wayfinder
Wayfinder
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 finds that way instead of charging at the destination. Chart the way as a shared map of markdown files under .scratch/, then work its decision tickets — questions whose resolution is a decision, never work to build — one at a time until the route is clear.
One map produces one spec. When its decisions are clear, to-spec runs once and the map is finished. If the work is too big for a single spec, that is a sign the destination is drawn too wide — narrow it, and chart the rest as its own map later.
Naming the destination is the first act of charting — it shapes every ticket. It might be the spec to hand to to-spec, a decision to lock before planning starts, or the decisions behind a change made in place (a data-model migration, an expand–contract schema change) — which still builds through the normal spec → tickets → build handoff.
Pipeline position: wayfinder (decide) → to-spec (write the spec) → to-tickets (break it into tickets) → implement (build one ticket per session).
Plan, don't do
Each ticket resolves a decision; the map is done when nothing is 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. The one sanctioned do on a map is a task ticket — manual work that unblocks a decision (see ticket types); it resolves like any other ticket and leaves no build state behind. Absent that, produce decisions, not deliverables.
The test on every ticket: can it be answered, or must it be built? Work you would build is not a ticket — it belongs in the spec. Never number build work onto the map. The map holds no build state, so a map carrying build work will keep telling you it is unfinished long after the work ships.
Hand off — don't build. When the decisions are clear, run to-spec once on the map. That closes the map. implement builds the spec's work from a ticket to-tickets wrote, never from the map — the lone exception being a task ticket, which is unblocking work rather than the spec's build.