yoi/.yoi/tickets/open/20260607-223233-parse-ticket-frontmatter-as-yaml/item.md

id	slug	title	status	kind	priority	labels	workflow_state	created_at	updated_at	assignee	legacy_ticket	queued_by	queued_at
20260607-223233-parse-ticket-frontmatter-as-yaml	parse-ticket-frontmatter-as-yaml	Parse Ticket frontmatter as YAML	open	task	P1	ticket yaml parser bug panel	inprogress	2026-06-07T22:32:33Z	2026-06-07T23:25:23Z	null	null	workspace-panel	2026-06-07T22:43:03Z

Background

Ticket item.md frontmatter is written in YAML-like syntax and uses YAML null values such as:

assignee: null
legacy_ticket: null
attention_required: null
queued_by: null
queued_at: null

However the current Ticket frontmatter parsing path treats many scalar values as raw strings. Some fields have ad-hoc "null" filtering, but newer nullable fields such as attention_required can be read as Some("null") instead of None.

Observed bug:

• workspace-panel-nonblocking-transitions has:

workflow_state: intake
attention_required: null

• Panel should derive Clarify from workflow_state: intake.
• Instead, attention_required is interpreted as set and Panel derives Edit with an attention_required is set blocker.

YAML null is valid YAML; the bug is that Ticket frontmatter is not consistently parsed as YAML/null-aware data.

Goal

Parse Ticket frontmatter as YAML data, or otherwise provide a YAML-compatible typed parsing layer, so nullable fields, lists, booleans, and strings are interpreted consistently with the file format.

Requirements

• Replace or wrap the current raw string frontmatter parsing for Ticket item.md with a YAML-aware parser.
• YAML null forms should parse as absent/None for nullable fields:
  • null
  • Null
  • NULL
  • ~
  • empty value where YAML treats it as null
• Preserve existing Ticket records and doctor compatibility.
• Preserve current emitted frontmatter format unless intentionally changed and documented.
• Parse list fields such as labels / risk_flags as YAML sequences when present.
• Preserve tolerant behavior for existing simple inline list syntax, quoted strings, and old optional fields.
• Ensure optional string fields do not treat the literal YAML null as meaningful text.
• Avoid broad Ticket schema redesign in this ticket; focus on parsing correctness.
• Update tests to cover YAML null/list/bool behavior and the panel attention_required: null regression.

Candidate affected fields

At minimum verify:

• assignee
• legacy_ticket
• readiness
• needs_preflight
• risk_flags
• action_required
• workflow_state
• attention_required
• queued_by
• queued_at
• labels

Acceptance criteria

• A Ticket with attention_required: null is parsed with attention_required == None.
• A Ticket with workflow_state: intake and attention_required: null derives Panel action Clarify, not Edit.
• Existing nullable fields no longer rely on per-field ad-hoc string "null" filtering.
• YAML sequence labels/risk flags parse correctly.
• Existing Ticket fixture tests and target/debug/yoi ticket doctor pass.
• Focused tests cover null variants (null, ~, empty), quoted literal string values where appropriate, and regression behavior.
• cargo test -p ticket ... --lib, cargo test -p tui workspace_panel --lib, cargo fmt --check, and git diff --check pass.