Legal Wayfinder — Decision Maps for Big Legal Matters

A big legal matter arrives wrapped in fog: the route from intake to deliverable is not visible yet. Wayfinding finds that route by resolving decisions — not by executing work slices. The map is the plan; execution happens only after handoff.

Plan, don't do. Every ticket resolves a decision. Supporting memos and prototypes are linked as assets, but no client deliverable is drafted inside the map. A matter may override this in the map's Notes (carrying execution into the map); absent that, produce decisions, not deliverables.

Refer by name. In everything the attorney reads, refer to a ticket by its title, never a bare id. Ids ride inside the linked name: [Limitation period open?](tickets/t01-limitation-period-open.md).

Storage

Everything lives inside the matter folder — never in memory keys, never synced anywhere:

bcc-output/YYYY-MM-DD-<slug>/wayfinder/
  map.md
  tickets/
    t01-limitation-period-open.md
    t02-forum-choice-zh-or-federal.md
  assets/          ← research memos, prototype outlines linked from tickets

The Map (map.md)

---
matter: <slug>
status: charting | working | ready-for-handoff | handed-off
privacy-mode: strict | balanced | cloud
classifier: ollama | none
jurisdiction: federal | <canton>
language: DE | FR | IT | EN
---

## Destination
<1–2 lines: the deliverable this matter is finding its way to. Fixes scope;
every session orients to it before choosing a ticket.>

## Notes
<skills to consult (swiss-legal-research, privacy-routing, swiss-citation-formats),
standing preferences. Per-matter execution override is expressed here if needed.>

## Decisions so far
<!-- index, one line per resolved ticket: gist + link; never restate the detail -->

## Not yet specified
<!-- fog: in-scope questions you can sense but cannot phrase sharply yet -->

## Out of scope
<!-- work consciously ruled beyond the destination + why; never graduates -->

The map is an index, not a store: a decision lives in exactly one place — its ticket. The map gists and links.

Tickets (tickets/tXX-<slug>.md)

---
id: t01
title: Limitation period open?
type: research
status: open
blocked-by: []
claimed-in: ""
---

## Question
<the decision this ticket resolves, sized to one agent session>

## Resolution
<filled on close: the decision + evidence; assets linked, never pasted>

Ticket types

Type	Mode	Resolves	Rules
research	AFK	A fact a decision waits on (precedent, statute, deadline)	Researcher agent + MCP servers; memo in assets/; R1 (citations only via swiss-caselaw:cite) and R2 (verbatim quotations) enforced
grilling	HITL	Client facts, priorities, risk appetite	Conversation with the attorney, one question at a time. Never answer for the human — an agent that answers its own grilling questions has broken the ticket
prototype	HITL	"How should it look/behave"	Cheap concrete artifact to react to — outline of the Klageschrift, rough clause structure — linked from assets/
task	HITL or AFK	Work that unblocks a decision (gather contract file, obtain court records)	Precise checklist for attorney/client, or driven alone where possible; resolution records what was done and resulting facts later tickets depend on

Frontier and claiming

The frontier is every ticket with status: open, empty claimed-in, and all blocked-by tickets status: resolved or ruled-out. /legal-way picks the lowest-numbered frontier ticket unless the attorney names one. Claim by setting claimed-in to a session stamp (ISO date + time) before any work; refuse a ticket already claimed. One ticket per /legal-way invocation — research tickets are the only exception (they may be batched or fired in parallel by /legal-chart).

Fog of war

The map is deliberately incomplete. Beyond the live tickets lies fog — questions you can sense but cannot phrase sharply yet because they hang on open decisions. The test:

• Ticket when the question is already sharp — even if blocked.
• Not yet specified when it is not yet phrasable that sharply. Never pre-slice fog into ticket-sized pieces; one patch may graduate into several tickets, or none.

Resolving a ticket graduates whatever it made sharp: create new tickets (create-then-wire blocking edges in a second pass), and clear each graduated patch from Not yet specified so it lives only as its ticket.

Out of scope

Fog gathers only toward the destination; work beyond it is out of scope and never graduates. When a live ticket turns out to sit past the destination, set it status: ruled-out (not resolved) and add one line to Out of scope: gist + why + link. It stays out of Decisions so far — a scope boundary is not a step on the route.

Edge cases

• Outgrown ticket: if resolving a ticket sprawls beyond one session's worth, split it — create the successor tickets plus any fresh fog, and close the original resolved with a pointer to its children in the Resolution.
• Stale research: a research resolution in fast-moving law may note revalidate: true. Re-open it only by creating a fresh ticket referencing the old one — never by editing a recorded resolution.

Privacy (Anwaltsgeheimnis)

The map's privacy-mode governs every ticket; the PreToolUse hook keeps guarding writes regardless. classifier is probed once at chart time (ollama_check_status) — never re-probed per ticket. Degradation follows the privacy-routing decision matrix:

Content	classifier: ollama	classifier: none
PUBLIC	cloud preferred	cloud OK
CONFIDENTIAL	local preferred	anonymize → cloud + warning
PRIVILEGED / undeterminable (strict)	local required	no automated clear: stay local-only, or ask the attorney directly before any cloud call

A research ticket touching privileged facts with no classifier does not hard-fail the map: convert to conversation — ask the attorney to reformulate the question in anonymous terms, then proceed as CONFIDENTIAL. Fail closed; never "just send it".

Handoff

Hand off only when every ticket is resolved or ruled-out and the fog is empty. A claimed ticket still counts as open — in-flight work in another session blocks handoff. When /legal-way reaches that state, set status: ready-for-handoff and — instead of stopping — emit a handoff pack: destination + Decisions so far + linked assets, shaped to feed the orchestrator's Briefing-Sourced Execution protocol. Route to /legal-5step or the orchestrator. With --gate, pre-build a /legal-goal record so execution runs under the worker–evaluator loop from day one. Set status: handed-off once the pack is delivered.

Honest termination

Never present an unresolved map as clear. If the map is dead — fog non-empty, nothing graduatable, no open tickets — surface it to the attorney: the destination needs redrawing or external input is missing (which is itself a task ticket).

Plugin Scope Constraint

For all wayfinding tasks, use exclusively BetterCallClaude agents, skills, and MCP servers. Do not delegate legal work to generic or external skills, agents, or tools outside this plugin.