Add changeset for the self-grilling fix

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

.changeset/to-issues-sub-issues-and-prototype.md

@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+---
+"mattpocock-skills": minor
+---
+
+Sharpen how the **`to-issues`** skill records structure. The "What to build" template now adds a context pointer to where the **`/prototype`** skill's code lives, rather than inlining a snippet from it. And publishing now prefers the tracker's **native sub-issues** for parent → slice and **native blocking edges** for `Blocked by` where the tracker supports them (mechanics already live in the issue-tracker doc), keeping the `## Parent` / `## Blocked by` body sections as the fallback.

.changeset/wayfinder-deferred-section.md

@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+---
+"mattpocock-skills": minor
+---
+
+Give **`wayfinder`** a first-class notion of **out of scope**, separate from fog.
+
+Fog and out-of-scope were conflated under one `## Fog` map section, gated by different things: fog by *knowledge* (can't specify it yet — in scope, unripe, graduates as the frontier advances), out-of-scope by *scope* (beyond the destination — never graduates). Cramming both under "Fog" made out-of-scope work read as takeable frontier (an unblocked, unclaimed item is indistinguishable from a live ticket).
+
+Now the map body has two plainly-named sections — **`## Not yet specified`** and **`## Out of scope`** — and the skill's prose splits to match: the **Fog of war** section teaches only the not-yet-specified bucket and keeps the two-way *fog-or-ticket* sharpness test, while a new **Out of scope** section owns the scope axis (beyond the destination, closed not graduating, returns only as a fresh effort if the destination is redrawn). Charting and working-the-map now rule a beyond-destination ticket out of scope — close it, one line in *Out of scope* — rather than leaving it on the frontier or logging it in *Decisions so far*.
+
+The **fog of war** leading word is retained: it names the concept and drives the graduate-the-fog behavior in the prose; only the human-facing map headings go to plain language.

.changeset/wayfinder-destination-purpose.md

@@ -0,0 +1,7 @@
+---
+"mattpocock-skills": minor
+---
+
+Sharpen **`wayfinder`**'s top-level purpose around **destination** as the leading word: wayfinding finds the *way* to a destination, it doesn't charge at building it.
+
+The opening now states that the destination varies per effort — a spec to hand off and iterate, a decision to lock before planning, or a change made in place like a data-structure migration — and that naming it is the first act of charting, because it shapes every ticket. The map body gains a `## Destination` field that every session orients to before choosing a ticket, and triage's first step now pins the destination before any ticket exists. The stray `goal` mentions in the description and Fog section are unified onto `destination`.

.changeset/wayfinder-grilling-not-self.md

@@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
+---
+"mattpocock-skills": patch
+---
+
+Stop **`wayfinder`** grilling *itself* instead of the human, and classify ticket types by **HITL** / **AFK**.
+
+Students reported `/wayfinder` picking a **grilling** ticket and answering its own questions rather than turning to the human. Root cause: **`grilling`** carried a line written for the live-human case — "If a question can be answered by exploring the codebase, explore the codebase instead" — which, once `wayfinder` runs grilling inside a resolve-the-ticket frame, reads as license to answer questions autonomously and race the ticket to "resolved".
+
+Two changes:
+
+- **`grilling`** now splits *facts* (look them up) from *decisions* (put each one to the human and wait for their answer).
+- **`wayfinder`** labels every ticket type **HITL** (human in the loop — Prototype, Grilling) or **AFK** (agent alone — Research; Task is either). A HITL ticket only resolves through the live exchange, so the "wait for the human" behaviour falls out of the label instead of being spelled out per type — a grilling agent that answers its own questions has, by definition, broken HITL.

.changeset/wayfinder-no-fog-early-exit.md

@@ -0,0 +1,9 @@
+---
+"mattpocock-skills": patch
+---
+
+Restore **`wayfinder`**'s early exit when the frontier grilling turns up no fog.
+
+The skill used to have a **Skipping The Decision Map** section: if the opening grilling surfaced no fog of war, there was no map to build, so it offered to skip straight to implementing. That clause was demoted to a parenthetical inside the Handoff section, then deleted as collateral when Handoff was removed — never an intentional cut.
+
+It's back, co-located in **Chart the map** step 2 (Map the frontier), where the fog/no-fog outcome is actually determined: if breadth-first grilling surfaces no fog — the journey is small enough for one session — you don't need a map, so stop and ask the user how they'd like to proceed. The ask, rather than an auto-skip, is preserved from the original.

skills/engineering/to-issues/SKILL.md

@@ -54,7 +54,7 @@ Iterate until the user approves the breakdown.
 
 For each approved slice, publish a new issue to the issue tracker. Use the issue body template below. These issues are considered ready for AFK agents, so publish them with the correct triage label unless instructed otherwise.
 
-Publish issues in dependency order (blockers first) so you can reference real issue identifiers in the "Blocked by" field.
+Publish issues in dependency order (blockers first) so you can reference real issue identifiers. Where the tracker supports it, link each slice to its parent as a native **sub-issue** and wire each blocker as a native **blocking edge** (mechanics in the issue-tracker doc); the `## Parent` and `## Blocked by` body sections are the fallback otherwise.
 
 <issue-template>
 ## Parent
@@ -65,7 +65,7 @@ A reference to the parent issue on the issue tracker (if the source was an exist
 
 A concise description of this vertical slice. Describe the end-to-end behavior, not layer-by-layer implementation.
 
