Specs agent — ideation-groom skill (v0.1)

Model B (docs/naming-convention.md). Periodic triage of the initiative
ideation backlog. The backlog analog of the PM's roadmap-sync: keeps the
pre-intake list honest and surfaces what's ready to mint. Read-mostly; the sole
writer is docs/product/INITIATIVE_BACKLOG.md.

When this file and the specs agent role config disagree, the role config
wins and this file is wrong. Raise an escalation rather than reconciling silently.

Purpose

Walk the whole backlog and produce a triage report: which items are ready to mint,
which are stale, which duplicate each other or already-minted initiatives, and which
should be parked or dropped. On accept, apply the low-risk hygiene fixes
(reprioritize order, merge obvious dupes, park stale items). Surfacing ready items
for initiative-intake is the skill's highest-value output.

Scope

In scope:

• Reading every backlog item + the orchestrator roadmap.md and features/INIT-*.md
  (to detect items overtaken by already-minted work).
• Reporting the triage classes below.
• On accept: reordering by priority, flipping stale items to parked, recording
  dropped decisions with a one-line why, and fixing unambiguous bundle-drift.

Out of scope:

• Publishing or un-publishing an idea — ideation-publish owns that, and it asks first. Groom reports drift between a dossier and its issue; it never opens, closes or edits one.
• Minting / intake — ready items are surfaced, not minted. Graduation is the
  human running the initiative-intake skill.
• Shaping an item — that is the ideation-shape skill;
  groom points at it for under-shaped items, doesn't do the shaping.
• Touching the orchestrator repo — registries and roadmap are read-only here.
• Deleting an item. dropped keeps the row + reason so it isn't re-proposed.

Triage classes

Class	Condition	Resolution
ready-to-mint	item state ready	surface prominently; recommend /initiative-intake
stale	idea/shaping, untouched a long while, no momentum	recommend parked (auto on accept)
published/state drift	the dossier carries an issue: URL and the issue disagrees with it — closed while the row says shaping, a status label edited by hand, an idea moved on the board	report only; a human decides which is right. The file is authoritative for state, so the usual fix is to re-mirror — but a human closing the issue often meant it, and silently reopening it would be the tool overruling the person.
specified and aging	specs authored and a manifest published, and nobody has minted	report only — a human decides. The two readings are the implementation is not wanted (record delivered) and it is stalled. This signal is unambiguous because specified is a waypoint and never a terminus; a state that could mean both would need a heuristic to tell them apart.
dupe-internal	two ideas describe the same initiative	recommend they bundle (set lead bundles:) or merge — route to /ideation-shape
overtaken	idea overlaps an already-minted INIT- (roadmap/registry)	recommend dropped with a link to the INIT
under-shaped	ready box checked but dossier thin/unsupported	revert to shaping; point at /ideation-shape
bundle-drift	dossier bundles:/bundled_into: inconsistent (lead missing a follower, follower points at non-lead, states out of step)	report; fix the row/frontmatter mismatch on accept
orphan-dossier	dossier file with no index row, or row with no dossier	report; do not delete — needs human/ideation-capture
unsorted	rows not in priority order	reorder on accept

Inputs

1. docs/product/INITIATIVE_BACKLOG.md (index) + docs/product/backlog/*.md (dossiers).
2. Orchestrator roadmap.md + features/INIT-*.md (read-only, for overtaken/dupe checks).

Procedure

1. Gather

State intent: "I will groom the initiative backlog (N ideas)." Read every index row,
every dossier (state, bundles/bundled_into), and the orchestrator
roadmap/registries.

When the orchestrator is not reachable, degrade — do not stop. Those reads
are read-only, and only one triage class depends on them: overtaken (idea
overlaps already-minted work). If they cannot be resolved, grade every other
class normally, report overtaken as not assessed — orchestrator registries
unreachable, and carry that line into the report so a human reads the gap
rather than inferring a clean backlog. Every write this skill makes is to
docs/product/INITIATIVE_BACKLOG.md in this repo, so none of them are blocked
by the absence.

2. Classify and report

Sort every item into the triage table. Produce the report first — the human sees
what will change, and which items are ready to mint, before any write.

3. Apply hygiene on accept

Reorder by priority, flip stale → parked, record dropped with its one-line
reason, and fix unambiguous bundle-drift (row/frontmatter mismatch). Leave
ready-to-mint, dupe-internal (bundling is ideation-shape's call), overtaken,
under-shaped, and orphan-dossier for the human / sibling skill. Preserve the
header, table integrity, dossier files, and Notes. Never delete a row or dossier.

4. Result

Emit the RESULT block. status: complete = report delivered and accepted hygiene
applied. Lead the report with the ready-to-mint list — that is the backlog's
purpose realized.

Version

v0.1. Seven triage classes. Staleness is judgment-based at v1 (no timestamp
field); if the backlog grows enough to need it, add a touched field to the dossier
frontmatter and make stale mechanical.