wayfinder

name	wayfinder
description	Plan a huge chunk of work — more than one agent session can hold — as a shared map of decision tickets on your issue tracker, and resolve them one at a time until the way is clear. On ticket close, may offer ADRs (promotion into docs/adr/) when ADR-POLICY criteria hold.
disable-model-invocation	true

A loose idea has arrived — too big for one agent session, and wrapped in fog: the way from here to the destination isn't visible yet. Wayfinding is about finding that way, not charging at the destination. This skill charts the way as a shared map on the repo's issue tracker, then works its decision tickets — questions whose resolution is a decision, not slices of a build to execute — one at a time until the route is clear.

The destination varies per effort, and naming it is the first act of charting — it shapes every ticket. It might be a spec to hand off and iterate on, a decision to lock before planning starts, or a change made in place like a data-structure migration. The map is domain-agnostic — engineering work, course content, whatever fits the shape.

User clarifications (Cursor)

When you need a discrete decision with a small set of clear options (about 2–6), prefer the AskQuestion tool so the user gets structured choices. Ask one decision at a time when this skill already sequences questions that way.

If AskQuestion is unavailable in the current environment, ask the same choices in ordinary chat (same options, same ordering).

Use plain chat (not forced multiple-choice) when the answer is inherently free-form—for example pasted logs, a paragraph describing a custom tracker workflow, or an open-ended design explanation.

Plan, don't do

Wayfinder is planning by default: each ticket resolves a decision, and the map is done when the way is clear — nothing left to decide before someone goes and does the thing. The pull to just do the work is usually the signal you've reached the edge of the map and it's time to hand off. An effort can override this in its Notes — carrying execution into the map itself — but absent that, produce decisions, not deliverables.

ADRs are promotion, not deliverables. Closing a ticket records the answer on the tracker (resolution comment + Decisions-so-far gist). When that answer meets ADR-POLICY criteria, offer an ADR so durable project law lives in docs/adr/ — the map stays the effort index, not a second copy of the ruling. Never delete or rewrite away a ticket because an ADR was written; tickets remain the debate trail.

Refer by name

Every map and ticket is an issue, so it has a name — its title. In everything the human reads — narration, the map's Decisions-so-far — refer to it by that name, never by a bare id, number, or slug. A wall of #42, #43, #44 is illegible; names read at a glance. The id and URL don't vanish — a name wraps its link — but they ride inside the name, never stand in for it.

The Map

The map is a single issue on this repo's issue tracker, labelled wayfinder:map — the canonical artifact. Its tickets are child issues of the map.

The map is an index, not a store. It lists the decisions made and points at the tickets that hold their detail; the effort answer lives on the ticket — so the map never restates it, only gists it and links. When an answer is promoted to an ADR, docs/adr/ holds durable project law; the map dual-links that ADR without becoming a second copy of the ruling.

Where the map, its child tickets, blocking, and frontier queries physically live is tracker-specific. If docs/agents/issue-tracker.md exists, consult its "Wayfinding operations" section. Otherwise default to the local-markdown tracker under work/<feature-slug>/ (see /setup-work's issue-tracker-local.md). Run /setup-work only when you need a non-default tracker recorded.

The map body

The whole map at low resolution, loaded once per session. Open tickets are not listed — they are open child issues, found by query.

## Destination

<what reaching the end of this map looks like — the spec, decision, or change this effort is finding its way to. One or two lines; every session orients to it before choosing a ticket.>

## Notes

<domain; skills every session should consult; standing preferences for this effort>

## Decisions so far

<!-- the index — one line per closed ticket: enough to judge relevance, then zoom the link for the detail the ticket holds -->
<!-- when an ADR was accepted for that answer, keep the ticket link and add the ADR path — dual links, not replacement -->

- [<closed ticket title>](link) — <one-line gist of the answer>
- [<closed ticket title>](link) — <gist> · [ADR-NNNN](docs/adr/NNNN-slug.md)

## Not yet specified

<!-- see "Fog of war": in-scope fog you can't ticket yet; graduates as the frontier advances -->

## Out of scope

<!-- see "Out of scope": work ruled beyond the destination; closed, never graduates -->

Tickets

Each ticket is a child issue of the map; the tracker's issue id is its identity. Its body is the question, sized to one 100K token agent session:

## Question

<the decision or investigation this ticket resolves>

Each ticket carries a wayfinder:<type> label — one of research, prototype, grilling, task (see Ticket Types).

A session claims a ticket by assigning it to the dev driving the map, first, before any work, so concurrent sessions skip it. That assignee is the claim: an open, unassigned ticket is unclaimed.