-Avoid specific file paths or code snippets — they go stale fast. Exception: if a prototype produced a snippet that encodes a decision more precisely than prose can (state machine, reducer, schema, type shape), inline it here and note briefly that it came from a prototype. Trim to the decision-rich parts — not a working demo, just the important bits.
+Avoid specific file paths or code snippets — they go stale fast. Exception: if the `/prototype` skill produced code that encodes a decision more precisely than prose can (state machine, reducer, schema, type shape), add a context pointer to where that prototype code lives rather than inlining it.
 
 ## Acceptance criteria
 

skills/in-progress/wayfinder/SKILL.md

@@ -1,9 +1,15 @@
 ---
 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 goal is clear.
+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.
 ---
 
-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.
+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.
+
+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.
+
+## Plan, don't do
+
+Wayfinder is **planning** by default: each ticket resolves a decision, and the map is done when the way is clear — nothing left to decide before someone goes and does the thing. The pull to just do the work is usually the signal you've reached the edge of the map and it's time to hand off. An effort can override this in its **Notes** — carrying execution into the map itself — but absent that, produce decisions, not deliverables.
 
 ## Refer by name
 
@@ -22,6 +28,10 @@ The map is an **index**, not a store. It lists the decisions made and points at
 The whole map at low resolution, loaded once per session. Open tickets are **not** listed — they are open child issues, found by query.
 
 ```markdown
+## Destination
+
+<what reaching the end of this map looks like — the spec, decision, or change this effort is finding its way to. One or two lines; every session orients to it before choosing a ticket.>
+
 ## Notes
 
 <domain; skills every session should consult; standing preferences for this effort>
@@ -32,9 +42,13 @@ The whole map at low resolution, loaded once per session. Open tickets are **not
 
 - [<closed ticket title>](link) — <one-line gist of the answer>
 
-## Fog
+## Not yet specified
 
-<!-- see "Fog of war" for what belongs here -->
+<!-- see "Fog of war": in-scope fog you can't ticket yet; graduates as the frontier advances -->
+
+## Out of scope
+
+<!-- see "Out of scope": work ruled beyond the destination; closed, never graduates -->
 ```
 
 ### Tickets
@@ -57,23 +71,33 @@ The answer isn't part of the body — it's recorded on resolution (see [Work thr
 
 ## Ticket Types
 
-- **Research**: 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.
-- **Prototype**: 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**: Conversation with the agent. Uses the /grilling and /domain-modeling skills. Asks one question at a time. The default case.
-- **Task**: Literal manual work that must be done before the discussion can move forward — nothing to decide, prototype, or research. Moving data, signing up for a service, provisioning access. The agent automates it where it can; otherwise it hands the human a precise checklist. 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.
+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.
+- **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.
 
 ## Fog of war
 
-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 is _deliberately_ incomplete: don't chart what you can't yet see. Beyond the live tickets lies the **fog of war** — 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 destination 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.
+The map's **Not yet specified** section is where that dim view is written down: the suspected question, the area to revisit later. It's the undiscovered frontier _toward_ the destination — everything here is in scope, just not sharp enough to ticket. 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.
+- **Not yet specified when** you can't yet phrase it that sharply. Don't pre-slice the 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.
+**Not yet specified** excludes what's already decided (Decisions so far), what's already a live ticket, and what's out of scope (the next section).
+
+## Out of scope
+
+Fog only ever gathers _toward_ the destination. The destination fixes the scope, so work beyond it is **out of scope** — it isn't fog, and it doesn't belong in **Not yet specified**. It gets its own **Out of scope** section on the map: work you've consciously ruled out of _this_ effort. Scope, not sharpness, lands it here.
+
+Out-of-scope work never graduates — the frontier stops at the destination — so it returns only if the destination is redrawn, and then as a fresh effort, not a resumption.
+
+Ruling something out of scope is a scoping act, not a step on the route. When a ticket that already exists turns out to sit past the destination — mis-scoped in while charting, or exposed by a resolution — **close it** (a closed ticket is unambiguously off the frontier) and leave one line in the **Out of scope** section: the gist plus why it's out of scope, linking the closed ticket. It stays out of **Decisions so far**, which records the route actually walked — a scope boundary isn't a step on it.
 
 ## Invocation
 
@@ -83,10 +107,11 @@ Two modes. Either way, **never resolve more than one ticket per session.**
 
 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 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. Stop — charting the map is one session's work; do not also resolve tickets.
+1. **Name the destination.** Run a `/grilling` and `/domain-modeling` session to pin down what this map is finding its way to — the spec, decision, or change. The destination fixes the scope, so it's settled first.
+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.
 
 ### Work through the map
 
@@ -96,6 +121,6 @@ User invokes with a map (URL or number). A ticket is **optional** — without on
 2. Choose the ticket. If the user named one, use it. Otherwise take the first frontier ticket in order. **Claim it**: assign it to yourself 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 tickets (create-then-wire); graduate any fog the answer has made specifiable, clearing each graduated patch from the Fog so it lives only as its new ticket. 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, clearing each graduated patch from **Not yet specified** so it lives only as its new ticket. If the answer reveals a ticket — this one or another — sits beyond the destination, **rule it out of scope** rather than resolving it on the route. If the decision invalidates other parts of the map, update or delete those tickets.
 
 The user may run unblocked tickets in parallel, so expect other sessions to be editing the tracker concurrently.

skills/productivity/grilling/SKILL.md

@@ -7,6 +7,6 @@ Interview me relentlessly about every aspect of this plan until we reach a share
 
 Ask the questions one at a time, waiting for feedback on each question before continuing. Asking multiple questions at once is bewildering.
 
-If a question can be answered by exploring the codebase, explore the codebase instead.
+If a *fact* can be found by exploring the codebase, look it up rather than asking me. The *decisions*, though, are mine — put each one to me and wait for my answer.
 
 Do not enact the plan until I confirm we have reached a shared understanding.