work-items: bug path, triage clusters, claim protocol, trackers and morning brief

Parent

Refs #7555. Source: PLAN Phase 11, topic poteto-review. Thread: work-items.

Depends on

config-cascade: settings resolution and convention home #7571 Settings resolution and convention home
work-items: work-item status as a field with labels as fallback #7577 Work-item status as a field
Pending, set on the slices when filed: slice h (cloud cost per item) waits on child work-items: probe ccr.session.id in a routine OTEL run #7595 (Q560
probe); the work-class removal waits on the Merge authority thread's verifier-merge-criterion slice.

Outcome

/work-items:work gains a bug path that reproduces before fixing; triage clusters shared signatures
under one parent; one claim protocol covers every worker; trackers ship as two bundled adapters plus
seeds; the morning brief moves into work-items with a Landed section.

Decisions

/work-items:work bug path: reproduce twice through the real surface or verify an existing fix
against the prior commit, objection window, bounded fix with failing test first, draft PR only with
before-and-after proof, never merge; seven-condition fix gate, each condition a named setting on by
default, tighten-only (D43, Q527; Lauren's bug bot). Investigate-only mode, later startable from
an incident thread (Q530).
Attended pickup shows "I read this item as: <goal; done when>" above "Proceed?" (D104, Q171;
Matt's restate).
Triage cluster step: one parent per shared signature, symptom or suspect commit; only the parent
gets agent-ready; defaults tuned on the first 20 clusters (D68, D70, Q55, Q76).
No ticket when unsure (one question or needs-info, a "seen again" note); filing_posture moves to
work-items config (D68, Q56). Triage reads the glossary, ADRs and a scope statement first;
outside-PR intake default off (Q524).
Stale reporter-info: repo setting, default off; only needs-reporter-info items whose reporter
lacks write access; closed on the operator's yes; lanes never close (D110, Q545).
Work classes and their labels dropped; needs-human-implementation dropped; agents settle a
missing classification (D76, Q505; owner's). The issue-work lane takes only agent-ready items
(Q581).
One claim protocol for every worker, covering any agent write; work.authority dropped (D93, D94,
Q515).
Lifecycle: automated pre-work posted with marker comments; desired-state/result-state pairs;
prod-error intake; an idea issue gets an interview first (D94, Q522). One engine decides
agent-readiness; wayfind map items stay out of /work-items:work (D108, Q535).
Trackers: github and local-markdown bundled; jira, gitea, linear seeds /work-items:setup
copies; content hash fast-forwards an untouched copy, an edited copy shows the diff and stops (D86,
Q514; combined). Tracker binding <home>/work-items.yaml, schema-checked; stop and ask when the
tracker cannot be determined (Q534, Q551). Seam: add-recurrence now, compensate with the first
two-way adapter (Q529).
/harness-ops:morning-brief moves to /work-items:morning-brief: read-only, Attention first,
Landed section with 3 sampled PRs under "Read these", landed_at saved after a full read, per
machine (D68, D72, D87, Q516). Setting: landed-PR sample size 3.
One read-only lifecycle-metrics skill (name via /naming:name-it-better): per-issue stage times and
the five DORA delivery metrics as a team trend, never per person; called by morning-brief,
go-faster, retro (Q521). Setting: deploy signal, default merge to main.
Cost per work item: lanes tag telemetry with the item URL, cloud lanes map ccr.session.id to items,
/harness-ops:observability rolls up usage per item, never prices (D68, Q58, Q560).
/work-items:decompose: each Done-when check is false at the starting commit or the item says why
(D95, Q523). Day job: Jira first, Teams second and read-only (Q59).
Research tags: Q560 OTEL routine; day-job Jira needs no local edits (D86); cluster thresholds on the
first 20 clusters; forge history readable within API limits for Landed (assumption 12).
Sub-topic promotion: this thread gets its own plan at phase start (B7).

Key interfaces

From the design's module layout: "work-items: /work-items:work bug path; triage cluster step;
/harness-ops:morning-brief moves in as /work-items:morning-brief; one read-only lifecycle-metrics
skill (name via /naming:name-it-better); /work-items:decompose Done-when rule. Bundled trackers
github and local-markdown; jira, gitea, linear are seeds /work-items:setup copies."

