wayfinder

name	wayfinder
description	Plan a huge chunk of work — more than one agent session can hold — as a shared map of decision tickets, and resolve them one at a time until the way to the destination is clear.
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.

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.

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; a decision lives in exactly one place — its ticket — so the map never restates it, only gists it and links.

Where the map, its child tickets, blocking, and frontier queries physically live is tracker-specific. The issue tracker should have been provided to you — run /setup-matt-pocock-skills if not. Consult the tracker doc's "Wayfinding operations" section for how this repo expresses them. If no tracker has been provided, default to the local-markdown tracker.

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 -->

- [<closed ticket title>](link) — <one-line gist of the answer>

## 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 a /research subagent. 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, one question at a time. The default case.
• 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

User invokes with a loose idea.

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.
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 ask the user how they'd like to proceed.
3. Create the map (label wayfinder:map): Destination and Notes filled in, Decisions-so-far empty, the fog sketched into Not yet specified.
4. 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 the research subagents. For each research ticket you just created, spin up a /research subagent to resolve it in parallel, capturing its findings on a throwaway research/<name> branch with a context pointer from the ticket.
6. Stop — charting is one session's work; it hand-resolves nothing.

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.
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.
5. 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.

Pop storage layout

Resolve the per-repository Task-storage root once per session:

pop work show-path

Maps live under a wayfinder/ sibling of tasks/:

$(pop work show-path)/wayfinder/<YYYY-MM-DD-slug>/
├── map.md
└── issues/
    ├── 01-<slug>.md
    ├── 02-<slug>.md
    └── ...

<YYYY-MM-DD-slug> is the map id (e.g. 2026-07-19-wayfinder-work-dashboard). Ticket files are NN-<slug>.md where NN is a zero-padded ticket number (01, 02, …). A map exists because its folder exists — no registration step.

Ignore upstream's tracker setup. There is no issue tracker, no labels, and no /setup-matt-pocock-skills. All map and ticket state is plain markdown in Task storage.

map.md

The map body follows upstream's section shape, with pop additions at the top and bottom:

Status: active

## Destination

<one or two lines — every session orients here first>

## Notes

<domain; skills to consult; standing preferences>

## Decisions so far

- [01-first-ticket](issues/01-first-ticket.md) — one-line gist of the answer

## Not yet specified

<fog — graduates into tickets as the frontier advances>

## Out of scope

<work ruled beyond the destination>

## Spawned sets

<!-- forward links to Task sets this map spawned via to-prd/to-tasks -->

- <task-set-id>

Map Status: line (top of map.md, before headings): active (default while wayfinding), done (way found — write this at handoff), or abandoned (closed without reaching the destination). Charting writes Status: active. Handoff writes Status: done.

Open tickets are not listed in map.md — they are files under issues/, discovered by reading the directory.

Ticket files (issues/NN-<slug>.md)

Metadata lines come first (parsed by pop wayfinder and the Work dashboard):

Type: research|prototype|grilling|task
Status: open|claimed|resolved
Blocked by: 01, 02

## Question

<the decision or investigation this ticket resolves>

## Answer

<written on resolution — prose answer, links to assets>

• Type: — one of research, prototype, grilling, task (same vocabulary as upstream ticket types).
• Status: — open (default), claimed (this session owns it), or resolved (decision recorded). Omitting Status: means open.
• Blocked by: — comma-separated blocker ticket numbers (e.g. 01, 02). A ticket is unblocked when every blocker is resolved; the frontier is open, unblocked, unclaimed tickets — the edge of the known.

Claiming, resolving, and the frontier

Claim before work: set Status: claimed in the ticket file first, before any investigation or conversation. Concurrent sessions must skip claimed tickets. An open, unclaimed ticket is takeable.

Resolve a ticket:

1. Write the decision under ## Answer in the ticket file.
2. Set Status: resolved.
3. Append one line to the map's Decisions so far: [<ticket title>](issues/NN-<slug>.md) — <one-line gist>.

A resolved ticket is off the frontier. Assets created while resolving are linked from the answer, not pasted in full.

Out of scope: set a mis-scoped ticket to Status: resolved with a brief answer explaining why, and add one line to Out of scope on the map (not Decisions so far).

Ticket-type overrides

• Grilling (HITL): run the grill-with-docs skill (pop's embedded planning skill — not /grilling or /domain-modeling). One question at a time with the human; never answer your own grilling questions.
• Research (AFK): run the research skill (background agent, primary sources). Record findings in the ticket's ## Answer with source citations — the Answer holds the gist and cites/links; do not open a throwaway research/<name> branch or any other side branch for research output.
• Prototype (HITL): run the prototype skill (logic vs UI branches, throwaway, one command to run). Link the prototype's path and record the verdict in the ticket's ## Answer — pop's rule overrides upstream prototype's "commit to a throwaway branch"; the artifact stays in the working tree and the Answer records the validated decision. Use when "how should it look" or "how should it behave" is the key question.
• Task (HITL or AFK): manual work that unblocks a decision — provisioning access, signing up for a service, moving data so its shape can be seen. The agent drives it alone where it can; otherwise hand the human a precise checklist. The answer records what was done and any facts later tickets depend on.

Invocation (pop)

Two modes. Either way, never resolve more than one non-research ticket per session — research tickets may be burned down in parallel.

Chart the map

User invokes with a loose idea (no map id).

1. Name the destination with grill-with-docs — pin down what this map is finding its way to. The destination fixes scope; settle it first.
2. Map the frontier with another grill-with-docs pass, breadth-first: fan out across the whole space, surfacing open decisions and first steps takeable now. If the way is already clear and small enough for one session, you don't need a map — stop and ask how to proceed.
3. Create the map folder at $(pop work show-path)/wayfinder/<YYYY-MM-DD-slug>/ with map.md (Status: active, Destination, Notes, empty Decisions so far, fog in Not yet specified).
4. Create ticket files you can specify now under issues/ — wire Blocked by: in a second pass once numbers exist. Everything not yet sharp stays in Not yet specified.
5. Fire research in parallel for each Type: research ticket — run the research skill (this session or background agents), writing each answer into its ticket's ## Answer with source citations and setting Status: resolved.
6. Stop — charting is one session's work; it hand-resolves nothing beyond research.

Work through the map

User invokes as work <map-id> [<ticket-id>] (e.g. /pop-wayfinder work 2026-07-19-feature 03). Ticket id is optional — without one, take the first frontier ticket.

1. Load map.md — 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. Claim it: set Status: claimed before any work.
3. Resolve — read related tickets on demand; invoke skills named in Notes. Grilling tickets use grill-with-docs; research tickets use research; prototype tickets use prototype.
4. Record the resolution in the ticket (## Answer, Status: resolved) and append to Decisions so far on the map.
5. Add newly-surfaced tickets; graduate fog into new issues/ files; rule out-of-scope tickets per upstream rules.

Expect parallel sessions — re-read ticket status before claiming.

Handoff to implementation

When the way to the destination is clear — or an early-splittable chunk is — suggest to-prd and/or to-tasks to the user. Wayfinding produces decisions; implementation happens in ordinary registered Task sets.

Record the forward link both ways:

1. On the map: append each spawned task-set id under ## Spawned sets in map.md.
2. On the set: when to-prd writes prd.md, include a Source map line naming this map's id (e.g. Source map: 2026-07-19-feature).

Then set Status: done in map.md. One map may spawn many sets over time; only mark done when wayfinding for this destination is finished (individual chunks may hand off earlier while the map stays active if fog remains).