Finding
Initiative stage is currently a free-text ## Current State Markdown section in Initiative-AGENTS.EXAMPLE.md. forge-status.md infers stage from artifact presence as a heuristic (e.g., "Proposal.md exists → Design"), but this can be wrong — for example, a Decision.md kept for reference in a still-active Discover-phase initiative would be mis-inferred as Decide or Decompose.
The frontmatter already has machine-readable fields (lead:, depends-on:, blocks:). Stage is a natural addition.
Impact
Stage inference can be incorrect. There is no single authoritative field to update when transitioning stages. forge-validate's Stage Consistency check exists precisely because stage is not formally captured — if it were a frontmatter field, the check would be trivially authoritative rather than heuristic.
Suggestion
Add an optional stage: field to the Initiative-AGENTS.EXAMPLE.md frontmatter:
stage: Discover # Discover | Design | Decide | Decompose | Complete
Update forge-status.md to prefer this field over artifact-based inference (it already has a note "If Initiative AGENTS.md has an explicit stage, prefer that over inference" — but the template doesn't provide the field to set). Update lifecycle commands to set this field on stage transitions.
Files
Templates/Initiative-AGENTS.EXAMPLE.mdCommands/forge-status.mdCommands/forge-discover.md, forge-design.md, forge-decide.md, forge-decompose.md
Finding
Initiative stage is currently a free-text
## Current StateMarkdown section inInitiative-AGENTS.EXAMPLE.md.forge-status.mdinfers stage from artifact presence as a heuristic (e.g., "Proposal.md exists → Design"), but this can be wrong — for example, aDecision.mdkept for reference in a still-active Discover-phase initiative would be mis-inferred as Decide or Decompose.The frontmatter already has machine-readable fields (
lead:,depends-on:,blocks:). Stage is a natural addition.Impact
Stage inference can be incorrect. There is no single authoritative field to update when transitioning stages.
forge-validate's Stage Consistency check exists precisely because stage is not formally captured — if it were a frontmatter field, the check would be trivially authoritative rather than heuristic.Suggestion
Add an optional
stage:field to theInitiative-AGENTS.EXAMPLE.mdfrontmatter:Update
forge-status.mdto prefer this field over artifact-based inference (it already has a note "If Initiative AGENTS.md has an explicit stage, prefer that over inference" — but the template doesn't provide the field to set). Update lifecycle commands to set this field on stage transitions.Files
Templates/Initiative-AGENTS.EXAMPLE.mdCommands/forge-status.mdCommands/forge-discover.md,forge-design.md,forge-decide.md,forge-decompose.md