feat(wayfinder): burn research tickets down with subagents

Research stays a real ticket type — it's a shared blocker downstream
decisions hang on, which the frontier's blocking edges exist to render.
What changes is resolution: because research is AFK, charting doesn't
stop and read. After creating the tickets, the charting session fires a
/research subagent for each research ticket to burn it down in parallel,
capturing findings on a throwaway research/<name> branch with a context
pointer.

Charting's "fire the research subagents" step owns how research is
handled; the Ticket Types bullet just names the resolver, and the
one-ticket-per-session rule carries the research exception.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

.changeset/wayfinder-decision-tickets.md

@@ -0,0 +1,7 @@
+---
+"mattpocock-skills": patch
+---
+
+Name the `/wayfinder` unit a **decision ticket**.
+
+People kept reading a wayfinder ticket as an ordinary *implementation* ticket — a slice of a build to execute — when wayfinder uses them as **decision tickets**: questions whose resolution is a decision. The skill description and its opening line now introduce "decision ticket" (and say what makes it one), and the `ask-matt` / engineering README wayfinder blurbs and the docs page match — while "ticket" stays the everyday word once the term is established. `CONTEXT.md` records **Decision ticket** as a domain term so the "avoid: ticket" guidance no longer contradicts wayfinder's deliberate use of the word.

.changeset/wayfinder-research-subagents.md

@@ -0,0 +1,7 @@
+---
+"mattpocock-skills": minor
+---
+
+Wayfinder now burns research tickets down with subagents instead of leaving them parked for a separately-launched session.
+
+Research stays a real ticket type — it's a genuine shared blocker that downstream decisions hang on, and that dependency is exactly what the frontier's blocking edges exist to render. What changes is how it's resolved: because research is AFK, charting doesn't stop and read it. After creating the tickets, the charting session fires a `/research` subagent for each research ticket to burn it down in parallel, capturing the findings on a throwaway `research/<name>` branch with a context pointer. Research tickets are the one exception to *one ticket per session*.

CONTEXT.md

@@ -10,7 +10,10 @@ _Avoid_: backlog manager, backlog backend, issue host
 
 **Issue**:
 A single tracked unit of work inside an **Issue tracker** — a bug, task, spec, or slice produced by `to-tickets`.
-_Avoid_: ticket (use only when quoting external systems that call them tickets)
+_Avoid_: ticket (use only when quoting external systems that call them tickets, or for a **Decision ticket** — see below)
+
+**Decision ticket**:
+A `wayfinder` unit — a child **Issue** of a `wayfinder:map` holding a *question* whose resolution is a decision, not a slice of a build to execute. The **decision** qualifier is what keeps it distinct from an implementation ticket; `wayfinder` introduces the term, then uses "ticket".
 
 **Triage role**:
 A canonical state-machine label applied to an **Issue** during triage (e.g. `needs-triage`, `ready-for-afk`). Each role maps to a real label string in the **Issue tracker** via `docs/agents/triage-labels.md`.
@@ -19,6 +22,7 @@ A canonical state-machine label applied to an **Issue** during triage (e.g. `nee
 
 - An **Issue tracker** holds many **Issues**
 - An **Issue** carries one **Triage role** at a time
+- A **Decision ticket** is an **Issue** (a child of a `wayfinder:map`)
 
 ## Flagged ambiguities
 

docs/engineering/wayfinder.md

@@ -12,7 +12,7 @@ npx skills update wayfinder
 
 ## What it does
 
-`wayfinder` takes an effort too big for one agent session — wrapped in fog, where the way from here to the goal isn't visible yet — and charts it as a **shared map** of investigation tickets on your issue tracker, then resolves them one at a time until the way is clear. It **plans, it doesn't do**: every ticket resolves a decision, and the map is done when nothing is left to decide before someone goes and builds the thing — so it produces decisions, not deliverables.
+`wayfinder` takes an effort too big for one agent session — wrapped in fog, where the way from here to the goal isn't visible yet — and charts it as a **shared map** of **decision tickets** on your issue tracker, then resolves them one at a time until the way is clear. It **plans, it doesn't do**: every ticket resolves a decision — a question to settle, not a slice of a build to execute — and the map is done when nothing is left to decide before someone goes and builds the thing — so it produces decisions, not deliverables.
 
