Navigate

Pick the next wave (the ready beads run together next) on a bead graph and keep the graph honest toward its frozen acceptance. The root epic holds acceptance; each child build bead is one experiment; a decision bead goes to the resolver it names (Foggy epics). Navigate picks and records, and never edits acceptance, dispatches, judges or closes: Plan shapes, Orchestrate dispatches, native execution (the caller's coding agent and shell) or an optional RPI run builds, Validate judges, and Craft Goal owns the prompt and HOLD (the goal's stop on a declared trigger, so the cause can be examined before more work runs).

One pass, when a person asks what is next on an epic: steps 1 and 2 plus hygiene, returning the wave in the step 4 shape instead of handing it off. Write nothing; change edges only on the caller's go-ahead; stop after one pass. Each wave of a running goal: steps 1 to 4.

Rules that decide the pick

• Closed is not proven. Only cited evidence for a criterion proves its row: the passing check that exercises it, or the Validate PASS where a fresh read was required. Closed status, a merge or an approving note leaves it open.
• Serve an open row. Pick only ready beads that serve an open criterion or a named blocking uncertainty; a bead tied to none is a hygiene finding.
• Stay disjoint. Picked write and generated scopes overlap neither each other nor any in-flight bead; an overlapping ready bead waits.
• Ready is a tracker state. An empty ready list does not prove completion; a closed prerequisite with missing or stale bytes (the output it claims is absent or out of date) is not usable readiness.

Speak the domain

• BDD: each criterion is a Given/When/Then example with an observable result. Each bead names the example it moves; a bead that lacks one gets Plan before it is built.
• DDD: the root epic defines each domain term once, in one line. Titles, examples, code and tests reuse that exact word. A synonym is a hygiene finding; Domain settles disputes.
• Write a bead as its title, then its id: Locale fallback test (ag-12).

Bead graph contract

Root epic: outcome, acceptance examples, non-goals, authority, domain terms. Child bead: the question and the criterion or uncertainty it serves; method, expected observation, falsifier, scope, non-goals; notes enough to resume after compaction; verdict, evidence refs, learning.

Edges: parent-child for membership, blocks only for real ordering, related for alternatives, discovered-from for provenance. The tracker owns status and closing. BD (Beads) is the example; any tracker with status, dependencies and notes fits. With BD, run bd context --json before any write. Beads Viewer (bv) rank is advice; live BD beats it and any saved plan.

1. Observe

bd context --json                   # verify the destination first
bd show <epic>                      # outcome, acceptance, domain terms
bd children <epic>                  # direct children only; recurse into child epics
bd ready --parent <epic> --json     # ready frontier across descendants
bd blocked --parent <epic>          # blocked work
bd show <bead>; bd comments <bead>  # prior verdicts and evidence refs

Build the acceptance matrix (criterion, evidence, status) under the rules above; note in-flight beads with their scopes and any result limit you hit. Done when every criterion has a row and every open row names its bead, blocker or gap.

2. Pick the wave

When every row is proven, or no ready bead serves an open row, pick nothing, say which, and go to step 4. Otherwise pick the smallest set of ready beads with the most decision-relevant information that meets the rules above and fits the declared wave budget; no budget means one bead. Prefer an early falsifier.

Hand each build bead to native execution, or to one RPI when the goal or caller selects it: through Orchestrate or Agent Native when delegation is authorized, one bead per worker, otherwise the caller's runtime. Its checks and CI are its result; it gets one fresh, author-distinct Validate only on Validate's triggers, and a repair does not start another. A decision bead goes to the resolver it names, never to an implementer; one that needs the caller's answer goes under decisions in the checkpoint. Done when each picked bead has a one-line reason and a named handoff.

3. Ratchet the graph

Record each result unchanged on its bead: the check facts, and the verdict when one was obtained. For example bd update <id> --append-notes "verdict: FAIL; evidence: <refs>; learned: <decision it changes>". Update its matrix row, then classify each discovery:

A result ratchets when it proves part of acceptance, falsifies a live hypothesis with discriminating evidence, or resolves an uncertainty so the next experiment differs; FAIL and NOT_PROVEN can ratchet. Commits, counts, digests, rewritten plans and red with no new information are churn. Split old defects from regressions by before/after reproduction or equivalent causal evidence under the same acceptance; counts, timestamps and new ids prove no cause. Unknown cause, a reopened finding or recurrence of a closed finding class is HOLD, not proof the design is wrong. Never downgrade a necessary-now discovery to linked-follow-up; no wave, helper, retry or compaction resets the goal's budget totals. Done when every result sits on its bead and every discovery has a class.

4. Checkpoint

Append this block to the existing handoff or root epic notes; no new artifact. Stop after appending it: the goal continues, holds or ends. A one-pass reply drops the Ratchets, Budget and Helper lines and writes nothing.

Acceptance: <id> <criterion as written>: proven (<check or PASS ref>)
            <id> <criterion as written>: open (<bead title> <id>, or the gap)
Frontier:   <ready beads, by title>
Wave:       <bead title>: <row or uncertainty it serves>; or none: <why>
Ratchets:   <results that changed a decision>; churn: <results that did not>
Fog:        <proposed decision beads>; questions: <not yet beads>; ruled out: <work>; or none
Hygiene:    <one finding per line>, or none
Budget:     <remaining if measured, else unmeasured>
Helper:     <HOLD incident and helper use, or none>; native state: <observed continue/stop>
Next:       <thesis>; decisions: <open questions for the caller>

Foggy epics

When the outcome is clear but the way there is not, the next beads are decisions, not build slices. Each open question becomes a decision bead whose answer is a choice, sized to one session, naming how it resolves: a cited fact (Research), a rough artifact the caller reacts to (Plan's probes and prototypes), a conversation with the caller (Interview), or a manual step that only unblocks a decision. Give it the tracker's decision type, never a build or agent-ready label (with BD, bd create --type decision, or bd update <id> --type decision --remove-label agent-ready for a decision already filed as build work). Plain bd ready lists decisions too; pull build work with bd ready --parent <epic> --exclude-type decision. A question that needs the caller's own answer resolves only with the caller; never answer it on their behalf, whether by a default, a recommendation or filing it as ruled-out work.

Track two lists with the root epic: in-scope questions not yet specific enough to become beads, which graduate as the frontier moves, and work ruled out by the caller or the epic's non-goals, which does not come back without the caller. Record each resolved decision as one line plus its bead, not a restatement. The fog has lifted when no decision stands between the graph and build beads with acceptance examples; hand those to Plan.

In a one-pass reply, return the proposed decision beads and both lists in the checkpoint's Fog line and write nothing. In a running goal, create beads and append notes through step 3, within authority and the declared wave budget; decision beads count against that budget like any other.

Hygiene

Report cycles among the epic's beads (bd dep cycles, filtered to them), beads tied to no criterion, blocks edges that are not real ordering, criteria not in Given/When/Then form or with no observable result (an open decision the caller can settle with Interview; never rewrite one), closed beads with missing bytes, decision beads typed as build work, and drifted terms. bd graph <epic> shows the shape. Change edges only on the caller's go-ahead.