Address review: don't preclude execution. Wayfinder is planning by
default, but an effort's Notes can carry execution into the map. Collapse
the section to one paragraph, revert the destination sentence to its
original (which already allowed an executed change), and drop the Task
cross-reference to match.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Add a "Plan, don't do" section as the single source of truth for the
plan/execute boundary, and bring two passages into line with it:
- Destination is always a set of resolved decisions, never the executed
change itself (the migration example previously read as execution).
- The Task ticket type now earns its place only by unblocking a decision,
pointing back to the new section rather than restating the principle.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Not "implement directly" — the point is the journey fits one session and
doesn't justify a map. Stop and ask the user how to proceed.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Bring back the "skip the map when there's no fog" branch that was
collateral-deleted with the Handoff section. Co-located in Chart the
map step 2, where the fog/no-fog outcome is determined: if breadth-first
grilling surfaces no fog, offer to skip the map and implement directly.
The offer (ask, don't auto-skip) is preserved from the original.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Two minimal edits to the to-issues skill:
- The "What to build" template now points explicitly at the `/prototype`
skill's code as the source of an inlined decision snippet, rather than
gesturing at "a prototype".
- Publishing now prefers the tracker's native sub-issues (parent → slice)
and native blocking edges (Blocked by) where supported — mechanics
already documented in the issue-tracker doc — keeping the `## Parent`
and `## Blocked by` body sections as the fallback.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
- Out of scope section: drop embedded 'however sharply you can see it'
duplicate; the 'Scope, not sharpness, lands it here' punchline carries
the claim once.
- Work-through step 5: delegate close+one-line mechanics to the Out of
scope section via the 'rule it out of scope' leading phrase instead of
restating them.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
QA follow-up: the Fog of war section was teaching both concepts, which
muddies the leading word — fog should point only *toward* the
destination. Now Fog of war teaches only the not-yet-specified bucket
(with the two-way fog-or-ticket sharpness test restored), and a new
Out of scope section owns the scope axis: beyond the destination,
closed not graduating, kept out of Decisions so far.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Following review: the map-body headings a cold reader sees should be
self-evident without having read the skill, so drop the metaphor from
the headings — `## Not yet specified` (in-scope, unripe) and
`## Out of scope` (beyond the destination). Keep **fog of war** as the
leading word: it still titles the explanatory section and drives the
"clears the fog" / "graduate the fog" behavior in the prose.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Fog is the undiscovered frontier *toward* the destination — in scope,
just not yet sharp — so it graduates into tickets as the frontier
advances. Work ruled out of *this* effort's scope was being parked in
Fog too, where it read as takeable frontier (an unblocked, unclaimed
ticket is indistinguishable from a live one).
Add a dedicated `## Deferred` section for beyond-the-destination work:
it never graduates (the frontier stops at the destination) and returns
only as a fresh effort if the destination is redrawn. The "Fog or
ticket?" test becomes "Fog, ticket, or deferred?", gated on scope as
well as sharpness, and both charting and working-the-map now defer a
mis-scoped ticket (close it, one line in Deferred) rather than leaving
it on the frontier or logging it in Decisions so far.
Builds on #455 (destination as the leading word / destination fixes
scope).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Wayfinding finds the way to a destination rather than building it. The
destination varies per effort and is named first, since it shapes every
ticket. Adds a Destination map-body field, makes it triage step 1, and
unifies the stray "goal" mentions onto "destination".
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
A session now claims a ticket by assigning it to the dev driving the
map, rather than setting a `wayfinder:claimed` label. The assignee is
the claim; an open, unassigned ticket is unclaimed. Reads more naturally
in the tracker's own UI and frees the label vocabulary to
`wayfinder:<type>` alone.
