backlog

name	backlog
description	Backlog ledger discipline for vh-agent-harness — conflict-safe edits to docs/planning/backlog.md (hybrid split-commit) plus DEFER/follow-up curation routing. Load this skill before editing the backlog, when handling a cas_conflict on the backlog, or when deciding where a DEFER/p2 finding should land.
compatibility	opencode

Backlog Ledger Discipline

Edits are allowed; conflicts are resolved at the commit layer, not by blocking edits. docs/planning/backlog.md is the shared task-status ledger. Agents edit it freely, commit it separately from code, and never blind- revert it. DEFER/p2 findings land in .local/coordinator/tasks/ first, never directly as backlog rows.

Summary

This skill owns two disciplines that share one file (docs/planning/backlog.md):

1. Conflict discipline (hybrid split-commit). How to edit the ledger without a concurrent edit blocking your code commit, and how to recover from a cas_conflict without losing a collaborator's status update.
2. Curation routing (composition O1). Where DEFER / p2 / follow-up findings land (the holding area), and the Definition of Ready a candidate must meet before it is promoted into a backlog row.

Plus the picking contract (R1): re-study the cited files/state before acting on any backlog row — a row is a pointer, not a substitute for the work it points at.

Quick reference

• Editing the ledger: re-read from disk immediately before your edit; edit only your own task rows (match the stable ID); keep one backlog commit per cycle, separate from any code commit.
• On cas_conflict: re-read from the new HEAD, re-apply your row change, retry. Do NOT revert backlog.md to unblock — that discards a collaborator's update. Do NOT use commit-gate.sh revert on the backlog (that path restores working-tree files to HEAD; on the ledger it is the blind-revert anti-pattern).
• Format: the executable spec is .opencode/scripts/normalize-backlog.js. Sections Now / Next / Later (active) and Done / Cancelled (history); statuses todo / in_progress / blocked (active) and done / cancelled (history); columns | ID | Status | Area | Task | Owner | Notes | Links |. Duplicate IDs are rejected. Run /backlog-cleanup (or vh-agent-harness exec node .opencode/scripts/normalize-backlog.js) after a batch edit.
• DEFER / p2 / follow-up: capture to .local/coordinator/tasks/ via /write-task with Notes provenance. Do not add a backlog row directly. Promotion happens only after the predicate checker confirms the trigger and the Definition of Ready is met.

Conflict discipline (hybrid split-commit)

Why split-commit

backlog.md is edited by every active session; a code commit is owned by one session. If a code commit bundles an incidental backlog edit, a concurrent session's later backlog edit can cas_conflict the whole code commit and block it. The fix is at the commit layer: keep backlog edits out of code commits.

Edit contract

1. Re-read from disk immediately before editing. The file you read at the start of your session may be stale by the time you edit. Re-read, then edit in the same turn.
2. Edit only your own task rows, matched by stable ID (P1-CORE-001, P2-API-003, …). Do not rewrite rows you do not own; if a row needs a status you did not produce, route the request through the promoter or the owning session.
3. Commit backlog separately from code. A code commit's --paths list must not include docs/planning/backlog.md. If your slice touched both, make two commits: one for code, one for the backlog row update.
4. Batch one backlog commit per cycle. Collect the cycle's status transitions, then commit them together. This minimizes concurrent-edit surface and matches the promoter's batch-promote cadence.

On cas_conflict (the anti-pattern and the fix)

When commit-gate.sh commit reports a cas_conflict on backlog.md, it means another session committed a backlog edit after your acquire snapshot. The gate will have preserved your intended changes; the recovery is:

1. Re-read backlog.md from the new HEAD (the post-conflict state, which now includes the other session's row update).
2. Re-apply your row change on top of that state — edit only your row, by stable ID.
3. Retry the backlog commit (re-acquire if the gate requires it).

Do NOT revert backlog.md to unblock. A blind revert discards the other session's status update, which is exactly the data loss the hybrid model exists to prevent. In particular:

• commit-gate.sh revert docs/planning/backlog.md restores the working-tree file to HEAD. On source files this is the sanctioned in-session unblock; on the ledger it is the blind-revert anti-pattern — do not use it for backlog.md. Use the re-read + re-apply + retry flow above instead.
• The operator-only escape hatch (rm -rf .git/commit-gate.lock/ && git reset --mixed) is operator-only and out of scope here; agents never use it.

Format pointer

The executable format spec is .opencode/scripts/normalize-backlog.js. It enforces the section/status/column vocabulary and rejects duplicate IDs. Treat it as the source of truth for shape; this skill only summarizes. Run /backlog-cleanup after any batch edit so Now / Next / Later stay active-only and history archives under docs/planning/archive/.

Two-commit normalizer protocol

A normalizer run (vh-agent-harness exec node .opencode/scripts/normalize-backlog.js, or /backlog-cleanup) may change docs/planning/backlog.md together with files under docs/planning/archive/ — managed archive files like backlog-archive-<period>.md and archive/index.md, including created, updated, or removed files. This does not create an exception to the backlog-only commit rule. The commit-gate's O1 backlog_must_commit_separately preflight refuses any acquire whose --paths mixes docs/planning/backlog.md with another path (status path_error / backlog_must_commit_separately), there is no archive-companion carveout, and the normalizer's archive companions are NOT ordinary "code/docs" changes that could ride alongside unrelated work.