Blocking uses the tracker's native dependency relationship — essential because it renders the frontier visually in the tracker's own UI, so the human sees what's takeable without opening the map. Only a tracker that lacks native blocking falls back to a body convention. A ticket is unblocked when every ticket blocking it is closed; the frontier is the open, unblocked, unclaimed children — the edge of the known.

The answer isn't part of the body — it's recorded on resolution (see Work through the map). Assets created while resolving a ticket are linked from the issue, not pasted in.

Ticket Types

Every ticket is either HITL — human in the loop, worked with a human who speaks for themselves — or AFK, driven by the agent alone. A HITL ticket only resolves through that live exchange; the agent never stands in for the human's side of it (a grilling agent that answers its own questions has broken this).

• Research (AFK): Reading documentation, third-party APIs, or local resources like knowledge bases to surface a fact a decision waits on. Resolved by /research (background Task). Use when knowledge outside the current working directory is required.
• Prototype (HITL): Raise the fidelity of the discussion by making a cheap, rough, concrete artifact to react to — an outline, a rough take, a stub, or UI/logic code via the /prototype skill. Links the prototype as an asset. Use when "how should it look" or "how should it behave" is the key question.
• Grilling (HITL): Conversation via the /grilling and /domain-modeling skills (frontier rounds per /grilling). The default case. While resolving a wayfinder ticket, /domain-modeling still updates CONTEXT.md live, but defer ADR offers to ticket close under this skill (Captured via: wayfinder). Standalone /grill-with-docs or /domain-modeling sessions are unchanged.
• Task (HITL or AFK): Manual work that must happen before a decision can be made — nothing to decide, prototype, or research, but the discussion is blocked until it's done. Signing up for a service so its API can be judged, provisioning access, moving data so its shape can be seen. This is the one type that does rather than decides — and it earns its place by unblocking a decision, not by delivering the destination. The agent drives it alone where it can (AFK); otherwise it hands the human a precise checklist (HITL). Resolved when the work is done; the answer records what was done and any resulting facts (credentials location, new URLs, row counts) later tickets depend on.

Fog of war

The map is deliberately incomplete: don't chart what you can't yet see. Beyond the live tickets lies the fog of war — the dim view of decisions and investigations you can tell are coming but can't yet pin down, because they hang on questions still open. Resolving a ticket clears the fog ahead of it, graduating whatever's now specifiable into fresh tickets — one at a time, until the way to the destination is clear and no tickets remain.

The map's Not yet specified section is where that dim view is written down: the suspected question, the area to revisit later. It's the undiscovered frontier toward the destination — everything here is in scope, just not sharp enough to ticket. Write as loosely or as fully as the view allows; it doubles as a signpost for collaborators reading where the effort is headed.

Fog or ticket? The test is whether you can state the question precisely now — not whether you can answer it now.

• Ticket when the question is already sharp — even if it's blocked and you can't act on it yet.
• Not yet specified when you can't yet phrase it that sharply. Don't pre-slice the fog into ticket-sized pieces: it's coarser than a ticket, and one patch may graduate into several tickets, or none, once the frontier reaches it.

Not yet specified excludes what's already decided (Decisions so far), what's already a live ticket, and what's out of scope (the next section).

Out of scope

Fog only ever gathers toward the destination. The destination fixes the scope, so work beyond it is out of scope — it isn't fog, and it doesn't belong in Not yet specified. It gets its own Out of scope section on the map: work you've consciously ruled out of this effort. Scope, not sharpness, lands it here.

Out-of-scope work never graduates — the frontier stops at the destination — so it returns only if the destination is redrawn, and then as a fresh effort, not a resumption.

Ruling something out of scope is a scoping act, not a step on the route. When a ticket that already exists turns out to sit past the destination — mis-scoped in while charting, or exposed by a resolution — close it (a closed ticket is unambiguously off the frontier) and leave one line in the Out of scope section: the gist plus why it's out of scope, linking the closed ticket. It stays out of Decisions so far, which records the route actually walked — a scope boundary isn't a step on it.

Invocation

Two modes. Either way, never resolve more than one ticket per session — with the exception of research tickets.

Chart the map

Entry

• Fresh — user invokes with a loose idea; start at step 1.
• Mid-session from /grill-with-docs — user accepted a fog offer; destination already named. Skip step 1 (restate the destination once in the map body). Continue from step 2.

1. Name the destination. Run a /grilling and /domain-modeling session to pin down what this map is finding its way to — the spec, decision, or change. The destination fixes the scope, so it's settled first. Glossary updates may land; do not offer ADRs in this pass (see step 6).