Updates the GitHub and GitLab tracker-operations docs to the assignee
mechanism (`--add-assignee @me` / `--assignee @me`). The local-markdown
tracker keeps its `Status: claimed` line — a file store has no assignee.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Concision pass on the blocking rule (fold the "wherever the tracker has
one" clause into the fallback sentence; drop restatements). Bring the
GitHub and GitLab issue-tracker templates up to the same standard: the
GitHub template now carries the native issue-dependencies recipe and
frontier query; the GitLab template names the native /blocked_by link
(Premium/Ultimate) with the body-convention fallback.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
The blocking rule now leads with the tracker's native dependency
relationship and encodes the rationale: native rendering makes the
frontier visible in the tracker's own UI, so the human sees what's
takeable without opening the map. Notes the body-convention fallback
for trackers that lack native blocking (GitHub has it; GitLab only on
paid tiers).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
The tdd skill pointed at a `review` skill that no longer exists; the
review skill is now named `code-review`. Update the reference.
Fixes#432
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Add a hard stop so the agent won't enact the plan until the user
confirms shared understanding is reached. Recruit the pretrained
"grill" leading word in the description, and re-sync the docs page
with the new gate behaviour.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
The description does the skill's invocation work, so lead with the trigger
that actually reaches for Wayfinder — a huge chunk of work, more than one
agent session can hold — instead of the softer "chart a route through a
foggy problem". Skill body and fog-of-war mechanic unchanged.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Every session ended with a Handoff that queried the frontier and emitted
per-ticket copy-paste commands — real token cost each session. Cut it
entirely and let the natural flow carry continuation: the next
/wayfinder session already loads the map and picks the next frontier
ticket, so nothing is lost, just deferred to re-invocation.
Reconciles the references left behind: the one-ticket-per-session rule
and "charting is one session's work" constraint survive as plain lines;
the Refer-by-name paragraph drops its Handoff mentions.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Cut the "(trailing name orients you; it's ignored on paste)" gloss —
a # comment is self-evident. Replace the arbitrary "Briefing pipeline"
map name and specific ticket names with <map name>/<ticket name>
placeholders, consistent with the surrounding <map-url>/<issue-url>
style so nothing reads as a real referent.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
"id stays the identity" duplicated the Tickets section's "issue id is
its identity" — single source of truth belongs there (co-located with
the wiring/blocking mechanics that depend on ids). Reword to state the
pasteable-handle exception (link target, Handoff URL) without
re-defining identity. Trim redundant rationale wording.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Add a "Refer by name" convention so Wayfinder surfaces maps and
tickets by their human-friendly title in everything the human reads
(narration, Decisions-so-far, Handoff) rather than bare ids, numbers,
or slugs — a wall of #42, #43, #44 is illegible; names read at a
glance. The id/URL stays the identity and pasteable handle, riding
inside the name's link.
Update the Handoff example to demonstrate it: name the map in the
header and annotate each parallel command with its ticket name.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
User-invoked skill mirroring handoff, but hands the conversation summary
to a fresh background agent via `claude --bg` instead of saving a
markdown document.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
The word "branch" in the Invocation section primes git-aware agents
(Sonnet, GPT-5.5) to create git branches when running the skill,
littering established environments with per-session branches that then
have to be merged. Nothing here refers to git — the two "branches" are
the two invocation modes (chart the map / work through it). Rename to
"modes" to remove the false cue.
Fixes#418
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
State the no-duplication contract up front with a leading word: the map
indexes decisions and points at the tickets that hold them; a decision
lives in exactly one place — its ticket — so the map only gists and links.