Treat the normalizer output as one work-cycle transaction landed through two reviewed commits, back to back:

1. Commit docs/planning/backlog.md alone — a backlog-only acquire; no other path may travel in the same commit.
2. Immediately commit only the changed, created, or removed docs/planning/archive/** companions as one archive-companion commit.

Neither commit may contain unrelated paths. Do not stop, hand off, close out, or report the normalization complete between the two commits — they are one logical transaction, and any session that resumes your work must see them as a pair, not as a half-finished normalization.

Run the normalizer check over the complete working tree (not just the ledger) before the first commit and again after the archive-companion commit:

node .opencode/scripts/normalize-backlog.js --check

If the check fails on either pass, rerun the normalizer (without --check) and recompute both exact path sets before committing.

If the ledger changes concurrently or a cas_conflict occurs on the backlog-only commit, apply the normal cas_conflict recovery (re-read from the new HEAD, re-apply, retry) — but because the normalizer is deterministic over the ledger + archives, the safer path is to re-read the ledger, rerun the normalizer over the complete working tree, and recompute both exact path sets before retrying. Do NOT revert the archive companions to unblock.

Curation routing (DEFER / p2 / follow-up)

Holding area = .local/coordinator/tasks/

DEFER findings (from commit-reviewer), p2 follow-ups, and other conditional candidates land in .local/coordinator/tasks/ as conditional candidates, not as backlog rows. The holding area is transport, not truth — unpromoted candidates may be lost, and that is intentional: they are not trusted work yet.

Capture a candidate via /write-task with Notes provenance so the promoter can evaluate it later:

source:review-defer            # or source:p2-followup
trigger:path_touched(src/auth/x.go)   # the predicate that, when true, makes this real
studied:2026-04-30             # when the finding was produced

source:review-defer means the candidate came out of a commit-reviewer DEFER. source:p2-followup means it came from a p2 blocker-disposition. The trigger: line is the predicate the checker evaluates (see below). studied: is the date the finding was produced, for staleness awareness.

Promotion Definition of Ready (DoR)

A candidate reaches backlog.md only when all of the following hold:

1. Trigger fired OR operator override. The predicate checker (.opencode/scripts/check-defer-triggers.js) confirms the trigger: line is currently met, OR the operator explicitly marks override:operator in Notes.
2. Concrete area. The candidate names the repo boundary it belongs to (api, web, storage, docs, …).
3. File scope. The candidate names the files / directories it touches.
4. Validation plan. The candidate states how the change will be verified (tests, gates, manual checks).
5. Clear slice. The candidate is scoped to one vertical slice or one focused boundary change — not an open-ended theme.
6. Provenance. The Notes block carries source: / trigger: / studied: (or override:operator).

If any element is missing, the promoter leaves the candidate in holding and records what is missing on the task card.

Predicate checker (promoter-use-only)

.opencode/scripts/check-defer-triggers.js reads the task cards, regexes for trigger: lines in Notes, and reports which candidates' conditions are currently met. It supports a small predicate vocabulary (path_touched(<path>), after_tag(<tag>)). It is:

• Promoter-use-only. Run by the promoter during a promotion cycle.
• Never wired into a commit hook. It does not block commits.
• Never blocking. It prints a report; it does not gate anything.

This is a first-slice MVP predicate engine, not a full rules system.

Reviewer DEFER never becomes a direct backlog row

A commit-reviewer DEFER disposition is an intake predicate, not a backlog insertion. The reviewer's DEFER grammar tells the next reviewer what to re-check; the agent capturing the finding routes it to .local/coordinator/tasks/ with provenance, and the promoter decides promotion. The reviewer never writes a backlog row, and the capturing agent never writes a backlog row for a DEFER either — both route through holding.

Picking contract (R1)

Before acting on any backlog row, re-study the cited files and state. A row is a pointer (stable ID + one-line task + owner + links), not a substitute for the work it points at. Re-read the linked design memo, the referenced source, and the current state of the area before you start. If the row's framing no longer matches the code, surface the drift rather than executing a stale plan.

Cross-references

• docs/planning/backlog.md — the ledger itself
• .opencode/scripts/normalize-backlog.js — executable format spec (sections, statuses, columns, dup-ID rejection)
• .opencode/scripts/check-defer-triggers.js — promotion predicate checker (promoter-use-only)
• docs/coordination/PROMOTER_RUNBOOK.md — promoter procedure: curation, batch-promote, hybrid CAS preservation
• docs/coordination/BLOCKER_POLICY.md — p2 follow-ups route to the holding area
• .opencode/skills/gated-commit/SKILL.md — the commit layer this discipline depends on (commit backlog separately from code; commit-gate.sh revert is the anti-pattern on backlog.md)