---
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.
---

# Product backlog

## Required context

Before editing, identify from human instructions or repository guidance:

- Repository root and canonical backlog path.
- Canonical story home locations, home IDs, and heading or stable-anchor conventions.
- Decomposition, refinement, and slice-planning workflows, when needed.
- Commit conventions, if a commit is authorized.

If the backlog or required story homes 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. Allow removed homes only for Recently
done entries as described below.

## File layout

- Place **Near-future direction** immediately after the title, the **Backlog
  list** next, and **Recently done** last.
- 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 home ID. Keep requirements, estimates, dependencies,
  and status in the story home.
- Select stories for the backlog list; do not inventory every candidate or turn
  the list into a roadmap or execution plan.
- Keep the ten most recently completed items in Recently done, newest first;
  keep all if fewer than ten. Use linked titles and home IDs while homes exist.
  If a completed story's home has been removed, keep only its exact title as
  plain text. Use Git history to recover its definition or refinement if needed.

## 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.

## Maintain the backlog list

- Read the backlog, its direction if present, and referenced story sections
  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 home IDs or order within a home.
- Keep one canonical home per story. Link from related documents; do not
  duplicate requirements or list the same outcome twice.
- 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 the adopter'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
  the conflict before changing their order. Do not invent technical preparation
  stories.
- Reprioritizing does not authorize execution or cancel other candidates.

## Complete items

- On completion, verify evidence, record completion in the story home, and move
  the entry to the top of Recently done. If this creates eleven entries, remove
  only the oldest history entry. Retain the completion record in the story home.
- If a completed story's home is later removed, retain its title in Recently done
  without the link or home ID. Do not remove it before it ages out of the last ten.

## Check and report

- Check exact titles, links, duplicate outcomes, and prerequisite order. For a
  removed completed-story home, check the retained title against Git history
  when needed; do not leave a broken link.
- Check section order, bullet formatting, and direction alignment when present.
  Confirm the direction is unchanged unless explicitly instructed by a human.
- Check Recently done contains at most ten completions, newest first.
- Summarize changes and reasons briefly.
- Follow commit conventions when authorized. Backlog maintenance alone does not
  authorize a commit or push.