finish-tasks

the-loop: finish-tasks $ARGUMENTS

Wrap up a work item once all tasks are complete and reviewed. This is the cleanup step of the loop; the cleanup set is intentionally extensible (more may be added later).

Read the the-loop skill and reference/workflow.md. Load .the-loop/harness-config.yaml.

Steps

1. Verify done. Resolve $ARGUMENTS to docs/specs/<id>/. Confirm every task in tasks.md is checked (- [x]), every PR in evidence/pull-requests.md's table is merged or closed (a work item may be delivered by several), the required self/critic reviews and human review are recorded, and validated evidence has been presented. If anything is outstanding, stop and report what remains (point back to /the-loop:execute-tasks <id>).

2. Mark complete. Set the ticket phase label to loop:complete; the outcome and its evidence are already recorded where each gate left them, under evidence/.

3. Post the completion summary — first, and promptly. One comment on the ticket, posted with the-loop comment --work-item <ref> --body-file - (it stamps the marker and reaches the room through the mirror; issue-447): what shipped, the evidence links, the accepted gaps. This is the endgame's one message a reader most wants, and it is raced by the close (issue-405 P2): when the merge's Closes #N has already closed the ticket, the daemon holds the session for routing.tmux.finishGraceSeconds (default 300 s) waiting for exactly this summary and the claim below, then ends it. Post the summary before anything else here; do no other work in between.

4. Claim completion. the-loop graph complete <id> — the claim that tells the graph, and through it the daemon, that the terminal node's work is done. The daemon reads it as "the session has finished" and ends the held closure at once, so the pane, the checkout and the record go the moment you are done rather than at the deadline.

5. Cleanup (extensible):

   • Close the ticket(s) for this work item (GitHub issue / Jira) if still open, with the-loop ticket close <ref> (issue-447; --reason not_planned for work that was dropped), after a the-loop comment that references the merged PR(s) and evidence. On a jira: ref it transitions the ticket into Done; when the ticket offers no such transition, or several, nothing moves and the error lists them — escalate with the-loop ask naming them, or have the operator set integrations.jira.closeTransition. The Jira MCP tools only when the CLI is not installed. A ticket a merge's Closes #N already closed is expected — say so in the summary and move on; do not reopen it. Closing the ticket is also what ends the work item's harness session — one of its PRs merging does not (see reference/automation.md).
   • Future cleanup steps are added here (e.g. archiving branches, releasing artifacts, notifying channels). Keep this list the single place cleanup grows.