refactor(wayfinder): fog-vs-ticket test as a list

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>

skills/in-progress/wayfinder/SKILL.md

@@ -4,34 +4,47 @@ description: Chart a route through a foggy problem — turn a loose idea into a
 disable-model-invocation: true
 ---
 
-A loose idea has arrived — too big for one agent session, and wrapped in fog: the route from here to a plan isn't visible yet. This skill charts it as a **shared map** on the repo's issue tracker, then works its tickets one at a time until the way to the goal is clear. Because the map lives on the tracker, multiple people can watch it, comment on tickets, and pick up the frontier — the chart is a shared artifact, not a private file. The map is domain-agnostic — engineering work, course content, whatever fits the shape.
+A loose idea has arrived — too big for one agent session, and wrapped in fog: the route from here to a plan isn't visible yet. This skill charts it as a **shared map** on the repo's issue tracker, then works its tickets one at a time. The map is domain-agnostic — engineering work, course content, whatever fits the shape.
 
 ## The Map
 
-The map is a single issue on this repo's issue tracker: one shared object — one URL — that the whole team reads and comments on. It is labelled `wayfinder:map`, and it is the canonical artifact. Its tickets are child issues of the map.
+The map is a single issue on this repo's issue tracker, labelled `wayfinder:map` — the canonical artifact. Its tickets are child issues of the map.
 
 **Where the map, its child tickets, blocking, and frontier queries physically live is tracker-specific.** Consult `docs/agents/issue-tracker.md` (the "Wayfinding operations" section) for how *this* repo expresses them. If that doc is absent, default to the local-markdown tracker.
 
 ### The map body
 
-Three compact zones — this is the whole map at low resolution, loaded once per session:
+The whole map at low resolution, loaded once per session. Open tickets are **not** listed — they are open child issues, found by query.
 
-- **Notes** — the domain, any skills every session should consult, and freeform standing preferences for this effort.
-- **Decisions so far** — one *context pointer* per closed ticket: a short gist plus a link to the closed issue where the full answer lives. Enough to judge relevance; zoom through the link for detail.
-- **Fog** — terse prose naming what's dimly visible beyond the frontier. Not tickets yet.
+```markdown
+## Notes
+<domain; skills every session should consult; standing preferences for this effort>
 
-Open tickets are **not** listed here — they are open child issues, found by query.
+## Decisions so far
+<!-- one context pointer per closed ticket — enough to judge relevance; zoom the link for detail -->
+- [<closed ticket title>](<link>) — <one-line gist of the answer>
+
+## Fog
+<!-- see "Fog of war" for what belongs here -->
+```
 
 ### Tickets
 
-Each ticket is a **child issue** of the map; the tracker's issue id is its identity. Its body holds the **question**. Two label families:
+Each ticket is a **child issue** of the map; the tracker's issue id is its identity. Its body is the question, sized to one 100K token agent session:
+
+```markdown
+## Question
+<the decision or investigation this ticket resolves>
+```
+
+Two label families:
 
 - `wayfinder:<type>` — one of `research`, `prototype`, `grilling`, `task` (see [Ticket Types](#ticket-types)).
 - `wayfinder:claimed` — a session sets this **first**, before any work, so concurrent sessions skip it.
 
 Blocking uses the tracker's native semantics. A ticket is **unblocked** when every ticket blocking it is closed. The **frontier** is the open, unblocked, unclaimed children — the edge of the known.
 
-Each ticket must be sized to one 100K token agent session. Assets created while resolving a ticket are linked from the issue, not pasted into it.
+The answer isn't part of the body — it's recorded on resolution (see [Work through the map](#work-through-the-map)). Assets created while resolving a ticket are linked from the issue, not pasted in.
 
