Manager Ticket Lifecycle

Ticket-as-Baton Lifecycle

Core paradigm

The GitHub issue is the baton. It carries work through Manager → Collaborator → Admin → Consultant. Each role writes a structured comment on the ticket and transitions the status label — mirroring a Jira card moving across a Scrum board.

Status workflow (label transitions)

backlog → ready → in-progress → review → done
(create)  (scope)  (implement)   (PR/ops)  (close)

Label taxonomy

• Type: type:epic|story|task|bug|doc|research
• Status: status:backlog|ready|in-progress|review|done
• Priority: priority:P1|P2|P3
• Area: area:dashboard|hooks|skills|instructions|agents|scripts|infra
• Role (current holder): role:manager|collaborator|admin|consultant

Manager creates ticket

1. gh issue create --title "<imperative>" --label "type:..." --label "status:backlog" --label "priority:..." --label "area:..."
2. Body: description, acceptance criteria, story points, parent epic ref.
3. Add scope comment (see role-manager-execution output contract).
4. Transition: status:backlog → status:ready, set role:manager.
5. Emit MANAGER_HANDOFF with issue: #N.
6. Swap label: role:manager → role:collaborator.

Epic decomposition

For large work, create Epic issue, then sub-issues referencing parent. Each sub-issue gets its own label set and full lifecycle.

Parallel dispatch protocol

Manager assigns independent tickets to different collaborators:

• Research → Rex Research (web search, analysis)
• Code impl → Cody Builder (features, fixes)
• UI/CSS → Dash Styles (visual, layout)
• Docs → Petra Prose (technical writing) All assigned tickets execute concurrently. Each has its own baton.

Research ticket lifecycle

Research tickets use the full baton but skip branching:

1. No branch created — research produces findings, not code.
2. Collaborator posts research findings as ticket comment.
3. Admin reviews wiki/research/ storage — no merge needed.
4. Consultant validates research quality and wiki placement.

Role comment protocol

Each role writes one structured comment when taking the baton:

• Manager 🎯: objective, AC, constraints → "Baton → Collaborator"
• Collaborator 🔧: files_changed, validation → "Baton → Admin"
• Admin ⚙️: commit, PR, CI, merge → "Baton → Consultant"
• Consultant 🔍: confidence, risks, follow-ups → "Baton complete"

Closing rules

1. Close only after merge + Consultant CLOSEOUT comment.
2. Close comment: version, merge evidence, validation summary.
3. Final label state: status:done, all role:* labels removed.

Hard constraints

1. No work without a ticket. 2. Branch: <type>/<issue#>-<slug>.
2. Commits reference #N. 4. PR body: Closes #N.
3. Role comments are permanent audit evidence.

Definition of Done (per ticket)

• All acceptance criteria checked
• Lint + tests pass; docs updated if behavior changed
• PR merged with Closes #N
• Consultant CLOSEOUT comment posted
• status:done label applied