Focus

Focus — Phoenix Agentic Engine Interface

Mandatory first step

Always read board state first (single source of truth):

• Project board: https://github.com/users/rivie13/projects/3
• Repository: rivie13/Phoenix-Agentic-Engine-Interface

Workflows

Resume (user says "resume", "what am I working on?", or starts a new session)

1. Read board items for this repo in In Progress (and, if needed, Ready)
2. If an in-progress item exists: summarize in 3 lines — what, current state, next step
3. If no active item: say "No active assigned board task" and ask for assignment source/intent

Confirm assigned task (dispatcher/local/cloud assignment)

1. Read assignment input from prompt/context (dispatcher payload, direct user-assigned issue, or cloud assignment)
2. Validate assignment against board state and verify lock/dependency fields (Area, Depends On, Lock Key, Needed Files)
3. Study assignment context (issue body, acceptance criteria, linked comments/PRs) before implementation
4. Confirm branch target and execution mode (Local IDE / CLI / Cloud)
5. If assignment is valid, proceed and post checkpoints during execution

Pick next task (fallback only; user explicitly asks)

1. Confirm there is no conflicting in-progress work for this repo on the board
2. Read the roadmap docs:
   • .github/instructions/interface-private-roadmap.instructions.md
3. Check the project board for items in "Ready" (and only use Backlog if explicitly requested)
4. Recommend the highest-priority unblocked task based on phase order and dependencies
5. Ask user to confirm assignment
6. Create a GitHub issue if one doesn't exist
7. Move the issue to In Progress and set its Area on the project board using signal labels:

   mcp_github_github_issue_write(method="update", owner="rivie13", repo="Phoenix-Agentic-Engine-Interface", issueNumber=<N>, labels=["task", "set:status:in-progress", "set:area:<area>"])
   

   Valid Interface areas: sdk-client, sdk-core, contracts, tests, docs, ci

Update checkpoint (user says "save progress", "checkpoint", "update task")

1. Read the active board issue and latest PR/comment context
2. Ask what was accomplished and what's next
3. Post/update concise progress in issue/PR comments and board status fields

Complete task (user says "task done", "finished", "close task")

1. Read active board issue and verify acceptance criteria are met
2. Close the GitHub issue — do NOT rely solely on Closes #N in the PR body. Explicitly close it:

   mcp_github_github_issue_write(method="update", owner="rivie13", repo="Phoenix-Agentic-Engine-Interface", issueNumber=<N>, state="closed", stateReason="completed")
   

3. Close related sub-issues — list sub-issues of the current issue and verify each completed one is closed:

   mcp_github_github_issue_read(owner="rivie13", repo="Phoenix-Agentic-Engine-Interface", issueNumber=<PARENT_N>)
   

   For each sub-issue whose work is merged/done, close it explicitly if still open:

   mcp_github_github_issue_write(method="update", owner="rivie13", repo="<SUB_ISSUE_REPO>", issueNumber=<SUB_N>, state="closed", stateReason="completed")
   

4. Check parent epic — if this issue was a sub-issue of an epic, read the parent epic and check whether all sibling sub-issues are now closed. If all are done, close the parent epic too.
5. Move the issue/epic to "Done" on the project board
6. Report completion and await/confirm next assignment

Why explicit closing? GitHub's Closes #N auto-close only works when the PR merges into the repo's default branch. Subfeature PRs that merge into a feature/* branch will NOT auto-close their linked issues. Always close issues explicitly via MCP tools.

Assign to Copilot cloud agent (user says "assign to copilot", "cloud agent this")

1. Confirm the issue is well-scoped with clear acceptance criteria
2. Move the issue to "Ready" status on the project board (required — the workflow rejects non-Ready issues)
3. Add the cloud-agent label to the issue
4. The cloud-agent-assign.yml workflow will:
   • Verify the issue is in Ready status (rejects Backlog / No Status / other)
   • Assign @copilot to the issue
   • Update board Status → In Progress automatically
   • Update board Work mode → Cloud Agent automatically
5. Ensure board status/work mode reflect cloud delegation and link the issue/PR context

Do NOT add the cloud-agent label to issues in Backlog — the workflow will remove the label and post a rejection comment.

Issue hierarchy

Use sub-issues for structured work. See .github/docs/PROJECT_WORKFLOW.md for full details.

• Epic (label: epic) — Multi-repo milestone, spans weeks–months
• Feature (label: feature) — Single-repo deliverable, days–weeks
• Task (label: task) — Single PR unit of work, hours–days

Sub-issues can cross repos. An Interface Feature can be a sub-issue of a Backend or Engine Epic.

Issue–branch mapping

When executing an assigned task, identify which feature/* branch it belongs to and create the subfeature branch from there.

Cross-repo awareness

This is the Interface SDK repo (TypeScript contracts + client). Related repos:

• Engine: rivie13/Phoenix-Agentic-Engine
• Backend: rivie13/Phoenix-Agentic-Engine-Backend

Both Engine and Backend depend on this repo's contracts. Changes here may require updates in both.

Project board

• Board URL: https://github.com/users/rivie13/projects/3
• Columns: Backlog → Ready → In Progress → In Review → Done

Reference docs

• Full workflow: .github/docs/PROJECT_WORKFLOW.md — Ralph Loop, issue hierarchy, cloud agent flow
• Roadmap: docs/ENGINE_MIGRATION_0.2.0-rc.1.md

Privacy rules

This repo is public. When writing issue/PR comments or board fields:

• Do NOT include API keys, secrets, or credentials
• Do NOT include private strategy details
• Keep descriptions technical and public-safe