the-custodian/workplans/CUST-WP-0044-daily-statehub-wsjf-triage.md

id, type, title, domain, repo, status, owner, topic_slug, planning_priority, planning_order, created, updated, state_hub_workstream_id

id	type	title	domain	repo	status	owner	topic_slug	planning_priority	planning_order	created	updated	state_hub_workstream_id
CUST-WP-0044	workplan	Daily State Hub WSJF Triage	custodian	the-custodian	finished	custodian	custodian	high	44	2026-05-17	2026-06-04	99993845-be6a-401d-be98-f8107014abed

CUST-WP-0044 - Daily State Hub WSJF Triage

Goal

Create a daily Custodian operating loop that reviews the State Hub situation, identifies loose ends, and recommends which open workplans or tasks should be worked next, revisited, parked, split, or closed.

The daily output should be a short, reviewable prioritization report with WSJF scores for the most relevant open workplans and next tasks. It should reduce coordination drag without silently changing canonical workplan files or promoting work into execution without human or agent review.

Context

As of 2026-05-17, the State Hub snapshot shows:

• 24 active workstreams and 2 blocked workstreams
• 184 todo tasks, 5 in-progress tasks, and 5 blocked tasks
• 5 open decisions
• several large active workplans with low completion ratios

The system is now good at preserving work, but that also makes it easy to accumulate half-open threads. A daily triage loop gives the Custodian a small, repeatable way to turn State Hub from a passive ledger into an active focus surface.

Scope

In scope:

• Daily State Hub situation review using the local brief, State Hub API, and MCP tools when available.
• WSJF assessment for open workplans and representative next tasks.
• Detection of loose-end patterns: stale active plans, large unstarted plans, blocked work, open decisions, dependency-cleared work, zero-task workstreams, and inconsistent file-backed state.
• A daily recommendation artifact that separates:
  • work to do next
  • workplans that need review before execution
  • cleanup or closure candidates
  • blocked items requiring human or cross-agent attention
• A progress event summarizing each daily review.

Out of scope:

• Directly editing canon/.
• Automatically committing, archiving, closing, or reprioritizing workplans without a review gate.
• Solving the canonical workplan state model; that belongs to CUST-WP-0042.
• Replacing human judgment for money, legal, security, or external-reputation decisions.

Daily Review Contract

Each daily run should collect:

• .custodian-brief.md from the-custodian
• State Hub summary via get_state_summary() or GET /state/summary
• hub inbox via get_messages(to_agent="hub", unread_only=True) or GET /messages/?to_agent=hub&unread_only=true
• open workstreams, open tasks, blocked tasks, blocking decisions, next-step hints, workplan index, and repo goal guidance
• relevant git status and consistency state for repos whose workplans are likely to be touched

Each daily run should produce:

• a dated working-memory note under memory/working/
• a progress event in State Hub
• a compact top-priority table of no more than 10 workplans/tasks
• explicit "revisit" recommendations for stale, blocked, oversized, or ambiguous workplans
• explicit "do not act yet" notes for items that require human approval

WSJF Rubric

Use a 1-5 scale for each numerator factor and denominator factor.

Factor	Meaning
Strategic value	Alignment with current Custodian, State Hub, Railiance, or dependency-chain goals.
Time criticality	Whether waiting increases operational risk, blocks other work, or lets context decay.
Risk reduction	How much the work reduces security, reliability, data-loss, coordination, or governance risk.
Opportunity enablement	How much the work unlocks other active workstreams or reduces future agent friction.
Job size	Estimated effort and uncertainty; 1 is small/clear, 5 is large/uncertain.

Formula:

WSJF = (strategic_value + time_criticality + risk_reduction + opportunity_enablement) / job_size

Tiebreakers:

• Prefer items that close or unblock multiple existing tasks.
• Prefer finishing nearly complete high-value work over starting new large work.
• Prefer safety, backup, identity, secrets, and deployment foundation work when downstream plans depend on them.
• Prefer explicit revisit/parking over leaving stale plans in active.

Tasks

T01 - Define Daily Triage Prompt And Output Template

id: CUST-WP-0044-T01
status: done
priority: high
state_hub_task_id: "cb450d56-b606-4c89-9e6e-64e139d6ac6b"

Write the daily review prompt and a concise Markdown output template.

The template should include:

• State Hub headline counts
• inbox and blocker summary
• WSJF-ranked workplan/task table
• loose-end findings
• revisit/park/close recommendations
• proposed next actions for the next Custodian session
• guardrails for items that need human approval

Done when a future agent can run the daily review from the template without guessing what to inspect or how to structure the result.

T02 - Implement Daily Review Automation

id: CUST-WP-0044-T02
status: done
priority: high
depends_on: [CUST-WP-0044-T01]
state_hub_task_id: "078c547b-82e0-4ae9-a29c-7bab930924da"

Create or configure the daily run so the Custodian performs the review once per day.

