dough-product-backlog ยท diff
git:20260910.e09bb13 to git:20260910.0e59fc4
73 added, 27 removed. Audit A to A.
---
name: dough-product-backlog
- description: Maintains and reprioritizes a product backlog list of story references. Use to add, reorder, or complete backlog items. Excludes classroom and workshop exercise backlogs.
+ description: Maintains and reprioritizes a product backlog list of canonical story or bounded-correction references. Use to add, reorder, or complete backlog items. Excludes classroom and workshop exercise backlogs.
---
# Product backlog
## Required context
Before editing, identify from human instructions or repository guidance:
- Repository root and canonical backlog path.
- - Canonical seed locations, seed IDs, and heading or stable-anchor conventions.
+ - Canonical seed locations, seed IDs, and heading or stable-anchor conventions
+ when feature-story entries are affected.
+ - Canonical executable-plan locations and plan identity conventions for
+ bounded-correction entries when they are affected.
- Decomposition, refinement, and slice-planning workflows, when needed.
- Commit conventions, if a commit is authorized.
- If the backlog or required seeds cannot be identified, ask for the missing
- context and stop before editing. If a required workflow is unavailable, stop
- that activity and ask for its guidance.
+ If the backlog or the canonical home required by an affected entry cannot be
+ identified, ask for the missing context and stop before editing. Do not require
+ seed conventions when every affected entry is a bounded correction plan. If a
+ required workflow is unavailable, stop that activity and ask for its guidance.
## File layout
- - Place **Near-future direction** immediately after the title and the **Backlog
- list** next. Do not add a finished-list or recently-done section.
- - Use bullet lists. Do not number items. Put the highest-priority backlog item first.
- - In the backlog list, include only each exact story title linked to its heading
- or stable anchor, plus its seed ID. Keep story details, estimates, dependencies,
- and status in the story's section within its seed.
- - Select stories for the backlog list; do not inventory every candidate or turn
+ - Place **Near-future direction** immediately after the title when it exists,
+ then **Taken** immediately before **Backlog list**. Retain **Taken** when it is
+ empty. Do not add a finished-list or recently-done section.
+ - Use bullet lists. Do not number items. Put the highest-priority queued item
+ first. Preserve the order of entries already in **Taken** and append each
+ newly taken entry.
+ - In **Taken** and **Backlog list**, include only each exact work title linked to
+ its canonical active home and its established identity. A feature story uses
+ its heading or stable anchor plus seed ID. A bounded correction without a
+ supplied story links directly to its existing plan and uses the plan identity;
+ the linked path is sufficient when that is this project's identity convention.
+ Keep details, estimates, dependencies, and status in that canonical home.
+ - Select work for the backlog list; do not inventory every candidate or turn
the list into a roadmap or execution plan.
## Near-future direction
- Treat the direction as the short-term vision: focus effort on one customer
value or goal.
- Use it as the most important input when deciding story scope. Include the
outcomes needed to advance that value or goal; exclude unrelated expansion.
- Add or change the direction only on an explicit human instruction to do so.
- Otherwise preserve it exactly. If absent, leave it absent; do not infer or
generate a direction during backlog maintenance.
- Use the direction to guide ordering. Most items should align with it; urgent
fixes and urgent architecture changes may take priority.
+ ## Canonical active homes
+
+ - Keep a feature story in one canonical section within its seed.
+ - Keep a bounded retrospective correction in its existing plan when no
+ canonical story is supplied. Do not create or recover a seed solely to queue
+ it. Require the plan to satisfy the correction-input contract in
+ [planning scope and lifecycle](../dough-story-refinement/references/planning.md#choose-the-planning-level).
+ - When a canonical story is supplied for planned work, queue that story and link
+ its plan there. Do not also queue the plan. Treat references to either home as
+ the same work when checking repetition and duplicates.
+
## Maintain the backlog list
- - Read the backlog, its direction if present, and referenced story sections
+ - Read the backlog, its direction if present, and referenced canonical homes
before changing order.
