daily-fix: task.py audit --repair + reconcile 13 drifted registry tasks

Overview / Motivation

Auto-filed by the /daily 2026-06-28 problem sweep (route 2 — behavior change, files for independent review). Found while running the nightly living_docs.py check drift pass.

Goal

Add a registry repair/rebuild mode to task.py audit (and the underlying task_workflow) that reconciles tasks/REGISTRY.json to the on-disk task layout, and reconcile the 13 currently-drifted tasks.

Workflow gap

• Bug observed: uv run python scripts/task.py audit is REPORT-ONLY. Tonight it reported 13 registry/filesystem inconsistencies it cannot fix: #696 registry path says tasks/approved/696 but the task is at tasks/completed/696; and #698, #699, #700, #701, #702, #703, #704, #705, #706, #707, #708, #709 are on disk (mostly completed/, two archived/, one planning/) but absent from the registry entirely. Confirmed: 697/715 are present in REGISTRY.json but 706 is not.
• Why it is a workflow gap: task.py is the canonical task-state API and REGISTRY.json is the index the dashboard list view + every registry-reader consumes. Drifted/unregistered terminal tasks are permanently invisible there (terminal tasks are never re-mutated, so they never self-heal), and the stale #696 PATH crashes living_docs.py check (now a load-bearing nightly /daily step per #713). audit names the problem but offers no reconcile path.
• Likely cause: the documented concurrent-repo-root-committer hazard — a git pull --rebase flattened away a REGISTRY.json update from a parallel session (the same class as #711). Worth confirming.
• Confidence (emitter): medium

Proposed change (refine in planning)

• Add task.py audit --repair (or a task_workflow.reconcile_registry() reachable via the canonical API, flock-guarded + single commit) that, for each drift class: rewrites a stale path to where the task actually is on disk, and adds an on-disk-but-unregistered task to the registry with its disk status. Report what it changed; never delete a task.
• Run it once to reconcile the current 13.
• Consider a watcher/cron hook so future drift is auto-reconciled (or at least surfaced) rather than silently accumulating.

Scope / surfaces

• Primary: scripts/task.py, src/explore_persona_space/task_workflow.py
• Add/extend a test under tests/test_task_workflow*.py pinning the reconcile behavior.

Constraints / invariants

• Workflow-surface only. Registry reconcile points entries to where tasks ALREADY are on disk — it must never move a task or change a task's status.
• scripts/workflow_lint.py --check-references + ruff on touched files pass.
• Runs under EPM_WORKFLOW_FIX_SESSION=1 — do NOT auto-route its own subagents' workflow-fix candidates (recursion guard).

Provenance

• workflow_fix_target: scripts/task.py, src/explore_persona_space/task_workflow.py
• fingerprint: b8b8ac361292