chemenu/instructions/dev/issue-tracking.md

---
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.
---
# Track open work as Gitea issues, not as prose in the repo

Open work on this stack lives at
<https://gitea.nehmer.net/torben/chemenu/issues>, one issue per work
package, and nowhere else. There is no `TODO.md`; there was, and every item in
it either became an issue or was already one, described twice.

That is the whole reason for this file: a second list is a second thing to
maintain, and the one that drifts is always the one nobody reads first. The
issue tracker wins that comparison outright - it has state, comments, labels,
and a link that survives the change it describes. A markdown file in the repo
has none of it, and it costs a publish to touch.

This instruction exists only in the dev repo. A distributed instance has no
issues at that URL, which is exactly why `dist export` excludes
`instructions/dev/` wholesale (see [tools/CONTRACT.md](../../tools/CONTRACT.md)).

## When to run

- Something is worth doing but not now. Open an issue; do not write it down in
  the repo.
- A session's findings outgrow the change it was making - a gap in the tooling,
  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.
- Prioritising: deciding what to pick up next, or re-labelling after the ground
  moved.

## Steps

1. **Write the issue so it survives without you.** What is broken or missing,
   why it matters, what "done" looks like as acceptance criteria, and the
   specific files or commands involved. An issue that only makes sense to
   whoever wrote it is a note, and notes were the problem.

2. **Treat the body as the current truth, not as a historical first post.**
   Work on one issue spans several sessions, often weeks apart, and the body is
   the only thing that connects them: a session opening the issue must be able
   to reconstruct what is decided and what is still open from the body alone,
   without a human re-explaining it. So when the state changes, **rewrite the
   body** - do not append to a text that has become wrong. An additively grown
   log forces every later reader to reconstruct the current state by filtering
   the whole history.

   Body rewrites and comments are an LLM session's job. A human normally
   touches only labels and metadata directly.

3. **Comment a changelog, never a copy.** Every body rewrite gets one short
   comment naming only what changed against the previous state - what is new,
   what is gone, what was corrected. Do not snapshot the old body into a
   comment: a full copy per revision forces a human to diff two prose texts,
   which is not a readable history, only another copy.

   ```
   **Changelog:** Decision 2 tightened - `kind/` may now change over an
   issue's life. Old acceptance criterion 3 dropped (covered by #42).
   ```

4. **Give it all four mandatory labels: one `area/`, one `kind/`, one `prio/`,
   one `size/`.** All four, always. Machine maintenance by an LLM session is
   what makes four axes affordable - the original objection to a third and
   fourth axis was the upkeep cost for a single human maintainer, and that
   objection no longer holds.

   | `area/` | Means |
   |---|---|
   | `area/kb` | The `kb/` schema, contract, confidence machinery, lint - the knowledge base as a system. |
   | `area/distribution` | Shipping, upgrading and versioning an instance. |
   | `area/corpus` | The content and scope of `kb/` in this instance, and the demo/testbed question. |
   | `area/workflow` | Git, merging, branching, publish, PRs. |
   | `area/process` | The development process itself, rather than the stack as an artefact. |

   There is deliberately no `area/tools`: tooling is filed under the domain it
   serves, not under where its code sits. The axis follows the stage split in
   [AGENTS.md](../../AGENTS.md).

   | `kind/` | Means |
   |---|---|
   | `kind/decision` | Waiting on an operator decision. |
   | `kind/build` | Specified; waiting only on implementation time. |
   | `kind/defect` | A finding: documentation and reality, or two documents, contradict each other. |

   `kind/` is expected to change over an issue's life - `decision` becomes
   `build` once the decision is made. That is session memory working, not a
   labelling failure.

   | `prio/` | Means |
   |---|---|
   | `prio/blocking` | Blocks or damages work in progress. Next. |
   | `prio/planned` | Accrues interest. Planned. |
   | `prio/waiting` | Worth doing, waiting on a trigger. |

   `prio/waiting` is not a graveyard. It means the issue's value is real but
   gated on something outside it - a decision, another issue, a second instance
   existing. Name that trigger in the issue, or the label is a polite no.

   | `size/` | Means |
   |---|---|
   | `size/S` | One session, one publish, a clear cut. |
   | `size/M` | Several files; a contract or instruction change; its own test effort. |
   | `size/L` | Several sessions, or open design questions before the first commit. |

   Size is effort, not importance. A `prio/blocking size/S` is the best thing
   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
   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`. |

   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.

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
   re-labelling is how a board stops meaning anything.

7. **Close with what actually happened**, not with a commit hash alone: which
   proposals were implemented, which were deliberately left out and why, and
   what was verified. The issue is the only place that record survives - a
   changelog entry says what changed, not what was decided against.

## Decision points

- **Issue or changelog?** An issue is work that is *not done*. `CHANGES.md` is
  what shipped. A finished change needs both: the entry, and the issue closed
  with the reasoning.
- **Issue or `kb/` page?** An issue is about *this stack* and is ephemeral - it
  closes, and it records a wish. A `kb/` page is verified knowledge that stays
  true. Never put wiki content findings in an issue, and never file a work item
  as a page.
- **Rewrite the body, or add a comment?** Rewrite whenever a reader of the body
  alone would otherwise be misled - a changed decision, a dropped criterion, a
  new constraint. A comment carries the changelog line for that rewrite, and
  nothing else that a future session needs in order to act.
- **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.