 ## When to reach for it
 
@@ -30,13 +30,13 @@ The **map** is a single `wayfinder:map` issue whose tickets are its child issues
 
 Beyond the live tickets lies the **fog of war** — decisions you can tell are coming but can't yet pin down. The test for whether something is a ticket or still fog is whether you can *state the question precisely now*, not whether you can answer it. Resolving a ticket clears the fog ahead of it, **graduating** whatever's now specifiable into fresh tickets. The **frontier** is the open, unblocked, unclaimed tickets — the edge of the known — and it's what the tracker's native blocking renders visually, so you see what's takeable without opening the map. Fog only gathers *toward* the **destination**; work past it is ruled **out of scope**, closed, never graduating.
 
-Every ticket is **HITL** (human in the loop — grilling, prototype) or **AFK** (agent alone — research); a HITL ticket only resolves through a live exchange, so the agent never answers its own questions.
+Every ticket is **HITL** (human in the loop — grilling, prototype) or **AFK** (agent alone — research); a HITL ticket only resolves through a live exchange, so the agent never answers its own questions. Research stays a real ticket — a shared blocker downstream decisions hang on — but because it's AFK, a session doesn't stop and read: it fires a `/research` **subagent** to burn the ticket down in parallel, keeping the frontier fast, and captures the findings on a throwaway `research/<name>` branch.
 
 ## It's working if
 
 - Naming the **destination** is the first act — before any ticket exists — because it fixes the scope every ticket is measured against.
 - One map is one `wayfinder:map` issue; tickets are its child issues, referred to by **name**, never a bare `#42`.
-- A session resolves **at most one ticket**, records the answer as a resolution comment, closes the ticket, and appends a one-line pointer to *Decisions so far*.
+- A session resolves **at most one ticket** (research tickets excepted), records the answer as a resolution comment, closes the ticket, and appends a one-line pointer to *Decisions so far*.
 - If the opening grill surfaces **no fog**, it stops and tells you the journey is small enough to skip the map.
 
 ## Where it fits

skills/engineering/README.md

@@ -13,7 +13,7 @@ Reachable only when you type them (`disable-model-invocation: true`).
 - **[setup-matt-pocock-skills](./setup-matt-pocock-skills/SKILL.md)** — Configure this repo for the engineering skills (issue tracker, triage labels, domain doc layout). Run once per repo.
 - **[to-spec](./to-spec/SKILL.md)** — Turn the current conversation into a spec and publish it to the issue tracker.
 - **[to-tickets](./to-tickets/SKILL.md)** — Break any plan, spec, or conversation into a set of tracer-bullet tickets, each declaring its blocking edges — text in a local file, or native blocking links on a real tracker.
-- **[wayfinder](./wayfinder/SKILL.md)** — Plan a huge chunk of work — more than one agent session can hold — as a shared map of investigation tickets on the issue tracker, resolved one at a time until the way to the destination is clear.
+- **[wayfinder](./wayfinder/SKILL.md)** — Plan a huge chunk of work — more than one agent session can hold — as a shared map of decision tickets on the issue tracker, resolved one at a time until the way to the destination is clear.
 
 ## Model-invoked
 

skills/engineering/ask-matt/SKILL.md

@@ -41,7 +41,7 @@ A starting situation that generates work, then merges onto the main flow.
 
 - **Something's broken** → **`/diagnosing-bugs`**. For the hard ones: the bug that resists a first glance, the intermittent flake, the regression that crept in between two known-good states. It refuses to theorise until it has a **tight feedback loop** — one command that already goes red on *this* bug — then fixes with a regression test. Its post-mortem hands off to **`/improve-codebase-architecture`** when the real finding is that there's no good seam to lock the bug down.
 
-- **A huge, foggy effort — a greenfield project or a huge feature build, too big for one session** → **`/wayfinder`**, the most cognitively demanding flow here. When the way from here to the destination isn't visible yet, it charts a **shared map** of investigation tickets on the issue tracker and resolves them one at a time — producing **decisions, not deliverables** — until the fog is pushed back and the way is clear. Where **`/grill-with-docs`** sharpens an idea you can hold in one session, wayfinder is for the idea you can't — and it's slower and denser, so save it for exactly that, never a well-scoped feature.
+- **A huge, foggy effort — a greenfield project or a huge feature build, too big for one session** → **`/wayfinder`**, the most cognitively demanding flow here. When the way from here to the destination isn't visible yet, it charts a **shared map** of **decision tickets** on the issue tracker and resolves them one at a time — producing **decisions, not deliverables** — until the fog is pushed back and the way is clear. Where **`/grill-with-docs`** sharpens an idea you can hold in one session, wayfinder is for the idea you can't — and it's slower and denser, so save it for exactly that, never a well-scoped feature.
 
