contract: tell someone when an offline instance misses events addressed to it, and escalate past an unreachable lead

tsk-wptsf085dj5g proposed

Occasion: overnight on 2026-11-03/04 the review lead was away for 5.5 h, and on 2026-11-04 the whole Grok team went offline. In both cases the hub's existing signals (§5.3) reached nobody who could act.

What the hub does today (§5.3): an instance that leaves a waiting event unread for 10 min is "not listening"; member_not_listening wakes the member it reports to. The owner gets an hourly digest of instances that are away (after 60 min, only with not_listening.mode: inbox).

Gaps found:

Once the session ends (instance fully offline), it is no longer "not listening". A reviewer holds no claims, so it is not a "stalled holder" either. An offline reviewer falls through both.
The signal wakes only the next level (reports_to). When that member is itself not listening or offline, nobody hears it.

Idea, to be planned:

An offline instance with unread events addressed to it (its instance: token, or its member when it is the only instance) counts like a not-listening one.
When the reports_to member cannot be reached, the signal goes one level further up, up to the project owner.

Status: idea only. Not ready to build. Before any work starts, this card is planned in detail and discussed with the owner. Do not claim it.