[Agent · Phase 1] idea_selector

[jeremymanning]

Parent phase: #45

Purpose

Decide whether a fleshed-out idea should be promoted to a Spec Kit project.

What it produces / drives

Sets current_stage to flesh_out_complete (promote) or back to brainstormed (reject).

Dependencies

This agent depends on output from: flesh_out

Acceptance criteria

• Only promotes ideas with verified citations
• Rejects ideas requiring resources outside the GHA-feasible budget
• Records rationale in run-log entry's failure_reason (when rejecting)

Manual test plan

1. Run flesh_out manually until you have an idea.md
2. Trigger idea_selector via --max-tasks 1
3. Verify the project either advances to project_initialized OR the run-log entry shows reasoned rejection

Implementation pointer

• Registry entry: agents/registry.yaml → name: idea_selector
• Prompt: agents/prompts/idea_selector.md
• Code: search src/llmxive/ for the class

[jeremymanning]

Closing as superseded by spec 003.

Diagnostic finding (D11): IdeaSelectorAgent exists in the codebase (src/llmxive/agents/idea_lifecycle.py, registered in agents/registry.yaml) but no Stage maps to it in STAGE_TO_AGENT. The class is unreachable through the orchestrator's normal flow — calls to advance flesh_out_complete projects went directly to project_initializer, never invoking idea_selector.

Spec 003 introduced a new research_question_validator agent between flesh_out and project_initializer that effectively serves the role idea_selector was supposed to play (final gate before project initialization, with a four-check audit + maintainer-endorsement workflow). The validator is wired in, runs in production, and was demonstrated end-to-end on PROJ-261 + PROJ-262.

If a separate idea_selector step is wanted in the future (e.g., to rank multiple fleshed-out ideas and pick the highest-scoring), that's a different feature and should be tracked as a new issue. The existing IdeaSelectorAgent class + agents/prompts/idea_selector.md remain in the codebase as deferred work but are not part of the current Phase 1 pipeline.

See diagnostic report Section 3 / Research-question validator and Section 6 D11 entry.