yoi/.yoi/tickets/open/20260607-230044-relax-implementation-planning-readiness/thread.md

Created

Created by LocalTicketBackend create.

---

Intake summary

Updated/verified existing Ticket as ready for Orchestrator routing. Intent: relax Intake/Planning/Orchestrator/Preflight workflow guidance so readiness is based on clear intent, reviewable acceptance criteria, explicit constraints, and escalation conditions, while preserving bounded coder implementation latitude. Acceptance criteria are observable across workflow wording, intent packet guidance, reviewer guidance, affected prompt/tests if any, and validation commands. needs_preflight: true because this changes workflow policy and orchestration semantics; risk_flags: workflow-policy, orchestration-semantics, reviewer-handoff, prompt-guidance. No duplicate Ticket was created.

---

State changed

Intake completed for existing Ticket. Requirements and acceptance criteria are sufficient for Orchestrator routing; implementation must not start until the user queues the ready Ticket and Orchestrator accepts it.

---

State changed

Ticket queued for Orchestrator routing.

---

Decision

Routing decision: preflight_needed

Reason:

• This Ticket intentionally changes workflow policy and orchestration semantics for Intake, Orchestrator routing, Preflight, and multi-agent coder/reviewer handoff.
• Intake explicitly marked needs_preflight: true with risk flags workflow-policy, orchestration-semantics, reviewer-handoff, and prompt-guidance.
• The desired direction is clear, but implementation should first fix the policy boundary: when bounded coder implementation latitude is acceptable, what remains a binding design/authority decision, and how reviewers should judge deviations.

Evidence checked:

• Ticket body requirements, non-goals, acceptance criteria, and affected workflow paths.
• Intake summary and ready -> queued event.
• Workspace state: no existing branch/worktree for this slug; an unrelated active child worktree/Pod exists for parse-ticket-frontmatter-as-yaml; unrelated untracked Ticket directories are present.
• Visible Pods: intake peer for this Ticket is idle; no coder/reviewer Pods are active for this Ticket.

Next action:

• Run ticket-preflight-workflow before implementation delegation.
• Preflight should record a concise wording/design boundary for:
  • implementation latitude versus binding decisions/invariants;
  • when preflight_needed remains mandatory;
  • what Orchestrator must put in IntentPacket as latitude and escalation conditions;
  • how reviewer instructions should judge against intent/constraints/acceptance rather than unrecorded tactics.
• Do not transition queued -> inprogress, create .worktree/relax-implementation-planning-readiness, or spawn coder/reviewer Pods until preflight records implementation readiness.

Escalate if:

• The wording would weaken authority/product/API/design-boundary gates rather than only narrowing unnecessary preflight churn.
• The change conflicts with current Ticket workflow state semantics or role-launch contracts.
• Prompt/resource changes are required beyond workflow docs and need separate validation scope.

---

Decision

Human decision: human-provided intent can satisfy preflight boundary for this policy cleanup

This Ticket itself exists to relax over-eager preflight/planning gates. The current Orchestrator routed it as preflight_needed mainly because Intake recorded needs_preflight: true and risk flags such as workflow-policy, orchestration-semantics, reviewer-handoff, and prompt-guidance.

That reaction is useful evidence for the problem this Ticket should fix: current guidance can mechanically classify workflow-policy changes as preflight-needed even when the human has already provided the intended boundary.

For this Ticket, additional preflight is not required before implementation if the implementation follows this human decision:

• Prioritize clarifying user/project intent over freezing implementation tactics early.
• Leave bounded implementation-investigation latitude to the coder when the intent, constraints, and acceptance criteria are clear enough for review.
• Reviewer should judge whether the implementation matches recorded intent, explicit constraints, acceptance criteria, and binding design decisions.
• If a design approach/invariant is explicitly recorded by the human, Orchestrator, or Ticket thread, the coder must follow it or escalate/record a justified deviation.
• Preflight remains mandatory when implementation would otherwise silently decide product/API/UX/authority-boundary questions or weaken explicit design constraints.
• needs_preflight: true and risk flags should be treated as strong signals, not unconditional hard blockers, when a human decision has already supplied the missing policy boundary.

Implementation should use this as the binding policy boundary and update workflow wording accordingly. Escalate only if the wording would weaken authority/product/API/design-boundary gates rather than narrowing unnecessary preflight churn.

---