Backlog Hygiene, Label Cleanup, and Cycle Rebaseline

Date: 2026-03-22 Linear issue: Sub-issue of CWS-81 Status: Implemented

Objective

Bring the Linear backlog, repo planning docs, branch conventions, and repo-flow skill into a consistent, platform-agnostic, post-CWS-82 state. This is a one-time cleanup that resolves accumulated drift from the workspace rebaseline (CWS-80), dual-platform pivot (CWS-82), and priority restack.

Context

The backlog has accumulated several categories of drift:

Decision: Soft Cycles

Cycles are soft containers. Spillover is expected and items carry forward. No rigid sprint boundaries. The WIP cap (5 active, 3 agent-executable) provides flow discipline. A 30-second “what spilled and why?” gut check at cycle end provides the feedback loop.

Linear Ticket

Phase 1 — Linear Mutations

Issues to Close/Cancel

Issue Action Rationale
CWS-1, 2, 3, 4 Cancel Linear onboarding noise
CWS-7 Audit-close Label taxonomy exists (39 labels), cleanup is happening now
CWS-44 Close after agent-context.md fix File exists and is maintained, schema just needs alignment

Issues to Update

Issue Changes
CWS-63 Low priority, ORCHESTRATION/M4, blockedBy CWS-55
CWS-83, 84, 85, 86, 87 Low priority, defer past April 19; add history cleanup note to CWS-83 description
CWS-90 Medium priority; update scope to repo-level allow rules only (hard security lives in user-level hooks)
CWS-14 Add comment: voice profile interview session required; blocks CWS-24/40/46/47/51
CWS-25, 32 Wire blockedBy CWS-13 (Vale config prerequisite)
CWS-88, 89, 91 Assign milestone M2 Tooling Foundation
CWS-66, 67, 68, 70, 71, 72 Assign milestones; rename titles to platform-agnostic
CWS-29, 39, 58 Rename titles to platform-agnostic
CWS-21 Evaluate priority bump (post CWS-82 PR decomposition lesson)
CWS-81 Update remaining scope comment (what’s left after this cleanup)

Project Updates

Remove target dates from all 4 projects:

Label Cleanup (39 → 15)

Keep (15):

Label Purpose
Spec Has written specification
Ready Pickup-ready, no blockers
agent-task Work to be executed by an AI agent (update description to platform-agnostic)
human-task Human executes
Infra Infrastructure/tooling domain
Workflow Process/workflow domain
epic:dx-setup DX setup epic (absorbs epic:adr, epic:dor-dod)
epic:editorial-qa Editorial quality epic (absorbs epic:publish-draft)
epic:ci-pipeline CI pipeline epic (absorbs epic:git-hooks)
epic:safety Safety and security epic (absorbs epic:security)
epic:skills Skill authoring epic
epic:reasoning Reasoning skills epic (absorbs epic:triggers)
epic:slack Slack integration epic
epic:dispatch Dispatch workflow epic
epic:agents-config Agent config epic

Delete (24): Dev, Refinement-Needed, Merge-Ready, Review, Implementation, Editorial-Update, Editorial-New, Hybrid, Improvement, Feature, Bug, Agent, Human, Waiting-Agent, Waiting-Human, Linear, Codex, epic:dor-dod, epic:adr, epic:publish-draft, epic:git-hooks, epic:security

Before deleting, relabel affected issues: migrate issues from absorbed epics to their new parent epic label.

Cycle Layout Rewrite

Rewrite docs/planning/linear-reorg-2026-03.md cycle allocations based on:

Phase 2 — Repo Changes (Graphite Stack)

Stack Structure

4 stacked PRs, each a single logical concern. Merge with gt merge (full stack).

PR # Scope Branch Slug Key Files
1 (base) Branch prefix rename codex/ → cws/ cws/<id>-branch-prefix-rename ~15 files, mechanical
2 AGENTS.md label taxonomy + agent-context.md rewrite cws/<id>-label-taxonomy-agent-context AGENTS.md, docs/agent-context.md
3 repo-flow skill hardening cws/<id>-repo-flow-hardening SKILL.md, branch-pr-merge.md
4 (top) Planning doc rewrite + task file cws/<id>-planning-doc-rewrite linear-reorg-2026-03.md, docs/tasks/

Stack Workflow

  1. git checkout -b cws/<id>-branch-prefix-rename main → gt track --parent main
  2. Commit PR 1 changes → gt create --all -m "refactor: rename branch prefix codex/ to cws/"
  3. Commit PR 2 changes → gt create --all -m "chore: add label taxonomy and rewrite agent-context"
  4. Commit PR 3 changes → gt create --all -m "chore: harden repo-flow skill per CWS-82 lessons"
  5. Commit PR 4 changes → gt create --all -m "docs: rewrite cycle layout and planning doc"
  6. gt submit --stack --no-interactive --publish
  7. Merge: gt merge (full stack, not individual PRs)

The base branch (PR 1) uses the NEW prefix convention being introduced.

Branch Prefix Rename (codex/ → cws/)

Convention change: codex/cws-<id>-<slug> becomes cws/<id>-<slug>. Phase branches: codex/phase-<n>-<slug> becomes cws/phase-<n>-<slug>.

The .codex/ directory is unchanged — that is the Codex platform config directory.

Files to update (~15):

Convention files:

Scripts with regex validation:

Docs referencing convention:

Historical task files (leave unchanged):

agent-context.md Rewrite

Rewrite docs/agent-context.md to match the CWS-44 schema with all 8 required sections:

  1. Last Synced From Linear
  2. Stale After
  3. Active Phase
  4. Top Priorities
  5. Open Decisions
  6. Active Risks
  7. Next 10 Actions
  8. Recent Completions

Move current “Confirmed Baseline” and “Lessons Learned” content to docs/planning/linear-reorg-2026-03.md. Remove ad hoc “Backlog” section (belongs in Linear).

AGENTS.md Updates

Add ## Label Taxonomy section listing the 15 approved labels with the rule: “Do not create new labels without human approval.”

Update branch prefix in Task-File Convention section.

repo-flow Skill Hardening

Update .agents/skills/repo-flow/SKILL.md per agentskills.io best practices and CWS-82 lessons:

Add Gotchas section:

Add MUST NOT rules to Rules section:

Add validation loop pattern:

Add cross-skill references (Claude Code plugin skills — MUST be invoked during execution):

Update branch prefix from codex/* to cws/*.

Update references/branch-pr-merge.md with matching prefix changes.

Planning Doc Update

Rewrite docs/planning/linear-reorg-2026-03.md:

Task File

Create docs/tasks/CWS-<id>.md for this issue before PR creation.

Validation

Integration

Out of Scope