Work Order Format

Work Order Format

The contract for the one cycle work order document. work-order-create writes the document, work-order-update patches it, and both follow this contract exactly.

Title and parent

Title the document <user first name>'s Cycle <n> work order. Parent the document on the cycle: save_document takes cycle set to the number and team set to disambiguate it.

Section order

1. The wave sections, in wave number order.
2. ## Sequencing.
3. ## Timing - omit when empty.
4. ## Deferred - omit when empty.

Waves

Heading form: ## Wave <n> ⇉ <dependency line>. The dependency line is one of:

• starts immediately
• needs Wave <a> - list every prerequisite wave.

When the wave is independent of another unfinished wave, append , runs parallel with Wave <m>. For example: ## Wave 3 ⇉ needs Wave 1, runs parallel with Wave 2.

The waves are strictly parallel. Every issue in a wave runs in parallel with every other issue in that wave:

• No sequencing prose inside a bullet. A sequential dependency forces the issue into a later wave.
• Issue-level constraints live under ## Sequencing.
• Two issues that edit the same package or files never share a wave.

Issue bullets

* [<issue key>](https://linear.app/<workspace>/issue/<issue key>) <issue title> - <size on the `sizing` scale>. <One-line reason it is in this wave.>

Write every issue key as a markdown link, in a bullet and in ## Sequencing and ## Timing prose. The commands write the document through the Linear API, which stores a plain key as plain text, so a plain key is not clickable. Linear adds an automatic status indicator only to a key typed in the editor, so the document tracks no completion state of its own.

Deferred entries

* [<issue key>](https://linear.app/<workspace>/issue/<issue key>) - <date> - <one-line reason it was deferred>

Stable numbering

Never renumber an existing wave. When a wave empties, remove its section and never reuse its number. A new wave takes the next unused number and appends at the end.