codyswanngt/lisa-track

Track Work: $ARGUMENTS

Establish the tracked-work invariant before any durable project mutation. Discussion and read-only orientation may proceed without this skill; code, configuration, documentation, research artifacts, plans, investigation findings, tests, commits, and pull requests may not.

This flow must return exactly one canonical (tracker_provider, work_item_ref) pair or fail closed. It never returns an unvalidated textual guess.

Phase 1 — Resolve tracker and classify input

1. Resolve merged .lisa.config.local.json over .lisa.config.json exactly as lisa-tracker-read / lisa-tracker-write do. Missing, unknown, or incomplete tracker configuration is a blocking error.
2. Classify $ARGUMENTS as exactly one of:
   • an explicit reference matching the configured tracker (KEY-123, org/repo#123 or issue URL, Linear team identifier);
   • an existing file path containing a specification (read the entire file, without offset/limit);
   • plain-text work description.
3. Preserve the full resolved specification for the caller. Do not treat a ticket-like token for a different provider/project as plain text; report the mismatch.

Phase 2 — Resolve one live work item

Explicit reference

Invoke lisa-tracker-read <ref> and require a live result from the configured project. Reject nonexistent, inaccessible, closed/resolved/terminal, wrong-project, wrong-repository, or container items. This live read is mandatory even if caller context already includes ticket text.

File or plain text

Search conservatively before creating:

1. Normalize the requested outcome and derive a short keyword set; never search with the whole prompt or secrets.
2. Search only open/non-terminal items in the configured project and current repository through the configured provider's documented read surface:
   • GitHub: gh issue list --repo <org>/<repo> --state open --search "<keywords> in:title,body".
   • Jira: lisa-atlassian-access operation: search-issues with project-scoped JQL.
   • Linear: lisa-linear-access operation: list-issues scoped to the configured team/workspace.
3. Treat search results as candidates, never proof. Live-read each plausible candidate through lisa-tracker-read, and discard terminal, container, blocked, cross-repo, and materially different outcomes.
4. Reuse only when exactly one live leaf is a high-confidence semantic match for the same requested outcome and repository. A shared keyword or similar title is not enough. Record the search queries, candidates, and rejection reasons in the returned resolution evidence.
5. If there is no unique high-confidence match (zero or ambiguous candidates), create exactly one item by invoking lisa-tracker-write once. Synthesize one complete single-repository leaf (Bug, Task, Sub-task, or Improvement, never Epic/container) with the writer's required three-audience body, Gherkin acceptance criteria, repository, target environment, relationship search, and executable Validation Journey. Pass build_ready: true. Do not create placeholder/thin tickets, do not create a hierarchy, and do not retry creation by making another item if validation fails; repair the proposed spec and retry the same writer operation only if the vendor contract supports idempotent reuse.
6. Live-read the writer's canonical returned reference with lisa-tracker-read. A create response without a verified live leaf is failure.

This is intentionally conservative: ambiguity creates one explicit work item instead of silently attaching work to the wrong existing item. Across the entire invocation, at most one new work item may be created.

Phase 3 — Claim and bind

1. Invoke lisa-tracker-claim <canonical-ref>. Require its post-read verified claim_outcome: claimed|reused; no binding may be written after a failed/unverified claim.

2. Persist only the canonical reference in worktree-local machine state:

   node scripts/lisa-work-item.mjs bind <canonical-ref>
   

3. Read the binding back through node scripts/lisa-work-item.mjs current and require it to equal the canonical reference. If binding fails, stop before durable project work.

   • A detached-HEAD worktree is valid at this stage: the binding records branch: null as a pending state. Create the feature branch only after the gate succeeds, then run node scripts/lisa-work-item.mjs attach-branch. Commit preparation and validation fail closed until that attachment succeeds.

4. Return this structured result plus the full resolved work-item context:

   tracker_provider: jira|github|linear
   work_item_ref: <canonical-ref>
   resolution_outcome: explicit|reused|created
   claim_outcome: claimed|reused
   binding_outcome: verified
   

Lifecycle

• The binding is worktree-local, uncommitted machine state. Never write it into tracked source files.
• Branch setup may call node scripts/lisa-work-item.mjs attach-branch after the feature branch exists.
• Keep the binding across ordinary interruptions and blocked outcomes so resumed work remains attributable.
• Clear it only after true terminal completion — merged, deployed/verified where required, tracker evidence/backlink complete, and the work item terminal — by running node scripts/lisa-work-item.mjs clear and verifying no current binding remains.
• A tracker outage, invalid item, failed claim, or failed binding blocks durable work. Never continue untracked and never ask a Git hook to create the item.