Also close a fog-vs-ticket duplication: graduating fog into a ticket now
clears the graduated patch from the Fog.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Drop the "one-liner" constraint — fog entries can be as loose or full as
the view allows. Point the map template's Fog comment at the Fog-of-war
section instead of restating it, and remove the duplicated "not a ticket"
now that the keep-out clause covers it.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
The Fog-of-war section explained the loop but not the content. Add
explicit inclusion/exclusion guidance: dim decisions/investigations
coming but not yet specifiable, as rough one-liners — not what's already
decided (Decisions so far) or actionable now (a ticket).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Show the map body (Notes / Decisions so far / Fog) and the ticket body
(Question) as literal markdown templates instead of describing them in
prose, so a charting session reproduces the same shape every run. The
template carries the structure; surrounding prose trimmed to avoid
restating the zone list.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Single-source the frontier and fog definitions. The Tickets section owns
"frontier"; Fog-of-war owns the loop and terminal condition. Remove the
frontier re-definition and fog-nature restatement from Fog-of-war, the
duplicated frontier criteria from the work sequence, the repeated "way to
the goal is clear" from the intro, the "low resolution" restatement, and
the clear-context prose that its own example already shows.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Drop the "shared artifact, not a private file" sentence and the "one URL
the whole team reads" restatement (no-ops the agent obeys by default).
Fold Chart step 4 into step 3 — "don't chart what you can't see" already
lives in the Fog of war section (single source of truth).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Move the map off a local Markdown file and onto the repo's configured
issue tracker. The map is a single wayfinder:map issue whose tickets are
its child issues — one shared URL the team can watch and comment on.
Blocking, claiming (wayfinder:claimed), and the frontier query use native
tracker semantics; a session loads the map at low resolution (Notes +
per-closed-ticket context pointers + Fog prose) and zooms into tickets on
demand. Per-tracker mechanics live behind the docs/agents/issue-tracker.md
pointer, so setup-matt-pocock-skills seeds a "Wayfinding operations"
section for GitHub, GitLab, and local-markdown; absent that doc, Wayfinder
defaults to local-markdown.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Remove the "You are the Wayfinder" second-person persona from the intro,
description, and README so the agent doesn't adopt a persona. Keep the
leading-word frame (chart / fog / frontier / map); wayfinder stays only as
the skill/invocation name.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The persona is the Wayfinder; the invocation should match. Rename the
folder and skill name to wayfinder and update the invocation examples,
README link, and changeset. "wayfinding" stays only as the activity noun.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Reframe the planning skill around the Wayfinder persona — chart a route
through a foggy problem, resolving tickets one at a time until the way to
the goal is clear. "Decision map" was jargony and inaccurate (only 1 of 4
ticket types is a decision).
Rename the folder and skill name, rewrite the description and framing, and
prune: unify node->ticket, bind "frontier" to the unblocked set, drop the
duplicated "one question at a time" (owned by /grilling), trim intro no-ops.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
A small, model-invoked skill that spins up a background agent to
investigate a question against high-trust primary sources, then leaves a
single cited Markdown file wherever the repo keeps such notes.
Wires it into the plugin set, both READMEs (Model-invoked), a docs page,
and the ask-matt router, per the repo's promoted-skill conventions.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Ask Matt was missing five skills that now exist and are user-reachable:
tdd (the red-green engine implement drives), diagnosing-bugs (there was
no route for "something's broken"), domain-modeling and codebase-design
(the two vocabulary references), and grilling (the shared primitive).
- SKILL.md: add a "Something's broken" on-ramp for diagnosing-bugs, a
"Vocabulary underneath" section for domain-modeling/codebase-design,
weave tdd into the main flow, flesh out prototype, broaden the
description from "user-invoked skills" to "the skills".
- docs/engineering/ask-matt.md: re-sync the framing to match.
- CLAUDE.md: add a maintenance rule so any future skill change triggers
an Ask Matt re-check, beside the existing docs-page re-sync rule.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
The build chain now ends at code-review. Update every flow doc that draws
the chain so it reads end-to-end:
grill-with-docs → to-prd → to-issues → implement → code-review
- grill-with-docs / to-prd / to-issues: extend the diagram; point the
downstream neighbour at implement (which drives tdd internally).
- tdd: reframe from "final step" to the engine inside implement's step.
- implement: extend the diagram to include the review pass.
- ask-matt: narrate the flow ending in review (docs) and note that
/implement closes out with /code-review (SKILL.md).
- writing-docs guide: refresh the example chain.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