The automation should:

• run against /home/worsch/the-custodian and inspect /home/worsch/state-hub when available
• tolerate State Hub API or MCP downtime by falling back to .custodian-brief.md
• avoid making file changes unless the run is explicitly asked to apply a recommendation
• record a progress event when the State Hub API is reachable

Done when a daily run can complete unattended and leave a useful report.

T03 - Add WSJF Scoring Procedure

id: CUST-WP-0044-T03
status: done
priority: high
depends_on: [CUST-WP-0044-T01]
state_hub_task_id: "85fb98ba-3716-4524-88d2-6340a3674d0a"

Define the scoring procedure for open workplans and next tasks.

The procedure should explain how to estimate:

• strategic value
• time criticality
• risk reduction
• opportunity enablement
• job size

It should also define how to flag confidence as high, medium, or low when the available evidence is incomplete.

Done when daily reports can explain why a high-ranked item is high-ranked, without pretending the score is more precise than the evidence supports.

T04 - Detect Loose-End And Revisit Candidates

id: CUST-WP-0044-T04
status: done
priority: high
state_hub_task_id: "14b3be2c-fe9e-464e-8db5-ec1b293f5829"

Add daily checks for work that should be revisited before more execution starts.

Signals include:

• active workplans with no recent progress
• large active workplans with many todo tasks and no in-progress task
• blocked workplans whose dependencies are now resolved or misclassified
• workstreams with zero parsed tasks
• high-priority workplans with stale updated metadata
• tasks still open after their parent workstream appears effectively complete
• workplans whose file-backed state differs from State Hub state

Done when the daily report names concrete revisit candidates and the reason each candidate needs attention.

T05 - Define Recommendation Actions And Review Gates

id: CUST-WP-0044-T05
status: done
priority: medium
depends_on: [CUST-WP-0044-T03, CUST-WP-0044-T04]
state_hub_task_id: "0b2d01e4-8c64-4b2f-bb51-502f6c1af975"

Define the action vocabulary for daily recommendations.

Allowed recommendation actions:

• work-next
• revisit
• split
• park
• close-out
• needs-human
• needs-cross-agent
• needs-consistency-sync

For each action, document when it is safe for an agent to proceed and when a human review gate is required.

Done when the daily loop can recommend action without accidentally crossing governance boundaries.

T06 - First Three Daily Runs And Calibration

id: CUST-WP-0044-T06
status: done
priority: medium
depends_on: [CUST-WP-0044-T02, CUST-WP-0044-T03, CUST-WP-0044-T04, CUST-WP-0044-T05]
state_hub_task_id: "46c48fde-bb5f-4fe5-98cc-9cf788c98fc5"

Run the daily loop for three consecutive days and compare the recommendations against actual follow-up work.

Calibrate:

• scoring weights
• job-size estimates
• maximum number of recommendations
• treatment of stale but intentionally parked work
• whether daily notes are too verbose or too thin

Done when the daily review is useful enough to continue as a standing Custodian habit.

2026-06-04: T06 complete after reviewing three consecutive activity-core daily triage notes:

• memory/working/daily-triage-2026-06-02-f9b97749.md
• memory/working/daily-triage-2026-06-03-6d2737e3.md
• memory/working/daily-triage-2026-06-04-65e273bf.md

The recommendations were stable and useful: CUST-WP-0044 and CUST-WP-0045 were repeatedly ranked as high-confidence work-next, human-gated work stayed clearly marked, and CUST-WP-0046 remained visible as a revisit/unblock item. Calibration notes live in docs/daily-statehub-wsjf-calibration-2026-06-04.md. The main adjustment is that future executable JSON reports must include rank plus WSJF component scores; the schema, prompt, and ActivityDefinition were updated accordingly. The daily review is useful enough to continue as a standing Custodian habit, so CUST-WP-0044 is finished.

Acceptance Criteria

• The Custodian has a daily review path for the State Hub situation.
• The daily report ranks open workplans and next tasks with a transparent WSJF assessment.
• Loose ends are surfaced as explicit revisit, park, split, or close-out recommendations.
• Daily runs leave progress events so future sessions can see the review.
• No canonical workplan or canon changes happen without the appropriate review gate.

Implementation Notes - 2026-05-17

The daily triage loop initially had two explicit layers:

• Active runner: Codex app automation daily-state-hub-wsjf-triage.
• Durable target substrate: activity-core ActivityDefinition draft at activity-definitions/daily-statehub-wsjf-triage.md.

The reusable prompt, report template, WSJF procedure, loose-end detectors, and recommendation gates live in runtime/prompts/daily_statehub_wsgi_triage.md.

As of 2026-05-17, the activity-core definition was intentionally disabled while the Codex automation was the active runner. It existed so the schedule and context contract were reviewable in the same Markdown-as-definition style activity-core already uses. The intended target was to enable that definition and disable the Codex app automation once activity-core could run the Custodian report action directly.

This changed after the activity-core cutover in CUST-WP-0045; the ActivityDefinition is now the active runner and the three-run calibration is complete.