promote-idea

name	promote-idea
description	Promote an Inbox bullet from BACKLOG.md to either a GitHub issue (work commitment) or a briefing (briefings/B-NNNN-*.md, research/decision support). Asks which based on whether the work is committed or still needs thinking. Removes the original bullet.
argument-hint	Optional: a substring matching the bullet to promote. If omitted, lists Inbox bullets and asks.

Promote Idea

Move a one-line Inbox bullet from BACKLOG.md to a real, structured location: a GitHub issue (codebase work) or a briefing (research/decision support).

When to use

• An Inbox bullet has gained enough shape to either commit to or think through systematically.
• After a discussion that resolves what an idea actually means.

When NOT to use

• The bullet is still vague — leave it in Inbox until it has shape.
• The bullet is one-shot ("merge this dependabot PR") — just do it; don't promote.
• It's a wait-on-trigger item — move it to the BACKLOG.md Triggers section instead.

Procedure

1. List Inbox bullets if no argument supplied. Read BACKLOG.md, find the ## Inbox section, present the bullets numbered.

2. Pick the bullet. Match the substring argument, or ask the user which number.

3. Decide: issue or briefing? Ask the user explicitly:

   • issue — "This is codebase work we intend to do." Discussion can continue on the issue; it only gets the agent-ready label once acceptance criteria are settled.
   • briefing — "I want to think this through, ground claims with code/data, possibly arrive at a decision. The conclusion might be 'no work needed' and that's fine."
   • delete — "This doesn't survive a re-read. Remove it."
   • trigger — "This is waiting on a specific external event." → move to the Triggers table instead.

4. If issue: create it with gh issue create, using the work-item template's sections (context/grounding, acceptance sketch, V-* validation rows from VALIDATION.md, related briefings/issues). Only add the agent-ready label if the spec is genuinely settled — the default is an unlabeled discussion issue. If it belongs to an umbrella theme, mention the umbrella in the body and add it to the umbrella's child checklist.

5. If briefing: find the next free B-NNNN ID across briefings/B-*.md, generate a kebab-case slug, ask for topic (one line) and an opening question for the body, and write briefings/B-NNNN-<slug>.md with status: open, last_revisited = today. Add it to the Briefings index in BACKLOG.md.

6. Remove the bullet from BACKLOG.md Inbox.

Output format

Confirm to the user:

Promoted "<bullet>" → issue #34 (discussion; not yet agent-ready)
Removed from BACKLOG.md Inbox.

What this skill does NOT do

• Pick or work on the issue — that's pick-next-task and human/agent effort.
• Promote a Triggers row — Triggers stay until their condition fires; then the same flow opens an issue.
• Create tasks/T-*.md files — that queue is a frozen archive (see tasks/README.md).