Contracts, "Tracker adapter": "Contract and conformance tests in the work-items tracker contract;
schema_version covers versions; content hash fast-forwards an untouched seed copy, an edited copy
shows the diff and stops. Seam verbs: add-recurrence now, compensate with the first two-way
adapter. Claim protocol is one for every worker."

Variation verdicts: "Tracker adapters: abstract now; work-items tracker seam; github,
local-markdown bundled, jira/gitea/linear seeds, add-recurrence, later compensate (C4, D86,
Q514, Q529)." "Telemetry sink and cost rollup: contain now; item URL tag, ccr.session.id map,
observability rollup; OTel read-back adapter deferred (Q58, Q560, D61)."

Slices, filed when this phase starts: bug-path-and-pickup, triage-cluster, claim-and-classes,
lifecycle-prework, tracker-seeds-and-binding, and the rest of the phase plan's list.

Done when

The morning-brief skill lives under work-items, not harness-ops, and
rg -n 'harness-ops:morning-brief' plugins docs --glob '!**/CHANGELOG.md' --glob '!.changes/**'
prints nothing.
The tracker test suite exits 0 and rg -l 'work-class' plugins/work-items/skills | wc -l
returns 0 (14 on main). Met 2026-11-06 on main after refactor(work-items): drop remaining work-class references from skills #13748: 71/71 tracker test files pass, work-class count 0.
~~The triage-cluster and tracker-seeds slices each carry a Probe result: comment.~~ Dropped as not
worth doing now (owner Q14 (a), 2026-11-06): tuning the cluster defaults needs 20 real clusters, and the
tracker-seeds probe needs a live Jira, Gitea or Linear that is not in use. Both are kept on the hub's
hardening seed list for when the data exists.
Every slice sub-issue is closed by a merged PR. All 32 are closed; 29 by a closing PR. refactor(work-items): move /harness-ops:morning-brief to /work-items:morning-brief #11124 was
delivered by refactor(work-items): move the morning-brief skill tree to work-items byte-identical #12423 and refactor(work-items): move morning-brief's settings, data dir and in-file references to work-items #12561, refactor(planning): wayfind reads the container label from the convention home #11882 by refactor(planning): wayfind reads the container label from the convention home #11942, and work-items: probe ccr.session.id in a routine OTEL run #7595 is a probe whose result is posted on it.

Out of scope

Status storage (Work-item status thread).
Dossier branches (Dossier thread).

feat(work-items): route an undiagnosed bug through diagnosis on the autonomous path #6314 route an undiagnosed bug through diagnosis (sub-issue of this thread); overlaps the bug path.
Collides with pr-pipeline: admit marked epic slices in the resolve-issue lane #7596: fix(pr-pipeline): work-resolve-issue admits an issue that carries a held class beside an allowed one #7491 (under source-control: PR pipeline states, review venue, findings lane and statuses #7576) edits the same resolve-issue class filter; pr-pipeline: admit marked epic slices in the resolve-issue lane #7596 is blocked by fix(pr-pipeline): work-resolve-issue admits an issue that carries a held class beside an allowed one #7491.

Proposed work class: work-class: structural
Basis: automated intake triage; the lanes App applied this class.

Size: Large
Complexity: High
Uncertainty: Knowable
Flags: none
Blocked by: none

I read this as the parent tracking issue for the work-items thread: a bug path, triage clusters, a claim protocol, tracker adapters and the morning brief move. It has been split into 21 sub-issues, and 15 more slices are not filed yet.

The "Done when" items are lane-checkable, apart from the host-run and eval slices. Those are routed separately.

I found no duplicate. #6314 and #7596 are named in the body as related, not as duplicates. The earlier owner decisions are in the comments, but none starts with **Decision recorded.**, so I treat them as context and not as a recorded decision.

_{Automated triage, applied by the lanes App.}

Claimed by the poteto session: auditing the Decisions items against origin/main and building what is missing in one or two PRs (Refs, not Closes). The work-class removal stays out of scope here; it waits on #13526.

Status audit against origin/main (38ca30f), 2026-11-05.