 ## Ticket Types
 
@@ -42,7 +55,16 @@ Each ticket must be sized to one 100K token agent session. Assets created while
 
 ## Fog of war
 
-The map is _deliberately_ incomplete beyond the frontier — don't chart what you can't yet see. What is dimly visible but not yet actionable lives as **Fog** prose in the map body, never as speculative tickets; only the frontier becomes real issues. The frontier is the unblocked tickets at the edge of the known; resolve them to push it forward, graduating fog into fresh tickets as it comes into focus. Push back the fog of war one ticket at a time, until the way to the goal is clear and no tickets remain.
+The map is _deliberately_ incomplete: don't chart what you can't yet see. Beyond the tickets lies fog — the dim view of decisions and investigations you can tell are coming but can't yet pin down, because they hang on questions still open. Resolving a ticket clears the fog ahead of it, graduating whatever's now specifiable into fresh tickets — one at a time, until the way to the goal is clear and no tickets remain.
+
+The map's **Fog** section is where that dim view is written down: the suspected question, the area to revisit later, the risk you're deferring. Write as loosely or as fully as the view allows; it doubles as a signpost for collaborators reading where the effort is headed.
+
+**Fog or ticket?** The test is whether you can state the question precisely now — _not_ whether you can answer it now.
+
+- **Ticket when** the question is already sharp — even if it's blocked and you can't act on it yet.
+- **Fog when** you can't yet phrase it that sharply. Don't pre-slice fog into ticket-sized pieces: it's coarser than a ticket, and one patch may graduate into several tickets, or none, once the frontier reaches it.
+
+Fog excludes only what's already decided (that's Decisions so far) and what's already a ticket.
 
 ## Invocation
 
@@ -54,26 +76,25 @@ User invokes with a loose idea.
 
 1. Run a `/grilling` and `/domain-modeling` session to surface the open decisions.
 2. **Create the map** (label `wayfinder:map`): Notes filled in, Decisions-so-far empty, Fog sketched.
-3. **Create the frontier tickets** as child issues of the map — then wire blocking edges in a **second pass** (issues need ids before they can reference each other).
-4. Leave everything past the frontier as fog — don't chart what you can't see.
-5. Handoff. Charting the map is one session's work; do not also resolve tickets.
+3. **Create the tickets you can specify now** as child issues of the map — then wire blocking edges in a **second pass** (issues need ids before they can reference each other). Wiring sorts them into the frontier and the blocked; everything you can't yet specify stays in the Fog.
+4. Handoff. Charting the map is one session's work; do not also resolve tickets.
 
 ### Work through the map
 
 User invokes with a map (URL or number). A ticket is **optional** — without one, you pick the next decision, not the user.
 
-1. Load the **map** — the low-res view (Notes, decision pointers, fog). Not every ticket body.
-2. Choose the ticket. If the user named one, use it. Otherwise query the frontier and take the first open, unblocked, unclaimed child in order. **Claim it**: set `wayfinder:claimed` and save before any work.
+1. Load the **map** — the low-res view, not every ticket body.
+2. Choose the ticket. If the user named one, use it. Otherwise take the first frontier ticket in order. **Claim it**: set `wayfinder:claimed` and save before any work.
 3. Resolve it — **zoom as needed**: fetch the full body of any related or closed ticket on demand; invoke the skills the `## Notes` block names. If in doubt, use `/grilling` and `/domain-modeling`.
 4. Record the resolution: post the answer as a **resolution comment**, **close** the issue, and **append a context pointer** to the map's Decisions-so-far.
-5. Add newly-surfaced frontier tickets (create-then-wire); graduate fog that's now actionable. If the decision invalidates other parts of the map, update or delete those tickets.
+5. Add newly-surfaced tickets (create-then-wire); graduate any fog the answer has made specifiable. If the decision invalidates other parts of the map, update or delete those tickets.
 6. Handoff.
 
 The user may run unblocked tickets in parallel, so expect other sessions to be editing the tracker concurrently.
 
 ## Handoff
 
-End every session by clearing the context and opening one or more fresh sessions. Close with a **Next steps** block the user can copy-paste. Two cases:
+End every session with a **Next steps** block the user can copy-paste. Two cases:
 
 **Open tickets remain.** Query the map for the currently-unblocked children, then give two copy-paste options: a bare command for one session (you pick the next ticket), and one pinned command per unblocked ticket for running them in parallel. Paste one line per fresh window — opening one, some, or all of them.