Meta-Apply: the privileged landing gate for self-modification patches

Before each reviewer slot, follow Selectable Reviewers: resolve invocation → .aris/reviewer.json → Claude Code default (Codex MCP) with reviewer_route.py through the canonical helper resolver, preserving this slot's tier, fresh contexts, source/image inputs and deterministic gates. Codex examples/pins below apply only to backend=codex; other routes use their own first-call/reply contract. Save the route and actual returned identity; unavailable selections are REVIEW_UNAVAILABLE. Classify acceptance from actual families/completion/scope. Forward invocation reviewer/model/effort overrides to reviewer-bearing children. Generation workers are unchanged.

This skill exists to enforce a privilege boundary. Producers like /meta-optimize (and, later, corpus-audit) are read-only, no Write/Edit, no apply step; they can only stage candidate patches under .aris/meta/pending/. This skill is the only place a staged patch becomes a real change to the corpus. Splitting "propose" from "land" across two skills with different tool grants is what makes "a loop cannot apply its own patch" structural rather than a sentence the producer is asked to obey.

It is human-invoked only. It runs when the user explicitly types /meta-apply after reading the producer's REPORT. That invocation IS the landing authorization (the locked 2026-05-30 decision: the human stays at the landing gate).

The acquittal is generated HERE, not relayed