Decisions item	State	Evidence
Triage cluster step (one parent per shared signature, only the parent gets `agent-ready`)	Built in #13555	Main had only the decision-carrier cluster (`plugins/work-items/skills/triage/SKILL.md:388`, `context/apply-outcome.md:35`). #13555 adds signature clusters: members close as duplicates with an `add-recurrence` note on the parent and no `blocked-by` edge, since work-unblock promotes an item when its last blocker closes (`.github/scripts/work-unblock/label-unblocked.test.mjs:377`).
Cluster defaults tuned on the first 20 clusters	Not built (probe)	Needs 20 real clusters. The defaults are marked provisional in #13555.
No ticket when unsure, with a "seen again" note	Built in #13555	`track/actions/add.md` gains the rule and uses the seam's `add-recurrence` (`tools/work-item-tracker/CONTRACT.md:247`).
`filing_posture` moves to work-items config	Not built	It lives only in bugs (`plugins/bugs/reference/config.md:41`, `docs/conventions/bugs.yaml:47`). `plugins/harness-ops/skills/changelog/context/native-drift.md:148` records that work-items has no such key. The move touches 12 files across bugs, docs and harness-ops, including `/bugs:setup apply`, which writes the key. Left for a follow-up build.
Lifecycle pre-work desired-state/result-state pairs with marker comments	Not built (open design)	Absent on main. The 2026-11-01 split comment above lists "the pre-work recording form" as an open design question.
Morning brief Landed section (3 sampled PRs under "Read these", `landed_at` after a full read, per machine)	Built in #13564	Absent on main: no Landed section in `plugins/work-items/skills/morning-brief`. The move half holds (done-when 1, ticked).
Done-when 3: `Probe result:` on the triage-cluster and tracker-seeds slices	Open	No triage-cluster slice was filed. The tracker-seeds slice #11873 has no `Probe result:` comment. Its probe needs a live seed tracker (Jira, Gitea or Linear) copied by `/work-items:setup`.

What remains:

Done-when 2, the work-class removal: 16 files in plugins/work-items/skills on main. It waits on refactor(work-items,source-control): read provenance: untrusted as the untrusted-provenance label #13526 (provenance: untrusted), which is blocked by feat(pr-pipeline): CI readers hold provenance: untrusted beside the legacy untrusted-provenance label #13525.
Done-when 3: both probes above.
Done-when 4: work-items: probe ccr.session.id in a routine OTEL run #7595, refactor(work-items): move /harness-ops:morning-brief to /work-items:morning-brief #11124 and refactor(planning): wayfind reads the container label from the convention home #11882 closed with no merged closing PR, and 15 slices are still unfiled.
The filing_posture move.
The pre-work recording form, which needs a design decision.

No description provided.

Lane 2: the work-class label slice is blocked on the untrusted-provenance writer; nothing built. Agent finding, not an owner answer.

The done-when line "rg -l 'work-class' plugins/work-items/skills | wc -l returns 0" can't be met yet without loosening the untrusted hold:

The intake writer still applies only the legacy name: .github/scripts/intake-triage/admit.mjs:217 export const UNTRUSTED = UNTRUSTED_LABEL;, and .github/scripts/pr-merge/merge-holds.mjs:1634 export const UNTRUSTED_LABEL = "work-class: untrusted-provenance"; ("Writers still apply UNTRUSTED_LABEL until every reader takes both", :1633). The triage prompt still proposes it (.github/workflows/intake-triage.yml:301-306).
The work-items skills read that legacy name as a hold: work-loop/SKILL.md:335,395,399, triage/SKILL.md:43,242, attend-queue/SKILL.md:210,242,247,390. Removing those lines while the writer stamps only the legacy name would let work-loop, triage and attend-queue treat an untrusted item as unheld.
reference/work-class-labels.md:24 says "writers apply only provenance: untrusted", which contradicts the code above.

Owner decision Q2 (a) sets the order: label source, then CI readers (#13525, closed), then plugin readers (#13526, closed). The step left is switching the writer (UNTRUSTED in admit.mjs, the triage prompt's class line) to provenance: untrusted. Every reader already holds both labels (UNTRUSTED_LABELS, merge-holds.mjs:1635), so the switch loosens nothing.

Size. The hub's "45 references" doesn't reproduce. On main d23b140, work-class/work_class is in 341 files: 85 use the label family (481 lines), 233 belong to autonomy's separate C1 to C5 risk classes (976 lines are security-binding fixtures), 12 are merge or admission controls, and 11 are prose only. In plugins/work-items/skills alone: 14 files.

