Groom Backlog Item

Groom Backlog Item

Orchestrate backlog grooming: parse arguments, assess information completeness via RT-ICA, spawn discovery agents, produce report.

Arguments

$ARGUMENTS accepts:

• Title substring — e.g., Error Recovery — grooms matching item (case-insensitive)
• Section — P0, P1, P2, or Ideas — grooms all items in that section
• all — grooms all items across P0, P1, P2, Ideas (parallel agents)

Workflow

Step 1: Parse Arguments and Load Backlog

Read .claude/BACKLOG.md. Identify target items based on argument type above.

Step 2: Extract Item Details

For each target item, extract: title, description, research-first questions (if present), source, suggested location.

Step 3: Fact-Check Item Claims

Invoke the fact-check skill on each target item to verify factual claims against primary sources before running RT-ICA or spawning groomer agents. This prevents unverified or refuted assertions from entering the planning context.

Skill(command: "fact-check", args: "{item title}")

The fact-check skill spawns @fact-checker agents that MUST retrieve evidence via WebFetch, WebSearch, or gh. Training data recall is not accepted as evidence.

After each run, collect the verdict summary:

Fact-Check Summary: {item title}
Claims checked: {N}
VERIFIED: {N} | REFUTED: {N} | INCONCLUSIVE: {N}
Refuted claims:      [{list of claim texts — each becomes a MISSING condition in Step 4}]
Inconclusive claims: [{list of claim texts — flag as unverified DERIVABLE in Step 4}]
Citations:           [{VERIFIED claims cite their primary sources}]

Multiple items — invoke fact-check for each item sequentially (respect the wave-of-5 concurrency limit inside fact-check itself). Do not batch items into a single fact-check call.

Pass the fact-check summary forward to Step 4.

Step 4: RT-ICA Assessment Per Item

Perform Reverse Thinking — Information Completeness Assessment using both the item details and the fact-check verdicts from Step 3. This directs the groomer's discovery toward filling gaps rather than broad search.

For each item, produce:

RT-ICA: {item title}
Goal: {one sentence — what completing this item achieves}
Conditions:
1. {condition} | Status: {AVAILABLE|DERIVABLE|MISSING} | Info needed: {what}
...
Decision: {APPROVED|BLOCKED}
Missing: {list of missing inputs, or "None"}

• AVAILABLE: Explicitly stated in item description or research questions AND fact-check verdict is VERIFIED or not applicable
• DERIVABLE: Safely inferable from codebase context (state basis); fact-check verdict is INCONCLUSIVE
• MISSING: Not present, not safely inferable — OR fact-check verdict is REFUTED (the stated condition is false and the correct state is unknown)

REFUTED claims from Step 3 MUST be listed as MISSING conditions. A REFUTED claim is not a valid basis for any AVAILABLE or DERIVABLE status.

Pass the RT-ICA summary and fact-check summary to the groomer alongside item details.

ARL human-probing integration: When RT-ICA returns BLOCKED or MISSING conditions, the context manifest can include invisible_knowledge_prompts — questions to ask the human before planning (e.g., "What went wrong in the past?", "What references are essential?"). See .claude/docs/sdlc-layers/arl-human-probing-design.md.

Step 5: Spawn Groomer Agents

Single item — invoke @backlog-item-groomer directly, passing item details, RT-ICA summary, and fact-check summary.

Multiple items — spawn parallel Task agents (max 5 concurrent; batch in waves if more):

Task(
  subagent_type: "general-purpose",
  prompt: "Act as @backlog-item-groomer. Groom this item:\n{item details}\n\nRT-ICA Assessment:\n{rt-ica summary}\n\nFact-Check Verdicts:\n{fact-check summary}",
  model: "haiku"
)

Step 6: Collect and Report

Gather context manifests. Produce grooming report:

# Backlog Grooming Report

**Date**: {YYYY-MM-DD}
**Items groomed**: {count}
**Arguments**: {original arguments}

## Summary

| Item | Fact-Check | RT-ICA | Research Found | Skills | Agents | Blockers |
|------|------------|--------|----------------|--------|--------|----------|
| {title} | {V}/{R}/{I} | {APPROVED/BLOCKED} | {count} | {count} | {count} | {count} |

## Individual Manifests

### {Item title}
{manifest from agent}

## Fact-Check Results

### Refuted Claims
- {item title}: {claim text} — REFUTED by {source URL}

### Inconclusive Claims
- {item title}: {claim text} — INCONCLUSIVE: {what additional verification is needed}

### Verified Claims
- {item title}: {count} claims verified against primary sources

## RT-ICA Results

### BLOCKED Items
- {item title}: {list of missing inputs, including any from refuted claims}

### APPROVED Items
- {item title}: {count} conditions verified

## Cross-Item Findings

### Shared Dependencies
- {items multiple backlog items depend on}

### Suggested Groupings
- {items that could be worked together}

### Research Gaps
- {topics needing research — methodology: [stateless-agent-methodology](https://github.com/bitflight-devops/stateless-agent-methodology)}

If grooming multiple items, offer to save report to .claude/grooming-reports/grooming-{YYYY-MM-DD}.md.

Example Invocations

/groom-backlog-item Error Recovery
/groom-backlog-item P1
/groom-backlog-item all

Completion Criteria

• Fact-check run for each item before RT-ICA (training data not used as evidence)
• Fact-check verdicts passed into RT-ICA conditions (REFUTED → MISSING)
• RT-ICA summary included for each item
• Groomer agent(s) received RT-ICA context and fact-check verdicts
• Report contains Fact-Check Results section and RT-ICA Results section
• Cross-item findings present (if multiple items groomed)