Work Lifecycle

Work Lifecycle

1. Inspect

Resolve the repository and checkout, read current status, and check whether an Issue, Task, Work, Job, or Run already owns the objective. Avoid duplicate work.

2. Plan the smallest safe unit

Use direct edits for bounded changes. Use durable Tasks, isolated worktrees, or campaigns when work is long-running, parallel, dependency-aware, or high risk.

3. Execute with ownership

A writer must own the relevant repository or runtime resource. Claims, leases, and fencing prevent two actors from silently mutating the same state.

4. Review the actual change

Inspect the localized diff, separate unrelated modifications, and preserve changes whose ownership is not yet known. Never clean a workspace merely to make a check pass.

5. Validate

Run focused checks first, then the declared package or release gate. Managed processes may return a durable handle before completion; retrieve the same operation instead of starting a duplicate.

6. Integrate

Commit explicit paths, merge through the intended strategy, and record the integrated revision. A validation result from a feature branch is not automatically evidence for a different main revision.

7. Finalize and clean

Update task evidence, delete merged branches and temporary worktrees, and verify the target branch is clean. Blocked or failed states remain recoverable; they are not treated as immutable terminal truth.

For detailed lifecycle contracts, see Job and Run Lifecycle.