Recover the broken Metis checkout without losing its hybrid-gate draft

[forkwright]

Finding

The canonical Metis checkout is not a valid working tree: its repository-local core.worktree points at a deleted directory, while the visible checkout contains four paths that differ from the index. Treating the visible directory as ordinary stale clone state would erase an uncommitted hybrid-gate draft together with three release-file downgrades whose intent has not been adjudicated.

Evidence

• Checkout: /home/ck/metis-ops/projects/epitelesis; local main is 061ef7be (v0.2.0) and is three commits behind origin/main c22f6701 (v0.3.0).
• .git/config, modified 2026-07-27, declares core.worktree = /home/ck/metis-ops/projects/worktrees/epitelesis/release-docs; that target no longer exists.
• Ordinary git status refuses because the configured worktree is gone. An explicit read-only --git-dir=.git --work-tree=. observation reports modifications to .github/workflows/gate-attestation.yml, .release-please-manifest.json, CHANGELOG.md, and Cargo.toml.
• The workflow delta adds 58 lines for a hybrid-gate.yml caller with Epitelesis-specific all-feature commands and an explicit UNVERIFIED GitHub-hosted-runner note.
• The other three paths move release truth backward: manifest 0.2.0 -> 0.1.0, workspace version 0.2.0 -> 0.1.0, and deletion of the complete 0.2.0 changelog entry.
• Current upstream history already contains the reusable-gate adoption in ci: delegate gate-attestation to the fleet reusable #9 (746c7a4) and later releases, so neither the draft nor the downgrades may be accepted or discarded merely from filesystem age.

Why this matters

This is a preservation boundary. Resetting, pulling, unsetting core.worktree, or removing the directory before classifying the four-path delta can destroy possibly intentional work; treating all four paths as one coherent draft can instead reintroduce false release history. The broken pointer also makes normal fleet status and cleanup tooling unable to reason honestly about the checkout.

Desired correction

Before changing Git metadata or index/worktree bytes, preserve and hash the exact four-path patch. Review the hybrid-gate delta against merged #9 and the current fleet reusable-workflow contract; independently classify the three release downgrades as stale or intentional. After those dispositions are recorded, repair the checkout to an exact, current origin/main and verify ordinary git status, tags, changelog, and configured worktree topology. Investigate what set repository-local core.worktree on 2026-07-27 and route any lifecycle defect to the owning Kanon mechanism (related: forkwright/kanon#2581).

Done when every byte has a recorded disposition, the preserved draft is either recovered to a reviewed branch or explicitly superseded, release truth matches upstream, and the canonical checkout is clean and usable without --git-dir / --work-tree overrides.