A review request at default priority never wakes an idle reviewer

Context

Live incident 2026-08-21, operator-observed: PR #17491's review request to @neo-gpt (MESSAGE:a1845f64, 18:30:29Z, direct 1:1, not suppressed) sat unread while the reviewer stayed idle — the operator asked "did not get a wake. what went wrong?". The reviewer had gone idle at 17:57:40Z, before the send; a wake was the only path back, and none fired. A manual resend at priority: high (MESSAGE:578c6332, 19:06:43Z) was the workaround.

Evidence chain, verified not inferred: the sender's own wake subscription (recipe-bootstrapped 2026-08-02, same shape across seats) declares trigger: SENT_TO_ME with filters: {priority: "high"} — and the inverse case proves the filter live: the reviewer's earlier priority: high 1:1 (17:57Z) woke the sender mid-turn, while the sender's priority: normal request in the other direction woke nobody.

The Problem

The platform already encodes "actionable direct lifecycle messages must be able to wake": the mailbox acceptance guard rejects wakeSuppressed: true on exactly that class. But wake delivery has a second, independent drop point — the subscription priority filter — and nothing routes the same classification through it. A review request sent at the default priority is actionable-lifecycle by the server's own definition, passes acceptance un-suppressed, emits SENT_TO_ME, and then dies at a filter that only asks "is it high?". The suppression-rejection intent is defeated one layer downstream, silently: the sender sees a successful send, the recipient sees nothing, and review latency (the fleet's named bottleneck) absorbs the loss until a human notices.

The Architectural Reality

• ai/services/memory-core/MailboxService.mjs:374 — getWakeSuppressionRisk({wakeSuppressed, to, subject, priority, taggedConcepts, task, senderPrincipalClass}): the acceptance-side classifier that names the protected class ("known-actionable DIRECT messages — actionable lifecycle subjects, high-priority", per its own docblock at :349) and rejects suppression on it. It runs ONLY when a sender sets wakeSuppressed: true.
• ai/services/memory-core/MailboxService.mjs:2404 — priority = priority ?? (operatorSteering ? 'high' : 'normal'): agent sends default to normal; only operator steering elevates. The docblock (:2400) frames priority as "turn-start drain-ordering metadata" — but the wake substrate ALSO consumes it as a delivery gate, an unstated second consumer.
• ai/services/memory-core/MailboxService.mjs:2411 — the suppression default: direct messages default un-suppressed, so the class arrives at the wake substrate correctly; the loss is purely the filter mismatch.
• Wake subscriptions (manage_wake_subscription, WAKE_SUB rows): per-seat filters.priority is the recipe's shipped shape; a subscription filtering on high is legitimate throttle hygiene — the defect is that the SENDER side has no mechanism to mark lifecycle sends as filter-passing, and no substrate line tells authors to.
• The routing substrate is silent: grep -rn "priority" .agents/skills/pull-request/references/*.md → zero matches. The review-request format (ci-green-review-routing.md, review-response-protocol.md §14) specifies role lines and wake-required classes but never the priority a waking send must carry.

The Fix

Elevate at acceptance, where the classification already lives: in addMessage, when the message matches the SAME actionable-direct-lifecycle classification getWakeSuppressionRisk protects (direct recipient + lifecycle subject/task shape) and the sender did not explicitly set a priority, default priority to 'high' instead of 'normal' — one code path, the classifier consulted once at one seam, and the class of silent drops disappears for every current and future seat without touching subscription semantics. An explicit priority: 'normal'/'low' from the sender stays a sender election (mirror of the wakeSuppressed: false election rule).

Companion one-liner in ci-green-review-routing.md: waking review-lifecycle sends carry priority: high — stated for the window until the mechanical default lands, and as reader documentation for why their sends wake.

Contract Ledger Matrix

Decision Record impact

none — no ADR governs mailbox priority semantics; the change is aligned-with the acceptance guard's own stated intent (MailboxService.mjs:349-360).

Acceptance Criteria

• An unset-priority direct message with a lifecycle subject/task shape (the :374 classification) is stored and emitted at priority: 'high'; an explicit sender priority is never overridden.
• Broadcast (AGENT:*) and non-lifecycle direct sends keep the current normal default (spec-pinned).
• The owning unit tree covers the three-way matrix (lifecycle-direct unset / explicit normal / broadcast unset).
• ci-green-review-routing.md carries the one-line priority statement for waking review-lifecycle sends.

Out of Scope

#16526 (the wake daemon's host-path read — a sibling delivery-layer defect, claimed by @neo-opus-grace; this ticket's fix is necessary but not sufficient while that one stands) · subscription-filter semantics redesign (filters consulting classifications directly) · per-seat subscription repair or audit tooling · retroactive re-delivery of dropped wakes.

Related

#16526 (sibling delivery-layer defect) · PR #17491 (the incident's review lane) · #15987 (the claim-class quiet-by-default precedent this mirrors on the opposite class).

Live latest-open sweep: latest 20 open checked 2026-08-21T19:09Z, no equivalent; A2A herd-window sweep (last ~90 min, all read-states) clean — nearest neighbor is #16526, a different layer.

Origin Session ID: 8947f450-e0c3-424b-8aa1-1e52ea33c03f

Retrieval Hint: query_raw_memories("review request wake priority filter subscription normal high idle reviewer")