kitchenloop-backlog

KitchenLoop: Backlog

Scan the backlog, evaluate tickets, promote to todo queue, maintain balance.

Triggers

• kitchenloop backlog
• groom backlog
• promote tickets

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Overview

The Backlog phase keeps the todo queue healthy. It scans all open tickets, scores them on urgency/accessibility/impact, promotes the best candidates to the todo queue, and retires stale tickets. The goal is to maintain a todo queue of 5-8 tickets with good category balance.

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Procedure

Step 1: Read Context

1. Load kitchenloop.yaml -- read ticketing, paths, and runtime.
2. Read loop state at paths.loop_state for iteration context.
3. Read paths.patterns for known patterns that inform prioritization.

Step 1.5: Abandoned Fix PR Scan

Scan for tickets whose fix PRs were closed without merging — these bugs are still live:

gh pr list --state closed --limit 50 \
  --json number,title,body,state,mergedAt \
  --jq '.[] | select(.mergedAt == null)'

For each closed-not-merged PR:

1. Extract the ticket ID from the PR title/body (look for #N references)
2. Check if the ticket is still open (todo/in_progress/in_review)
3. If yes: promote back to "todo" with comment: "Fix PR #N was closed without merging. Bug is still live on main. Re-promoting for execution."
4. If the ticket was already closed: reopen it

This prevents bugs from going unfixed when AI-generated fix PRs are silently abandoned.

Step 2: Inventory Current State

Count tickets by state:

# Todo queue
gh issue list --label "{ticketing.github.state_labels.todo}" --json number,title,labels

# In progress
gh issue list --label "{ticketing.github.state_labels.in_progress}" --json number,title

# In review
gh issue list --label "{ticketing.github.state_labels.in_review}" --json number,title

# Full backlog (unlabeled state)
gh issue list --state open --json number,title,labels,createdAt,body --limit 200