issue-tracking: status/incoming - Stubs werden ausgearbeitet, nie so umgesetzt (4.7.5-beta.1, #62)

Files changed:
- CHANGES.md
- VERSION
- instructions/dev/issue-tracking.md
- instructions/dev/stack-dev/SKILL.md

CHANGES.md

@@ -35,6 +35,61 @@ dev-checkout concern - readable here, never shipped as something to parse.
 
 ---
 
+## 4.7.5-beta.1 - 2026-09-04 - status/incoming: menschliche Stubs werden ausgearbeitet, nie so umgesetzt
+
+**Author:** Torben Nehmer
+
+<!-- wikitool:bumps -->
+- status/incoming: menschliche Stubs werden ausgearbeitet, nie so umgesetzt
+<!-- /wikitool:bumps -->
+
+Das Label `status/incoming` gibt es seit heute in Gitea: der Mensch legt einen
+Stub an — zwei Sätze, ein Verdacht, ein „wäre interessant" — und der Stack
+komplettiert ihn. `instructions/dev/issue-tracking.md` beschrieb es nicht, und
+das ist die gefährlichere Hälfte: ein Stub *sieht aus wie* ein Body, und der
+Body ist genau das, was eine Sitzung nach Schritt 2 als Spec glaubt. Zwei
+solche Issues lagen bereits offen auf dem Board (#60, #61).
+
+Neu in der Instruction ist deshalb ein eigener Abschnitt „Incoming stubs" mit
+dem Verbot als erstem Satz — ein `status/incoming`-Issue wird nie so umgesetzt,
+wie es dasteht — und der Ausarbeitung als sechsschrittigem Ablauf: den Wortlaut
+als Absichtserklärung lesen, gegen den Baum prüfen, den Originaltext wörtlich in
+den Kommentar retten, bevor der Rewrite ihn überschreibt, offene Fragen benennen
+statt beantworten (`kind/decision`), erst dann die vier Pflichtlabel, dann das
+Flag entfernen. Zwei Ausgänge wie bei `status/unconfirmed`: ausgearbeitet oder
+mit Begründung geschlossen.
+
+Der interessante Punkt ist Schritt 4: `status/incoming` ist das einzige Flag,
+das Schritt 4 nicht qualifiziert, sondern **aussetzt**. Die vier Pflichtachsen
+fehlen einem Stub nicht, sie sind noch nicht fällig — `kind/`, `prio/` und
+`size/` sind Antworten auf Fragen, die niemand gegen den Baum geprüft hat. Ein
+Stub auf Sicht durchzulabeln ist der Fehler, nicht das Weglassen: es lässt
+Ungeprüftes triagiert aussehen.
+
+Der Schaden, den das verhindert, ist derselbe wie bei #30, nur eine Stufe
+früher: dort schrieb ein Body einen Mechanismus vor und bekam dessen Bugs
+gebaut, hier schreibt ein Body gar nichts vor und bekommt die Lücke von
+demjenigen gefüllt, der ihn am schnellsten gelesen hat — inklusive Close, womit
+die Frage, für die der Stub stand, nie wieder gestellt wird.
+
+Keine neue Schrittnummer, bewusst: `stack-close/SKILL.md` und ältere
+`CHANGES.md`-Einträge verweisen namentlich auf „Schritte 2-3 und 7". Eine
+Umnummerierung hätte diese Verweise still falsch gemacht — genau der Zerfall,
+den dieselbe Datei in § Renames beschreibt.
+
+Geändert: [instructions/dev/issue-tracking.md](instructions/dev/issue-tracking.md)
+(Frontmatter, § When to run, Schritt 5, neuer § Incoming stubs, § What no tool
+checks, § Decision points) und die Routing-Zeile in
+`instructions/dev/stack-dev/SKILL.md`. Dev-only — `dist export` schließt
+`instructions/dev/` aus, eine ausgelieferte Instanz sieht davon nichts, deshalb
+PATCH.
+
+Offen (#62): `kb/concepts/Issue Label Scheme.md` beschreibt weiter nur die
+beiden alten `status/`-Flags. Das ist `kb/`-Inhalt und braucht eine
+`wiki-manage`-Sitzung mit einer Quelle, nicht diese hier.
+
+---
+
 ## 4.7.4 - 2026-09-04 - bootstrap.md nennt den session-id-WARN nach frischem Bootstrap explizit als erwartet
 
