Decision: the blockers list — work only your hands can do (BL1–BL4)

[obotclaw[bot]]

The question. Last night produced a recurring category our lanes don't hold: work only your hands can do — classifier-gated settings writes, account grants, interactive logins. You asked for a plan for a formal, local-only blockers list, with security thought through. This thread is where you answer.

Full argument: https://jwildfire.github.io/obot.roadmap/reports/decisions/2026-08-15-blockers-list/ (four calls, BL1–BL4)

BL1 — the test. One sentence: if the fix is fully specified and the only missing ingredient is your keyboard, it's a blocker; if a one-word "yes" would let an agent do it, it's an approval ask or a decision instead. Recommend: adopt.

BL2 — where it lives. Recommend a single local file at the workspace root's .claude/blockers.md — the workspace root is not a git repository, so no git add -A in any repo can sweep it and the hub deploy (which copies reports/ wholesale — verified in the workflow) can never reach it — plus a LOCAL-ONLY sentinel in the file and a deploy-time guard that fails the site build if the sentinel ever appears in the assembled output. Alternatives priced honestly in the artifact: private-repo file, private-repo issues, agent memory, ~/.claude/.

BL3 — how agents write it. A blocker-log script mirroring scratchpad-log: sub-10-second capture, schema'd one-line entries carrying a paste-ready fix command and a verified-date. Recommend: build it.

BL4 — how it reaches you. Full list only on LOCAL surfaces: a section on the session dashboard, plus a /session-blockers walkthrough that hands you one item at a time with the exact command to paste. Published surfaces (daily briefing, diary) carry a count only, never item text — handed to the briefing design in #158 as a section spec, not a competing surface. Recommend: adopt, with the count-only rule as a hard line.

Seeded tonight: 6 open items, 3 resolved kept as lifecycle evidence, 3 near-misses — written to the local file only; the artifact describes categories and never publishes the live inventory.

Defaults are fine: replying "adopt all" takes every recommendation. Or answer BL1–BL4 individually.

---

This decision artifact was drafted by Claude Code using Fable 5 in an unattended sibling session (👯🤖 blocklist) and has not been reviewed by @jwildfire.