2. Map the frontier. Grill again, breadth-first this time: fan out across the whole space rather than deep on any one thread, surfacing the open decisions and the first steps takeable now. If this surfaces no fog — the way to the destination is already clear, the whole journey small enough for one session — you don't need a map. Stop and use AskQuestion (or plain chat if unavailable) with these options:

   • /to-spec — Matt path: spec + council/BPR (hard-stop) → /to-tickets → /implement (one ticket per session)
   • /to-plan — escape hatch: one-session plan → /implement-plan
   • Implement now — start building in this session (skip durable artifacts)
   • Stop — end here

   When recommending, prefer a short context-risk check: would clearing context mid-build force re-deriving seams/contracts? If yes → /to-spec; if no → /to-plan is fine; if unsure → /to-spec first.

3. Create the map (label wayfinder:map): Destination and Notes filled in; Decisions-so-far empty for now; fog sketched into Not yet specified.

4. Import locked decisions when mid-session (or any charting that inherits prior accepts) — follow Import locked decisions; otherwise skip. Then create the tickets you can specify now as child issues of the map — then wire blocking edges in a second pass (issues need ids before they can reference each other). Wiring sorts them into the frontier and the blocked; everything you can't yet specify stays in the fog — the Not yet specified section.

5. Fire research. For each research ticket you just created, invoke /research in parallel (background Tasks). The findings Markdown file is the SSOT — add a context pointer from the ticket to that file. Only ask /research for a throwaway research/<name> branch when isolation is needed; otherwise leave the branch alone.

6. Stop — charting is one session's work; it hand-resolves nothing. Do not offer ADRs while charting — destination grilling orients the map; durable promotion happens on ticket close in Work through the map. (Manual “ADR this” / /architecture-decision-records remains available if the user asks.)

Done when (chart): either the no-fog exit was offered and the user chose a path, or the map exists with wired tickets (plus any imported closes), any research Tasks launched, and this session has stopped without hand-resolving HITL tickets.

Work through the map

User invokes with a map (URL or number). A ticket is optional — without one, you pick the next decision, not the user.

1. Load the map — the low-res view, not every ticket body.
2. Choose the ticket. If the user named one, use it. Otherwise take the first frontier ticket in order. Claim it: assign it to yourself before any work.
3. Resolve it — zoom as needed: fetch the full body of any related or closed ticket on demand; invoke the skills the ## Notes block names. If in doubt, use /grilling and /domain-modeling. While on this ticket, defer ADR offers from /domain-modeling to step 5 (glossary updates still happen live).
4. Record the resolution: post the answer as a resolution comment, close the issue, and append a context pointer to the map's Decisions-so-far (ticket link + one-line gist). Do not delete the ticket.
5. Offer an ADR when criteria hold — After the answer is recorded, apply the three ADR-POLICY criteria (any ticket type; research/task answers usually fail the bar). If all three are true, offer to record an ADR. On acceptance, follow /architecture-decision-records with Captured via: wayfinder, then dual-link the ADR on that Decisions-so-far line (keep the ticket link; add the ADR path). If the user declines, move on — no park, no re-offer for that ticket unless they ask later.
6. Add newly-surfaced tickets (create-then-wire); graduate any fog the answer has made specifiable, clearing each graduated patch from Not yet specified so it lives only as its new ticket. If the answer reveals a ticket — this one or another — sits beyond the destination, rule it out of scope rather than resolving it on the route. If the decision invalidates other parts of the map, update or delete those tickets.

The user may run unblocked tickets in parallel, so expect other sessions to be editing the tracker concurrently.

Done when: exactly one non-research ticket was claimed, resolved, and closed (or ruled out of scope), any ADR offer for that answer was handled (accepted → written and dual-linked, declined → discarded, or criteria not met → no offer), the map's Decisions-so-far / fog / out-of-scope sections reflect that outcome, and any newly graduated tickets are created and wired — or, for research-only parallel work, every research ticket this session fired has a findings-file context pointer (and the same ADR offer step applies if a research answer somehow meets ADR-POLICY).

When the map is clear

Wayfinder decides; it does not ship the build. When no open decision tickets remain and the destination is a change to implement, recommend (user confirms) using the same context-risk gate as the no-fog exit:

• Multi-session / dumb-zone risk → /to-spec → /to-tickets → /implement (one ticket per session, clear context between)
• Fits one session → /to-plan → /implement-plan
• Unsure → /to-spec, then choose tickets vs /to-plan