 **Author:** Torben Nehmer

VERSION

@@ -1 +1 @@
-4.7.4
+4.7.5-beta.1

instructions/dev/issue-tracking.md

@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 ---
 type: types/instruction.md
 name: issue-tracking
-description: Where open work on this stack is tracked, what the four mandatory area/kind/prio/size labels and the two status flags on a Gitea issue mean, and how to keep an issue body current across sessions.
+description: Where open work on this stack is tracked, what the four mandatory area/kind/prio/size labels and the three status flags on a Gitea issue mean, why a status/incoming stub is never implemented as it stands, and how to keep an issue body current across sessions.
 ---
 # Track open work as Gitea issues, not as prose in the repo
 
@@ -28,6 +28,9 @@ issues at that URL, which is exactly why `dist export` excludes
   an assumption nobody has checked, a decision that needs the user.
 - Picking an issue up: before doing anything else, read the body as the current
   spec, and re-label it if the ground has moved since.
+- **The issue carries `status/incoming`:** it is a human's stub, not a spec, and
+  it is worked out and triaged before anything is built from it
+  (§ Incoming stubs).
 - **While working on one:** the body is updated as the state moves, not at the
   end (step 2). A session that is interrupted leaves the body as its handover.
 - Prioritising: deciding what to pick up next, or re-labelling after the ground
@@ -185,19 +188,28 @@ issues at that URL, which is exactly why `dist export` excludes
    on the board; a `prio/waiting size/L` is a thing to talk about before anyone
    starts.
 
-5. **Add a `status/` flag only when it applies.** Both are optional, because
+5. **Add a `status/` flag only when it applies.** All three are optional, because
    each describes a temporary condition rather than a property every issue has.
 
    | `status/` | Means |
    |---|---|
    | `status/blocked` | Waiting on another, still-open issue - not workable on its own, whatever its `prio/` says. Name the blocking issue in the body. |
    | `status/unconfirmed` | A reported suspicion, not yet checked against actual behaviour. Applies to any `kind/`, not just `kind/defect`. |
+   | `status/incoming` | A human's stub: a request or a thought, filed at whatever length it arrived, deliberately short of everything step 1 asks for. **Never implemented as it stands** - § Incoming stubs. |
 
    While `status/unconfirmed` is set, `size/` and `prio/` are provisional. Triage
    ends it one of two ways: the flag comes off and `size`/`prio` are set for
    real, or the issue is closed with the reason. An unverified suspicion does not
    stay open indefinitely - the process-level analogue of AGENTS.md invariant 3.
 
+   `status/incoming` is the one flag that **suspends step 4** rather than
+   qualifying it. The four mandatory labels are not missing from such an issue,
+   they are not yet due: `area/` may be obvious, but `kind/`, `prio/` and `size/`
+   are answers to questions the stub has not been read against the tree to
+   settle. Labelling it all four on sight is the failure, not the omission - it
+   makes an unexamined stub look triaged. It is also the one flag a session never
+   *adds*: an issue a session files meets step 1 or it does not get filed.
+
 6. **Re-label when the ground moves, and say why in a comment.** A trigger that
    fired turns `prio/waiting` into `prio/planned`. A design question that got
    answered can drop a size and move `kind/decision` to `kind/build`. Silent
@@ -228,6 +240,64 @@ issues at that URL, which is exactly why `dist export` excludes
    shipped. Nothing mechanical catches it (see below), which is why it is a step
    rather than a habit.
 
