work-summary

Work Summary — Current (v3)

Attention-first project dashboard. The default (lean) mode answers four questions — what's moving, what's stuck, what's next, what's queued — in a bounded view (~45 lines) regardless of workspace size. The exhaustive inventory is available as an explicit mode, not the default: mature workspaces accumulate hundreds of terminal items, and rendering them all buries the actionable content.

Supplement the data with brief observations only when there is a genuine anomaly or actionable insight.

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Step 0 — Mode Selection

$ARGUMENTS	Mode
empty	Lean (default)
the literal word full	Full Inventory
the literal word all	Multi-Project — one condensed section per known project root
anything else	Scoped — resolve to a UUID via query_items(operation="search", query=$ARGUMENTS, limit=5); prefer the best-matching root or container item; if ambiguous, present matches via AskUserQuestion

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Step 0.5 — Project Scope Resolution

Before running Lean, Full, or Multi-Project mode, resolve the project rootId:

• Check session context for a rootId injected by the SessionStart hook.
• Otherwise, read .taskorchestrator/config.yaml's top-level project.rootId field (a file read, not an MCP call).
• If no rootId is found by either path, behavior is exactly as before this feature existed — every call below runs unscoped (whole-DB), and no ancestorId/anchorId param is passed. This is the common case for single-project workspaces.

When a rootId is known, Lean and Full mode calls pass it as ancestorId="<rootId>" — except the overview calls, which use anchorId="<rootId>" (all noted inline below). Scoped mode is unaffected — it already resolves its own scope UUID per invocation via FTS.

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Lean Mode (default)

Data collection (all parallel)

1. query_items(operation="overview", excludeTerminal=true) — non-terminal roots with their childCounts role roll-ups only. includeChildren is deliberately omitted: it is a no-op on the anchored (project-scoped) path — the anchored overview never returns per-child arrays, only childCounts — and unnecessary on the global path, since the step-5 queue-list is the canonical source for individual children. Add anchorId="<rootId>" when a rootId is known, to anchor the overview to this project. Detecting an older server: MCP servers silently ignore unknown parameters (they return 200 with the full unfiltered payload) rather than rejecting them — so a server predating excludeTerminal will not error. Detect the no-op by inspecting the payload: if any returned root has role: "terminal" AND its childCounts show only terminal descendants (no queue/work/review/blocked), the filter was not applied. Note the qualifier: a current server intentionally retains a terminal-role root that still has non-terminal descendants (it is active work parked under a done container), so a terminal root with open descendants is expected, not evidence of an old server. When the no-op is detected, (a) drop client-side only those terminal roots whose childCounts show no open descendants during enrichment, and (b) if the response is also truncated: true, re-issue with limit=<total> (still passing anchorId if known) so non-terminal roots in the tail (e.g. active containers) are not silently dropped — a truncated unfiltered payload can hide real workstreams. Headline counts never come from this payload regardless (see the role-total queries below), so correctness holds either way; this only recovers the workstream/backlog completeness the filter was meant to guarantee.
2. get_context() — health-check: active items, blocked items, stalled items, claim summary. Add ancestorId="<rootId>" when known.
3. get_context(mode="session-resume", since="<now minus 48h, ISO 8601>") — recent role transitions (the "where did I leave off" signal). Add ancestorId="<rootId>" when known — but note the known limitation: recentTransitions is NOT scoped by ancestorId even when passed; it always reflects the whole tree, not just this project.
4. get_next_item(limit=5, includeDetails=true) — ranked recommendations with parentId/tags. Add ancestorId="<rootId>" when known.
5. query_items(operation="search", role="queue", limit=100) — the canonical source for queue children. Group its rows by parentId to get each workstream's "next up" (the queue children the anchored overview omits); each row carries parentId, depth, priority, and type/tags. total gives the true queued count. Add ancestorId="<rootId>" when known. Exclude shelves from the headline: subtract rows whose type or tag is container or project — a freshly-created container/anchor sits in queue role until its first advance and would otherwise inflate N queued. If total exceeds the returned page (queue backlog >100), note the headline count is approximate.
6. query_items(operation="search", role="terminal", limit=1) — read total for the true terminal count. Add ancestorId="<rootId>" when known.