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+---
+name: "Server-enforced retry limits for failed merge and empty-diff stories"
+---
+
+# Story 311: Server-enforced retry limits for failed merge and empty-diff stories
+
+## User Story
+
+As a project owner, I want the server to enforce retry limits on stories that fail merge or produce empty diffs, so that agents don't loop infinitely on broken stories and waste tokens.
+
+## Acceptance Criteria
+
+- [ ] auto_assign_available_work checks the merge_failure front matter flag and skips stories in 4_merge that already have a reported failure
+- [ ] Server tracks retry count per story per stage in front matter (e.g. retry_count: 2)
+- [ ] After N retries (configurable in project.toml, default 2), story is flagged as blocked and auto-assign stops trying
+- [ ] Blocked stories show a clear indicator in pipeline status (MCP and bot status command)
+- [ ] Server detects 'coder finished with no commits on feature branch' at gate-check stage and fails the gates early instead of advancing to QA
+- [ ] Empty-diff merge failures are detected and reported without needing the mergemaster agent to discover them
+
+## Out of Scope
+
+- TBD