+## Incoming stubs
+
+**A `status/incoming` issue is never implemented as it stands.** It is worked
+out and triaged first, in a session, and only the result of that is built.
+
+The flag exists because the tracker is also the human's inbox, and the two have
+different entry costs. Step 1 asks for a body that survives without its author -
+acceptance criteria, files, commands - and a thought worth keeping is not worth
+that much work at the moment it occurs. So a stub is admitted at whatever
+quality it arrives, and `status/incoming` is the receipt: this text was not held
+to step 1, and nobody should read it as if it had been.
+
+That is the whole danger. A stub *looks* like a body, and a body is what a
+session trusts (step 2). What it actually holds is a symptom or a wish - #60
+says the confidence defaults "feel too high", #61 says a mechanism from one
+instruction "would be interesting" elsewhere. Neither states what done means,
+and the parts they leave out are exactly the parts the human left to be worked
+out. Building straight from one produces something that matches the sentence,
+misses the intent, and closes the issue - so the question the stub was standing
+in for is never asked again. It is step 1's mechanism-versus-invariant lesson
+one stage earlier: there, a body prescribed a mechanism and got its bugs built;
+here, a body prescribes nothing at all and gets the gap filled by whoever read
+it fastest.
+
+Working one out:
+
+1. **Read the stub as a statement of intent, not a specification.** Its wording
+   is the only evidence of what was actually asked for. Reinterpret it and the
+   record of the request is gone - what remains is the session's reading of it,
+   indistinguishable from the human's.
+2. **Check it against the tree before rewriting anything.** A stub may be a
+   suspicion (`status/unconfirmed` applies on top where it is), a duplicate of
+   something already built, or a premise that no longer holds. This is the step
+   that decides which of the two exits below the issue takes.
+3. **Quote the stub verbatim in the elaboration comment, then rewrite the body.**
+   Step 2's "rewrite, never append" holds here as everywhere - but the rewrite
+   overwrites the only record of the request, and comments are where history
+   lives (step 3). Here the history *is* the request.
+4. **Name the open questions; do not answer them.** Where the stub leaves
+   something a session cannot settle from the tree, it stays a question in the
+   body and the issue becomes `kind/decision`. Guessing turns the human's open
+   question into a spec that reads as decided, which is worse than the stub was:
+   the stub at least announced that it was incomplete.
+5. **Then step 4 comes due** - all four mandatory labels, set against a body that
+   has been read against the tree. That is the moment the stub becomes a work
+   package.
+6. **Remove `status/incoming`** and leave the one-line changelog comment step 3
+   asks for.
+
+Triage ends a stub one of two ways, the same two `status/unconfirmed` has: it is
+worked out, labelled and the flag comes off, or it is closed with the reason. A
+stub does not sit in the inbox indefinitely.
+
+Elaboration touches no file in the working tree, so it needs no version bump and
+no publish - it is tracker work, and several stubs can be worked out in one pass.
+What comes *after* it is an ordinary work package, picked up on its merits like
+any other.
+
 ## Renames and other decay in the tracker
 
 A rename is not finished when the tree is green. Renaming a package, a path,
@@ -259,8 +329,9 @@ of them have. The tracker is reachable only through the `gitea-mcp` server, in a
 session, by an agent.
 
 So there is no `docs verify` for the board. Nothing reports a closed issue whose
-body still reads as open, a body that contradicts its own comments, or an issue
+body still reads as open, a body that contradicts its own comments, an issue
-missing one of the four mandatory labels. Every one of those is caught by a
+missing one of the four mandatory labels, or a `status/incoming` stub that got
+built as it stood. Every one of those is caught by a
 session following this file, or not at all - which is the argument for the
 sequence in step 7 being explicit about the order (body first, then close),
 rather than leaving it to be inferred from step 2.
@@ -279,6 +350,11 @@ rather than leaving it to be inferred from step 2.
   new constraint. A comment carries the changelog line for that rewrite, and
   nothing else that a future session needs in order to act. Closing an issue is
   always a rewrite - see step 7.
+- **A `status/incoming` stub looks trivially implementable?** Work it out anyway.
+  "Trivial" is a judgement about the sentence, and the sentence is the part the
+  human wrote down cheaply; what it omits is not visible from it. The elaboration
+  of an obvious stub is short - that is the argument for doing it, not for
+  skipping it.
 - **An old issue carries only `prio/` and `size/`?** Complete it to all four
   when you touch it, rather than in a sweep. The board reaches the new scheme
   issue by issue, as each is picked up.

instructions/dev/stack-dev/SKILL.md

@@ -48,8 +48,10 @@ stack development happens in the origin repo instead (see AGENTS.md's routing li
    moves, so an interrupted session leaves a body the next one can resume from, *and* rewrite it
    to its final state before closing. Both halves bind; the second is what
    [`stack-close`](../stack-close/SKILL.md) carries out once this skill's own work is published -
-   see step 5 below. Read it before filing something for later, before editing or closing an
+   see step 5 below. An issue labelled `status/incoming` is the exception to all of that: it is a
-   issue, or before deciding what to pick up next.
+   human's stub, not a spec, and it is **never implemented as it stands** - it gets worked out and
+   triaged first. Read this file before filing something for later, before editing or closing an
+   issue, before picking up an incoming stub, or before deciding what to pick up next.
    [testing-conventions.md](../testing-conventions.md) - the suite runs against a deliberately
    empty machine; what the autouse fixture already neutralizes, and what a test still has to
    establish itself. Read it before adding or changing a test.