Order that meets the line without loosening anything (recommended):

Writer switch (CI change under .github/, Automation Lanes or a host session): intake writes provenance: untrusted; the triage prompt offers only that hold; work-class-labels.md:24 stays true.
Then the skills slice: drop read-only/mechanical/scoped/structural and the legacy-name reads from plugins/work-items/skills (14 files), plus setup's work-class axis migration and probe 7. It changes skill bodies, so it carries do-not-merge until a VALID before/after eval.
Deleting the label objects and stripping them from existing issues is a bulk mutation. Leave it to a counted, separate step.

Lane 2 released its claim on #7578.

ci(intake): read untrusted from any Flags line

fix(intake): stub the request hooks the compose script now registers

refactor(work-items): keep the class-labels doc at its old path

refactor(work-items): spell out the legacy untrusted label at each hold

Rescope after the 2026-11-06 issue validation. The owner answered the validation's questions, verbatim: "Jesus, just go with recommended. Be smart." (2026-11-06T19:27Z, relayed verbatim by the GitHub Support hub).

Q14 (a), owner decision. Two items are dropped as not worth doing now, and done-when 3 is edited to say so:
- tuning the triage cluster defaults on the first 20 clusters. That needs 20 real clusters; the defaults ship marked provisional (feat(work-items): cluster intake by signature and file no ticket when unsure #13555, feat(work-items): triage clusters shared signatures under one parent #13744).
- the tracker-seeds Probe result: on feat(work-items): jira, gitea and linear ship as seeds that setup copies #11873. That needs a live Jira, Gitea or Linear, and none is in use.
Both are on the hub's hardening seed list for when the data exists.
Q15, the pre-work recording form. Agent choice; the owner handed it back. Already decided on evidence and built in feat(work-items): pre-work comments carry desired and result state #13745 (merged 2026-11-06T16:38:43Z). The desired/result pair is a desired= field beside outcome= in the existing  marker comment. It adds no label pair.
- Basis: D94/Q522 was approved as recommended under R12. The R12 research says "Pairs (B) fail r7's one-status rule and double the label set" and "New labels: none" (research-r12-prework-intake.md:105-106,141, quoted in feat(work-items): pre-work comments carry desired and result state #13745's body).
- The validator's "open design" reading came from the 2026-11-05 audit, which predates feat(work-items): pre-work comments carry desired and result state #13745.

What remains on this issue:

Done-when 2, the work-class removal: refactor(work-items): drop remaining work-class references from skills #13748. The writer side is already done on main: UNTRUSTED_LABEL = "provenance: untrusted" (.github/scripts/pr-merge/merge-holds.mjs:1640), which admit.mjs:218 writes. The legacy name stays a read-only hold for issues that still carry it.
The filing_posture move: feat(work-items): filing_posture moves to work-items config #13747.
The bug-path slices: feat(work-items): read-only capture check and full report shape on the bug path #13737 (capture check and report shape) and feat(work-items): seven-condition fix gate on the bug path #13756 (seven-condition fix gate).
Done-when 4 is checked before close, against the 2026-11-01 slice list.

Correction to the earlier comment: more remains than the four PRs it listed. I audited every Decisions line against origin/main 41f3a2b, read-only. The 2026-11-01 split's "15 unfiled slices" list can't be recovered whole, so the Decisions list is the checklist.

Being built now (hub-assigned to poteto, with Automation Lanes agreeing on the order):

CI intake drops the work-class labels. .github/scripts/intake-triage/apply-verdict.mjs:298-309 still applies a work-class: label. intake-triage.yml:304-306 still asks the model for one, and reentry-eval/build-suite.mjs:35-38 lists them.
CI readers move to the convention-home binding. merge-holds.mjs:1624, pr-unblock/lane-hold.mjs:28, pr-merge.yml:1221-1226 and about 23 other .github files read only /.work-item-tracker.json. That file is removed once nothing in this repo reads it. Plugin readers keep the legacy fallback for consumer repos.
~~Delete the five work-class: label objects.~~ Dropped (agent choice). Deleting a label strips it from every
issue, closed ones included, and can't be undone. Readers still hold the legacy
work-class: untrusted-provenance (merge-holds.mjs:1641), so deleting it would drop the hold on a reopened
issue. Once nothing applies them, the unused labels cost nothing.

