Example project — Frond is not real.
Authored demo content for a fictional plant-care app, rendered by the same parsers and held to the same invariants as a real project's dashboard. This is the system in use, three months in.
The work, the strategy, and the rules — rendered from docs/ on every commit.
Work
What's moving — the active board and the queues that feed it.
Starting a sessionmatch what you're holding to a shapeHow we work →
A new idea nobody is doing yetQueue-shapingqueue-shaping
"Shape the queue: watering streaks keeps coming up and there's no row for it."
The queue-shaping phase: capture the idea and its context as a row + seed, for phases of any mode — product builds, sweeps, research alike (§ The queue-shaping phase). It ends at the shaped queue: a queued phase launches in its own session, with fresh eyes on the seed. Can't wait? Skip the queue and open a collapsed board directly; a split phase still opens from its seed, which a fresh open chat picks up next.
The next queued thing, ready to planPhase from the queuefrom its seed
"Open [phase name] from the queue."
The open kind: the seed names the mode — product, system or side — and this session verifies the seed, orients, agrees scope and writes the board, Levels line included; row and seed leave the queue. A board with no Levels line keeps this same chat for the whole arc — the collapsed default. One that declares levels ends here at the committed board, and the next kind arrives fresh.
A pile of small fixes or tracker itemsSweepside
"Run a side phase, sweep: P07 · P12 · §5."
The side phase, in its sweep kind. Tracker-born: pull the items onto a light board and open directly — no queue row needed. A sweep can also be a verification pass over shipped work.
Something to understand before anything gets decidedResearchside
"Run a side phase, research: explore §2 before we commit."
The side phase, in its research kind. Lands a doc in strategy/research/ and updates the tracker that asked — understanding is the deliverable, not code.
Friction with the system itself — docs, rules, dashboardSystem phasesystem
"Run a system phase: the close ritual keeps missing X."
The system phase itself, no kind. Name the friction and agree the scope before touching anything; system work is always done with the PO.
Template changes past your markerUpgradesystem
"Run a system phase, upgrade."
The system phase, in its upgrade kind, on a collapsed board in one chat: read the template's changelog entries past the marker in docs/upstream.md, adopt, adapt or decline each, and set the marker (§ The upgrade kind).
An open board from an earlier chatContinuationthe board's
"Continue the [phase name] board."
Not a new phase — the board's own mode carries on, so its rituals are already set. Commit anything stranded first (the session-end rule), then keep working the board.
A board waiting at its next kindKind chatthe board's
"Build the [phase name] board." · "Survey the [run name] run." · "Deepen the [phase name] board." · "Close the [phase name] board."
The queue row's continuation when the board split the phase (§ The phase pipeline): the chat sets the board active and runs the kind its stage: names, at the level the Levels line declares for it — build or basic layer builds, verifying the board as leads; survey walks the whole run with the PO; deepen makes one surface good; close — always a fresh chat — reads the phase's documents cold and runs the close. Each chat's level is fixed at its open.
Questions, reading, thinking out loudNot a phase yet—
"How does the watering model work?"
No mode, no board — reading is never gated. The first edit is the line: at it, name the shape that fits and open its board (see the shared rules).
Structure
What the project is made of — features, strategy, the docs, the shipped record.
Method
How we work — the modes and rituals every phase runs by.