- Follow human priority instructions. Otherwise rank by direction alignment,
user value, learning value, and genuine product prerequisites. Preserve
unrelated order. Do not derive priority from seed IDs or order within a seed.
- - Keep each story in one canonical section within a seed. Link from related
- documents; do not duplicate story details or list the same story twice.
+ - Link from related documents; do not duplicate work details or list the same
+ story or correction twice within or across **Taken** and **Backlog list**.
- Preserve stable anchors when renaming or moving stories. Update incoming links.
- - Add only stories with a named beneficiary and evaluable outcome. If either
- is unresolved, use this project's decomposition workflow. Route selected-story
- detail to refinement, then slice planning. Carry the direction into these
- workflows as the primary input for scope decisions.
- - Place unfinished prerequisites before dependent stories. If this conflicts
- with explicit human ordering, cite the stories and ask the human to resolve
+ - Add a feature story only with a named beneficiary and evaluable outcome. If
+ either is unresolved, use this project's decomposition workflow and route
+ selected-story detail to refinement, then slice planning. Add a bounded
+ correction only when its plan satisfies the correction-input contract above;
+ otherwise name the missing field and leave the plan and queue unchanged. Do
+ not use decomposition to fabricate a story. Carry the direction into
+ applicable workflows as the primary input for scope decisions.
+ - Place unfinished prerequisites before dependent work. If this conflicts with
+ explicit human ordering, cite the affected entries and ask the human to resolve
the conflict before changing their order. Do not invent technical preparation
stories.
- Reprioritizing does not authorize execution or cancel other candidates.
+ ## Take queued work for execution
+
+ Move an entry from **Backlog list** to **Taken** only when execution of its
+ authorized plan is starting. Resolving and refining a story, initial slice
+ planning, slice-plan refinement, and an intention to execute leave it in the
+ queue. If execution context or authorization fails before execution starts,
+ leave the entry unchanged.
+
+ Preserve the entry text, canonical link, and identity exactly. Remove it from
+ the queue, append it after existing **Taken** entries, and perform both changes
+ as one backlog update. If the entry is already in **Taken**, resume without
+ duplicating or reordering it. If the executed work is in neither active list,
+ do not fabricate an entry. Stop before execution when an entry expected from
+ the queue cannot be moved unambiguously.
+
+ Once execution starts, leave the entry in **Taken** across pauses, failures,
+ resumption, successful plan completion, and retrospective. Returning cancelled
+ work to the queue requires an explicit backlog-maintenance decision. Story
+ wrap-up removes completed work under its existing closure contract.
+
## Complete items
- - Completed-story closure belongs to
+ - Completed story or correction closure belongs to
[dough-story-wrap-up](../dough-story-wrap-up/SKILL.md). Do not record a
- completion chronicle in the seed or move the item onto a finished list.
- - Standalone maintenance may remove a completed item from the active queue when
- the human asks only for queue maintenance. Leave plan, seed, and proof
- deletion to wrap-up. Do not create a recently-done or tombstone entry.
+ completion chronicle in the canonical home or move the item onto a finished
+ list.
+ - Standalone maintenance may remove a completed item from either active list
+ when the human asks only for backlog maintenance. Leave plan, applicable seed,
+ and proof deletion to wrap-up. Do not create a recently-done or tombstone entry.
## Check and report
- - Check exact titles, links, duplicate outcomes, and prerequisite order.
+ - Check exact titles, links, duplicates across both active lists, and
+ prerequisite order in the queue.
- Check section order, bullet formatting, and direction alignment when present.
Confirm the direction is unchanged unless explicitly instructed by a human.
- Do not require a recently-done section. If one exists from earlier guidance,
leave unrelated entries for wrap-up rather than converting them into a new
finished-list requirement.
- Summarize changes and reasons briefly.
- Follow commit conventions when authorized. Backlog maintenance alone does not
authorize a commit or push.