Product backlog

Required context

Before editing, identify from human instructions or repository guidance:

• Repository root and canonical backlog path.
• Canonical seed locations, seed IDs, and heading or stable-anchor conventions when feature-story entries are affected.
• Canonical executable-plan locations and plan identity conventions for bounded-correction entries or taken planned stories when they are affected.
• Decomposition, refinement, and slice-planning workflows, when needed.
• Commit conventions, if a commit is authorized.

If the backlog or the canonical home required by an affected entry cannot be identified, ask for the missing context and stop before editing. Do not require seed conventions when every affected entry is a bounded correction plan. If a required workflow is unavailable, stop that activity and ask for its guidance.

File layout

• Place Near-future direction immediately after the title when it exists, then Taken immediately before Backlog list. Retain Taken when it is empty.
• Use bullet lists. Do not number items. Put the highest-priority queued item first. Preserve the order of entries already in Taken and append each newly taken entry.
• In Taken and Backlog list, include only each exact work title linked to its canonical active home and its established identity. A feature story uses its heading or stable anchor plus seed ID. A bounded correction without a supplied story links directly to its existing plan and uses the plan identity; the linked path is sufficient when that is this project's identity convention. Taken planned stories also link directly to their slice plans. Keep details, estimates, dependencies, and status in the canonical home.
• Select work for the backlog list; do not inventory every candidate or turn the list into a roadmap or execution plan.

Near-future direction

• Treat the direction as the short-term vision: focus effort on one customer value or goal.
• Use it as the most important input when deciding story scope. Include the outcomes needed to advance that value or goal; exclude unrelated expansion.
• Add or change the direction only on an explicit human instruction to do so.
• Otherwise preserve it exactly. If absent, leave it absent; do not infer or generate a direction during backlog maintenance.
• Use the direction to guide ordering. Most items should align with it; urgent fixes and urgent architecture changes may take priority.

Canonical active homes

• Keep a feature story in one canonical section within its seed.
• Keep a bounded retrospective correction in its existing plan when no canonical story is supplied. Do not create or recover a seed solely to queue it. Require the plan to satisfy the correction-input contract in planning scope and lifecycle.
• When a canonical story is supplied for planned work, queue that story and link its plan there. Do not also queue the plan. Treat references to either home as the same work when checking repetition and duplicates.

Maintain the backlog list

• Read the backlog, its direction if present, and referenced canonical homes before changing order.
• Follow human priority instructions. Otherwise rank by direction alignment, user value, learning value, and genuine product prerequisites. Preserve unrelated order. Do not derive priority from seed IDs or order within a seed.
• Link from related documents; do not duplicate work details or list the same story or correction twice within or across Taken and Backlog list.
• Preserve stable anchors when renaming or moving stories. Update incoming links.
• Add a feature story only with a named beneficiary and evaluable outcome. If either is unresolved, use this project's decomposition workflow and route selected-story detail to refinement, then slice planning. Add a bounded correction only when its plan satisfies the correction-input contract above; otherwise name the missing field and leave the plan and queue unchanged. Do not use decomposition to fabricate a story. Carry the direction into applicable workflows as the primary input for scope decisions.
• Place unfinished prerequisites before dependent work. If this conflicts with explicit human ordering, cite the affected entries and ask the human to resolve the conflict before changing their order. Do not invent technical preparation stories.
• Reprioritizing does not authorize execution or cancel other candidates.

Take queued work for execution

Move an entry from Backlog list to Taken only when execution of its authorized plan or explicitly selected planless quick story is starting. Refinement, planning, and an intention to execute leave it in the queue. If execution context or authorization fails before execution starts, leave the entry unchanged.

Preserve the title, canonical link, and identity. Add any missing slice-plan link for a planned story, including on resume; stop if its plan is unresolved. Quick stories need no plan, and corrections need no duplicate plan link.

Move the entry to the end of Taken in one backlog update. On resume, do not duplicate or reorder it. Do not fabricate absent entries; stop if an expected queued entry cannot be moved unambiguously.

Once execution starts, leave the entry in Taken across pauses, failures, resumption, successful plan completion, and retrospective. Returning cancelled work to the queue requires an explicit backlog-maintenance decision.

Remove completed items

• Route completed story or correction closure through dough-story-wrap-up. It removes the entry from its active list and owns applicable seed, plan, and proof cleanup.
• Standalone maintenance may remove a completed item from either active list when the human asks only for backlog maintenance. The applicable seed, plan, and proof remain available for later story wrap-up.

Check and report

• Check exact titles, links, duplicates across both active lists, and prerequisite order in the queue.
• Check section order, bullet formatting, and direction alignment when present. Confirm the direction is unchanged unless explicitly instructed by a human.
• Summarize changes and reasons briefly.
• Follow commit conventions when authorized. Backlog maintenance alone does not authorize a commit or push.