wdm0006 Groom Your Idea Backlog
Works with idea.log. Get it on the App Store.
When to Use
- Your idea list has grown and you're not sure what's worth pursuing
- You want to clean up duplicates, vague entries, or ideas you've already done
- You're starting a new week and want to prioritize your backlog
- You haven't looked at your ideas in a while and want a fresh assessment
How It Works
- Pull all ideas with
search_ideas(no filters) to get the full backlog - Pull stats with
get_statsto understand the overall state - For each idea, fetch full details with
get_ideato see comments and tags - Group ideas by theme, identify duplicates, and flag stale entries
- Present the full set of proposed changes and wait for the user to approve them — make no writes before this
- Apply only the approved changes with
update_ideaoradd_comment - Present a prioritized summary of what remains
Grooming Actions
Cleanup
For each idea in the backlog, check for:
| Issue | Action |
|---|---|
| Vague or unclear content | Rewrite with update_idea to make it specific and actionable |
| Missing first step | Add a concrete first step with update_idea |
| Missing tags | Add relevant tags with update_idea |
| Duplicate of another idea | Mark one as Abandoned with update_idea, add comment explaining the duplicate |
| Already completed elsewhere | Mark as Did It with update_idea |
| No longer relevant | Mark as Abandoned with update_idea, add comment with reason |
Use idea.log's canonical status values (Pending, Did First Step, Did It, Abandoned) — see the shared reference.
Confirmation
Grooming can touch many ideas at once, and a mistaken duplicate or relevance call is expensive to undo. So collect the proposed changes during analysis and present them all at once before calling update_idea or add_comment. Group them by action so the user can scan the high-impact ones first:
Proposed changes (12 across 9 ideas):
Abandon (2)
1. "dotfile manager tool" — duplicate of "CLI for dotfiles"
2. "port app to Electron" — no longer relevant, you went native
Mark Did It (1)
3. "add CI to the recipe app" — already completed
Rewrite content (3)
4. "that API thing" → "Build a REST API for the recipe collection app"
...
Add first step (4)
Add tags (2)
Apply all, or pick the ones you want? [all / numbers / none]
Then:
- Apply only what the user approves. If they select individual changes, leave the rest exactly as they are — don't re-propose them in this run.
- Status changes to
Did ItorAbandonedand content rewrites always need approval, since they discard or overwrite what the user captured. - If the user declines everything, skip the writes entirely and continue to prioritization — it's read-only and useful on the ungroomed backlog.
Prioritization
Prioritization reads the backlog and never writes, so run it whether or not any cleanup was approved. Rank remaining pending ideas by:
- Actionability — Does it have a clear first step?
- Momentum — Has it been commented on or updated recently?
- Impact — How valuable would completing this be?
- Effort — How much work is the first step?
Present the top 3-5 ideas as recommendations for what to work on next.
Example
Input:
Groom my idea backlog
Actions:
1. Fetched 23 ideas (14 Pending, 3 Did First Step, 4 Did It, 2 Abandoned)
2. Analyzed the backlog and proposed 10 changes across 8 ideas:
Abandon (2)
1. "dotfile manager tool" — duplicate of "CLI for dotfiles"
2. "port app to Electron" — no longer relevant, you went native
Rewrite content (3)
3. "that API thing" → "Build a REST API for the recipe collection app"
4. "refactor" → "Refactor auth middleware into shared package"
5. "blog" → "Write a post about MCP server development workflow"
Add first step (5)
6-10. Five pending ideas with no concrete next action
Apply all, or pick the ones you want? [all / numbers / none]
3. User approved all except #2 ("port app to Electron" — still wants to revisit it)
4. Applied 9 changes: 1 abandoned duplicate with an explanatory comment,
3 descriptions rewritten, 5 first steps added
5. Top 3 recommendations:
- "Refactor auth middleware" — clear first step, high impact, low effort
- "Build recipe API" — well-defined, you've been commenting on it
- "Write MCP blog post" — quick win, could publish this week
Checklist
Backlog Grooming:
- [ ] Reviewed all pending ideas
- [ ] Presented all proposed changes grouped by action, before any writes
- [ ] Got user approval and applied only the approved changes
- [ ] Removed or merged approved duplicates
- [ ] Clarified approved vague descriptions
- [ ] Added missing first steps and tags
- [ ] Presented prioritized recommendations (even if no changes were approved)