Remaining, not buildable now:

Telemetry tagging per item. The rollup reads autonomy.work_item.url (feat(harness-ops): roll up observability usage per work item #11909), but no lane sets it. The CI half waits on owner Q3 (a) (2026-11-01): "provision nothing until the owner approves a specific collector".

Decided out, with a recorded basis:

Prod-error intake (D94). The owner parked its sender, feat(autonomy): alert-intake sender contract, intake probe and trigger page (deferred from #7009) #7119, on 2026-10-24 under Q87/Q99, "parked until an alert tool is chosen". The signal envelope it would use exists (plugins/autonomy/reference/trigger-dispatch.md:148).
One engine decides agent-readiness (D108). Agent choice, no change. CI's admit.mjs is the only automated admission. Triage applies the role label only as a person's outcome, and a lane's triage sweep proposes and never admits (plugins/work-items/skills/triage/context/apply-outcome.md:50). The wayfind half shipped in feat(planning): wayfind absorbs the wayfinder decisions and accept list #12574.
One claim protocol covering any agent write (D93). Agent choice, no change. Intake's admission-deferred label is a place in the capacity queue, not a work claim (admit.mjs:95-102). Workers claim through the lease (feat(work-items): lease comments carry the phase of the work #11871, feat(work-items): triage and attend-queue claim an item before writing to it #11878, the CI lane lease in feat(work-items): claim the issue with a lane lease before the model starts #11263). work.authority has no hit on main.

Done-when 4 evidence. All 32 sub-issues are closed; 29 were closed by a merged PR. The other three are covered as follows (the bar is not reworded):

Closing: every done-when is met, and every Decisions line is built or recorded with a basis. The full audit is in issuecomment-6694018067.

Done-when 1: the morning-brief move (ticked earlier).
Done-when 2: met on main after refactor(work-items): drop remaining work-class references from skills #13748. 71/71 tracker test files pass and the work-class count in plugins/work-items/skills is 0.
Done-when 3: dropped by owner Q14 (a), 2026-11-06.
Done-when 4: all 32 slice sub-issues are closed. refactor(work-items): move /harness-ops:morning-brief to /work-items:morning-brief #11124, refactor(planning): wayfind reads the container label from the convention home #11882 and work-items: probe ccr.session.id in a routine OTEL run #7595 are covered by the PRs and probe result named in the body.

Merged today:

feat(work-items): read-only capture check and full report shape on the bug path #13737 and feat(work-items): seven-condition fix gate on the bug path #13756: bug-path capture check, report shape and the seven-condition fix gate.
feat(work-items): filing_posture moves to work-items config #13747: filing_posture moved to work-items config.
refactor(work-items): drop remaining work-class references from skills #13748: work-class removal from skills.
refactor(intake): stop proposing and applying work classes #13824: CI intake applies no work class.
refactor: read the tracker binding from docs/conventions/work-items.yaml #13826: CI reads the tracker binding from docs/conventions/work-items.yaml; /.work-item-tracker.json removed.
feat(work-items): pre-work comments carry desired and result state #13745: the pre-work desired= marker field.
feat(work-items): triage clusters shared signatures under one parent #13744: triage cluster step.

Not built, carried where it can be picked up:

Per-item telemetry tagging. It waits on owner Q3 (a) (2026-11-01, "provision nothing until the owner approves a specific collector"). With no collector, a tag has no reader. It is on the hub's hardening seed list with its start trigger: the owner names a collector.
Prod-error intake. Its sender, feat(autonomy): alert-intake sender contract, intake probe and trigger page (deferred from #7009) #7119, was parked by the owner on 2026-10-24.
The 20-cluster tuning and the tracker-seeds probe. Dropped by Q14 (a); also on the seed list.

The work-class: label objects stay. Deleting them would strip them from closed issues irreversibly, and the legacy untrusted label is still a held read (merge-holds.mjs:1641).

Post-merge watch (R21) for #13826:

pr-require-checks: 13 successes since merge. None of its failures are in a step that reads the binding: they are PR-contract checks, the 21:38-22:03Z review-lane outage, and one unrelated guardrails test.
pr-merge: 2 successes. pr-unblock: 1 success.
pr-run-activity-read and pr-run-activity-write have not run since the merge; the watch continues.

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work-items: bug path, triage clusters, claim protocol, trackers and morning brief #7578

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work-items: bug path, triage clusters, claim protocol, trackers and morning brief #7578

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