   When the map clears, **it hands off, it doesn't build**: merge onto the main flow at **`/to-spec`**, which collapses the map's linked decisions into a buildable plan, then `/to-tickets` and `/implement` as usual. Looping the map straight into `/implement` skips that collapse and throws the linked detail away — go straight to `/implement` only when the effort turned out genuinely small.
 

skills/engineering/wayfinder/SKILL.md

@@ -1,10 +1,10 @@
 ---
 name: wayfinder
-description: Plan a huge chunk of work — more than one agent session can hold — as a shared map of investigation tickets on your issue tracker, and resolve them one at a time until the way to the destination is clear.
+description: Plan a huge chunk of work — more than one agent session can hold — as a shared map of decision tickets on your issue tracker, and resolve them one at a time until the way to the destination is clear.
 disable-model-invocation: true
 ---
 
-A loose idea has arrived — too big for one agent session, and wrapped in fog: the way from here to the **destination** isn't visible yet. Wayfinding is about finding that way, not charging at the destination. This skill charts the way as a **shared map** on the repo's issue tracker, then works its tickets one at a time until the route is clear.
+A loose idea has arrived — too big for one agent session, and wrapped in fog: the way from here to the **destination** isn't visible yet. Wayfinding is about finding that way, not charging at the destination. This skill charts the way as a **shared map** on the repo's issue tracker, then works its **decision tickets** — questions whose resolution is a decision, not slices of a build to execute — one at a time until the route is clear.
 
 The destination varies per effort, and naming it is the first act of charting — it shapes every ticket. It might be a spec to hand off and iterate on, a decision to lock before planning starts, or a change made in place like a data-structure migration. The map is domain-agnostic — engineering work, course content, whatever fits the shape.
 
@@ -74,7 +74,7 @@ The answer isn't part of the body — it's recorded on resolution (see [Work thr
 
 Every ticket is either **HITL** — human in the loop, worked *with* a human who speaks for themselves — or **AFK**, driven by the agent alone. A HITL ticket only resolves through that live exchange; the agent never stands in for the human's side of it (a grilling agent that answers its own questions has broken this).
 
-- **Research** (AFK): Reading documentation, third-party APIs, or local resources like knowledge bases. Creates a markdown summary as a linked asset. Use when knowledge outside the current working directory is required.
+- **Research** (AFK): Reading documentation, third-party APIs, or local resources like knowledge bases to surface a fact a decision waits on. Resolved by a `/research` **subagent**. Use when knowledge outside the current working directory is required.
 - **Prototype** (HITL): Raise the fidelity of the discussion by making a cheap, rough, concrete artifact to react to — an outline, a rough take, a stub, or UI/logic code via the /prototype skill. Links the prototype as an asset. Use when "how should it look" or "how should it behave" is the key question.
 - **Grilling** (HITL): Conversation via the /grilling and /domain-modeling skills, one question at a time. The default case.
 - **Task** (HITL or AFK): Manual work that must happen before a *decision* can be made — nothing to decide, prototype, or research, but the discussion is blocked until it's done. Signing up for a service so its API can be judged, provisioning access, moving data so its shape can be seen. This is the one type that *does* rather than decides — and it earns its place by unblocking a decision, not by delivering the destination. The agent drives it alone where it can (AFK); otherwise it hands the human a precise checklist (HITL). Resolved when the work is done; the answer records what was done and any resulting facts (credentials location, new URLs, row counts) later tickets depend on.
@@ -102,7 +102,7 @@ Ruling something out of scope is a scoping act, not a step on the route. When a
 
 ## Invocation
 
-Two modes. Either way, **never resolve more than one ticket per session.**
+Two modes. Either way, **never resolve more than one ticket per session** — with the exception of research tickets.
 
 ### Chart the map
 
@@ -112,7 +112,8 @@ User invokes with a loose idea.
 2. **Map the frontier.** Grill again, **breadth-first** this time: fan out across the whole space rather than deep on any one thread, surfacing the open decisions and the first steps takeable now. **If this surfaces no fog** — the way to the destination is already clear, the whole journey small enough for one session — you don't need a map. Stop and ask the user how they'd like to proceed.
 3. **Create the map** (label `wayfinder:map`): Destination and Notes filled in, Decisions-so-far empty, the fog sketched into **Not yet specified**.
 4. **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 — the **Not yet specified** section.
-5. Stop — charting the map is one session's work; do not also resolve tickets.
+5. **Fire the research subagents.** For each `research` ticket you just created, spin up a `/research` subagent to resolve it in parallel, capturing its findings on a throwaway `research/<name>` branch with a context pointer from the ticket.
+6. Stop — charting is one session's work; it hand-resolves nothing.
 
 ### Work through the map