[clubanderson]

Fixes #12166

What

The contributor-lane auto-merge tier (#12051) read the contributor's tier only from the hive:claim marker on a closed issue. The operator's own trust tier in the contributor registry had no effect: mrbobbytables is trusted on hive's hive, yet #12045 (Part of #12002, a reference not a closing keyword) skipped with contributor-lane:no-linked-issue and #11756 (claimed outside the relay) with contributor-lane:no-claim.

This adds a second admission path. When the PR author's contributor-registry profile carries a tier in require_tiers (default trusted, merger), the tier requirement is satisfied without a linked issue or marker. The sweep logs contributor-lane admitted reason=contributor-lane:registry-trusted registry_tier=<tier>, the merge log carries admitted_by=contributor-lane:registry-trusted, and the audit comment names the path (@author holds the trusted tier in this hive's contributor registry). A non-trusted (newcomer/contributor/revoked) or absent registry entry falls through to the marker path with its skip reasons unchanged.

Every other gate is untouched: author_association, workflow/test diff fences, CI green, reviewer verdict, soak, exclude labels, sentinel, reporter-trust hold, changes-requested, human-merge paths, head re-check.

Config

• New key auto_merge.contributor_lane.registry_tiers_sufficient (*bool, default true). false requires the claim marker for everyone.
• Exposed on GET/PUT /api/config/auto-merge and as a toggle under Settings → Features → Auto Merge → Contributor-lane auto-merge.

Wiring

• automerge.Options.ContributorRegistryTier (ContributorRegistryTierFunc) injects the lookup so tests fake it; cmd/hive passes dashboard.ContributorTrustTierByLogin (new exported, case-insensitive read over the registry on the PVC).
• ContributorLanePolicy.RegistryTiersSufficient carries the config flag.

Tests

• TestTrySweepContributorLanePRRegistryAdmission: registry trusted/merger admits with no linked issue / no marker; case-insensitive login; fences and author_association still apply; newcomer/contributor/revoked/absent entry fall through to no-linked-issue / no-claim; tier outside require_tiers falls through; nil lookup and registry_tiers_sufficient: false keep the marker path; valid claim without registry still merges via marker.
• Helper tests for the admit path/reason and tier normalisation; ContributorTrustTierByLogin; config default; dashboard API default + PUT.

Docs

src/docs/hive-merge.md, src/docs/operator-reference.md, src/hive.yaml.example, changelog.d/fixed-contributor-lane-registry-trusted.md.

[kubestellar-prow]

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[github-actions]

Open PR overlap check

Base branch: v5

Conflicts are checked with every PR merged onto the current tip of v5, so a PR that only needs a rebase is not reported as conflicting with its siblings.

PR	Title	Relation	Files
#12025	✨ keep unstick steps running in conserve API budget mode	same files	src/cmd/hive/main.go src/docs/operator-reference.md
#12164	🌱 tokens: per-issue/PR/head-SHA launch attribution over the token collector	same files	src/cmd/hive/main.go src/pkg/dashboard/static/index.html
#12158	✨ review: add review.shadow to record would_have_held for the review gate	same files	src/cmd/hive/merge_eligibility.go src/pkg/config/config.go src/pkg/dashboard/static/index.html

[hivecommons-hive]

merged by Hive trusted-author auto-merge: author @clubanderson holds role owner and GitHub permission admin on repo; CI green at 50368c6.

[github-actions]

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[hivecommons-hive]

Shared-CI triage: relative links and anchors resolve fails here with the same evidence as the open incident #12162 (src/docs/documentation-map.md and src/docs/troubleshooting.md link to a missing src/docs/admin-mcp.md on the v5 base — not caused by this PR's diff). Deferring repair to the incident; this PR re-enters the queue when #12162 closes or the base turns green.

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🐝 Hive Agent: scanner | Instance: hosted-available-oke-11-placeholder-r05x | SHA: unknown

— hive: agent=scanner backend=copilot model=claude-fable-5.1