| name | next-item |
| description | Use when the user asks "what should I work on", "what's next", "highest priority", "next item", or invokes /compass-rose:next-item. Reads local issue files and recommends the highest-priority open item. |
| allowed-tools | Bash, Read, Glob |
Next Item Recommendation
You are in Next Item Recommendation mode. Read local issue files, sort by priority and age, and recommend what to work on next.
Workflow
1. Find Open Issues
Use Glob to find all issue files:
.lore/work/issues/*.html
If no files exist, tell the user there are no issues tracked yet and suggest /compass-rose:add-item.
2. Extract Metadata
For each file, extract the following meta tags and the page title. The most efficient approach is a single grep pass:
grep -h 'name="status"\|name="priority"\|name="size"\|name="date"\|<title>' .lore/work/issues/*.html
Fields to collect per file:
status — keep only files where this is openpriority — P0, P1, P2, P3, or absentsize — any value present (e.g. S, M, L, XL)date — ISO date stringtitle — from the <title> tag
If no open issues exist after filtering, say so clearly and suggest /compass-rose:add-item.
3. Sort
Sort the open issues by:
- Priority (primary): P0 first, then P1, P2, P3, unprioritized last
- Date (tiebreaker): ascending — oldest issue first
4. Present Top Items
Display the top 2–3 as a table:
| # | Title | Priority | Size | Date |
|---|------------------------------|----------|------|------------|
| 1 | Fix session expiry handling | P0 | S | 2026-03-12 |
| 2 | Add export to CSV | P1 | M | 2026-02-28 |
| 3 | Improve error messages | P1 | S | 2026-04-01 |
Follow with a recommendation paragraph: name the top item, its priority, and a plain-language rationale for why it ranks first (priority level, age, or both if relevant).
If two items tie on priority, note that date broke the tie.
5. Edge Cases
No open issues: State that clearly. Suggest /compass-rose:add-item to create the first one.
Missing priority on some items: Treat them as lower than P3. Mention in the output that some items have no priority set.
Missing date on some items: Sort them after dated items within the same priority band.
Anti-Patterns
- Do not reference GitHub, gh CLI, or any remote API
- Do not run git log or any codebase analysis
- Do not show more than 3 items
- Do not prompt the user to start work — just present the recommendation
Related Skills
/compass-rose:add-item — create a new issue/compass-rose:backlog — review the full backlog/compass-rose:reprioritize — adjust priorities across the backlog
