Backlog

docs/backlog owns desired project deltas and execution state; never treat completed backlog work as accepted until the relevant wiki concepts are updated. Use $wiki for accepted-knowledge operations; never mutate wiki concepts inside a backlog transaction. Stay on the current branch; never touch docs/tasks.

Authority

The project owner controls durable intent and priority. Obtain explicit approval before: creating any record (even a lightweight proposal); changing an outcome, scope, criterion wording, work type, parent, or initial child set; changing relationship links; adding to or reordering global rank; moving work to ready; walking work back from ready to proposed; cancelling work (including its rationale and the disposition of unfinished children); or changing accepted wiki state.

Approval covers only the exact transaction presented — never infer it from earlier discussion, a plan, silence, or permission to inspect files. Record approval in ## Execution when readiness requires it and preserve provenance.

Under $to-product, its contract approves every schema-valid record/Epic transaction the PRD requires: creation, rewrite, split/merge, type, scope, criteria, exclusions, child set, parentage, relationships, rank, readiness, claims, status, cancellation, recovery, and archival. It never authorizes unrelated or out-of-PRD implementation.

An invoked gate-backed workflow authorizing an agent/session for a named standalone item or Epic permits one start transaction, temporary claims, aggregated evidence, normal lifecycle transitions, and one final completion/archive transaction. An Epic may move itself and required children to in-progress, claim each child under one session/acceptance branch, then complete/archive atomically. This authority never changes wording, scope, parentage, relationships, priority, cancellation, readiness approval, or accepted wiki state.

Preflight

Before proposing or applying a mutation: