips to true when the engine routes through the aborted phase. Cleanup messaging keys off this flag.
• gates is seeded with the two semantic gates (diff_relevance_check, ac_count_check) plus any verification_gates from _workflow config. The targets arrays from config land alongside semantic on the matching event keys.
• metrics.session_duration_minutes is updated when the engine writes the state — useful when reporting from warp status.
• main_branch / session_branch / merge_target / merge_strategy are populated from ~/.claude/scripts/branch-detect.sh at init and consulted during merging.
• After budget_exceeded, budgets gains exceeded_reasons, exceeded_at, and exceeded_from_phase to record the trip.

State Machine CLI

node ~/.claude/scripts/warp-drive/state-machine.js <action> <project-root> [args]

Action	Purpose
init	Create new session: init <root> --level 2 --issue 42 --pid $PPID
status	Show current state (exit 2 if no session)
transition	Move phases: transition <root> <event> [--data '{"key":"val"}']
inject	Get phase context for SessionStart hook
gate	Check if an operation is allowed: gate <root> git_commit
verify	Run verification gates: verify <root> code_complete
abort	Shorthand for transition <root> abort
reset	Delete state file immediately

Transition Table

Every phase lists its valid events and where they lead. This matches the TRANSITIONS object in scripts/warp-drive/state-machine.js.

Phase	Event	Next Phase
idle	start	prerequisites
idle	abort	aborted
prerequisites	prerequisites_ok	discovering
prerequisites	abort	aborted
discovering	work_selected	planning
discovering	no_work	session_ending
discovering	abort	aborted
planning	plan_ready	chunking
planning	abort	aborted
chunking	chunks_defined	coding
chunking	abort	aborted
coding	code_complete	updating_docs
coding	abort	aborted
updating_docs	docs_updated	testing
updating_docs	abort	aborted
testing	tests_passed	committing
testing	tests_failed	coding
testing	abort	aborted
committing	committed	reporting
committing	commit_with_doc_gate	doc_drift_check
committing	abort	aborted
doc_drift_check	drift_clean	reporting
doc_drift_check	drift_blocked	coding
doc_drift_check	abort	aborted
reporting	report_filed	chunk_complete
reporting	abort	aborted
chunk_complete	next_chunk	coding
chunk_complete	requirement_done	requirement_complete
chunk_complete	abort	aborted
requirement_complete	merge_ready	merging
requirement_complete	abort	aborted
merging	merged	awaiting_continue
merging	merge_failed	merging
merging	push_failed	merging
merging	abort	aborted
awaiting_continue	continue_yes	discovering
awaiting_continue	continue_no	session_ending
awaiting_continue	abort	aborted
session_ending	session_ended	completed
session_ending	abort	aborted
budget_exceeded	budget_continue	coding
budget_exceeded	budget_abort	aborted
budget_exceeded	abort	aborted
aborted	abort_resolved	completed
aborted	abort_cleanup_failed	completed
aborted	restart	idle

Budget-trigger reasons. When an enforced budget trips, the engine routes the current phase into budget_exceeded and records the reason on state.budgets.exceeded_reasons. The reasons are:

Reason	Source	Default Threshold	Config Key
phase_timeout	Phase elapsed too long	30 min	max_phase_minutes (+ phase_timeout_enforcement)
retry_exceeded	Per-chunk retry counter exceeded	5 retries	max_retries_per_chunk
coding_cycles_exceeded	Code/test cycles for this chunk exceeded	3 cycles	max_coding_cycles
no_progress	Consecutive identical failed attempts — same failure signature AND no new diff (stagnation, not raw attempts)	3 attempts	max_no_progress
total_chunks_exceeded	Chunks completed in this session exceeded hard limit	20 chunks	max_total_chunks
session_timeout	Total session duration exceeded hard limit	480 min	max_session_minutes

phase_timeout is only enforced (rather than a soft warning) when phase_timeout_enforcement is block or abort — see Configuration. The other five are always enforced.