operations_queue_policy.md

Queue Policy

Status

Review and revision lanes below are the planned v0.1 operating contract. Their routes and jobs remain unavailable until the owning REV chunks, exact AUTH activation, and REV-13 joint release complete.

Purpose

The queue is the operational truth of Workstream. It tells the team what exists, what is blocked, what needs human action, and what creates contribution or compensation-award exposure.

Queue lanes must be derived from task status, not manually maintained in separate lists.

Lanes

Draft

Tasks being prepared.

Owner:

• project manager
• task creator

Exit requirement:

• project guide attached
• acceptance criteria present
• required output defined

Screening

Tasks that look ready but need independent release review before contributors can claim them.

Owner:

• project manager
• reviewer lead
• quality lead

Exit requirement:

• project guide version locked
• immutable guide source snapshot id/hash locked
• acceptance criteria are concrete
• effective project submission artifact policy hash locked
• project PreSubmitCheckerPolicy compiled bundle hash locked
• approved generated project PostSubmitCheckerPolicy is locked with matching guide, source snapshot, effective project policy, and pre-submit checker provenance
• review policy is attached
• revision policy is attached
• no open critical- or high-severity readiness finding

Policy:

• screening is where weak task guides and low-quality task specs fail
• contributors do not see tasks that have not passed screening

Ready

Tasks that can be claimed or assigned.

Owner:

• project manager

Exit requirement:

• assigned or claimed by contributor

Active

Tasks in CLAIMED or IN_PROGRESS.

Owner:

• contributor
• operator

Operational risk:

• stale active tasks block throughput

Policy:

• each active task must have a deadline or next check-in
• stale tasks get an owner action before deadline breach

Submitted

Tasks with a new submission packet.

Owner:

• checker system

Exit requirement:

• checker run created

Auto Checking

Checker run is active.

Owner:

• checker system
• Operator when infrastructure recovery is required

Policy:

• checker failure because of platform/tooling stays in checker retry handling; Operator retry uses operations.checker.retry, while covered Project Manager repair uses project.task.manage, and neither moves work directly to review
• retry and repair actions record matched grant/permission, reason, attempt, and immutable audit history

Checker Admission Gate

Mandatory automated admission after post-submit checks and before human review.

Owner:

• checker system

Policy:

• only a durable, final, current CheckerRun outcome of allow_review admits the exact immutable Submission
• admission records the exact CheckerRun and verified binding facts; retries, superseded runs, and different Submissions cannot replace that anchor
• contributor-fixable checker failures may route the Task to needs_revision but create no Review, ReviewFinding, or reviewer contribution
• setup or provenance defects remain blocked until the owning covered repair or retry action succeeds
• human judgment begins only after admission and is recorded as an immutable Review

Review Pending

Submission passed blocking checks and is ready for human review.

Owner:

• reviewer

Policy:

• reviewer current work returns an active lease, one server-selected offer, or none; reviewers never browse the complete lane
• any critical- or high-severity checker failure in this lane is a system bug; no administrative grant can override it into review readiness

Needs Revision

Contributor-facing lane for fixable issues from automated checks, pre-review gates, or human review.

Policy:

• after a human needs_revision Review, Workstream compares the prior Submission's complete governing context with the currently active applicable guide/source, submission/checker, review, revision, task-execution, and submitter ContributionPolicy context
• exact component matches keep; every changed valid component rebases together; unsafe or incomplete context blocks the whole preparation for manager repair
• Task Context returns the frozen preparation and change summary; the reviewer never rebases the leased Submission
• out-of-band guidance is not enforceable until it is encoded into guide, policy, task template, or checker contracts

Owner:

• contributor
• covered Project Manager for planned repair/obligation closure; Operator only for evidence-linked legacy recovery

Policy:

• checker-caused remediation carries CheckerResult lineage; human-review revision carries an immutable Review and at least one blocking finding
• human-review resubmission includes one immutable response per unresolved blocking finding

Accepted

Work satisfies the project guide and acceptance criteria.

Owner:

• project operations
• finance/reconciliation only for payable contribution awards

Policy:

• the accepting Review creates reviewer completed_review, REV-owned FinalAcceptance, and FinalAcceptance-sourced submitter accepted_submission contribution records atomically
• each frozen contribution policy is evaluated independently; only payable contributions create awards and fulfillment follow-up
• accepted task is not confused with fulfilled compensation

Rejected

Work is not acceptable and will not continue in the normal revision loop.

Owner:

• project manager for terminal-state observation
• authorized audit authority for non-mutating quality sampling only

Policy:

• rejection requires a bounded human, guide-grounded reason; structured findings and finalized evidence are optional when they add useful support
• the Task enters canonical rejected; only its same-task TaskAssignment is blocked and bound to the reject Review
• no FinalAcceptance or submitter contribution is created; no actor grant or unrelated task changes
• quality sampling cannot reopen, adjudicate, replace, or change the immutable Review, rejection, task state, assignment effect, or contribution lineage

Compensation Fulfillment Follow-Up

Compensation follow-up is not a task queue lane. It is derived from payable CompensationAward records and their fulfillment projections, whether the source contribution is completed_review or accepted_submission.

Track:

• payable contribution missing its award or fulfillment projection
• pending award delivery
• acknowledged by adapter
• failed fulfillment
• fulfilled with immutable receipt

Daily Queue Review

Every operating day starts with:

1. count tasks by lane
2. clear screening tasks or send them back to draft
3. inspect stale active tasks
4. clear checker failures
5. monitor server-selected review offers and active leases
6. push needs revision tasks to contributors
7. reconcile payable awards with pending/failed fulfillment projections
8. record new lessons learned

Transition Guards

Transition	Required Records
DRAFT -> SCREENING	project id, locked guide candidate, task source/description fields, acceptance and rejection criteria
SCREENING -> READY	screening decision, guide version lock, guide source snapshot id/hash lock, acceptance criteria, effective project submission artifact policy hash lock, project PreSubmitCheckerPolicy compiled bundle hash lock, approved generated project PostSubmitCheckerPolicy with matching provenance, review policy, revision policy
READY -> CLAIMED	active published ContributionPolicyVersion whose accepted_submission rule is explicit; TaskAssignment freezes that version
IN_PROGRESS -> SUBMITTED	blocking pre-submit checks passed against the exact outer ZIP, submission packet, server-generated submission-bundle manifest and verified admission binding, evidence references, contributor attestation
SUBMITTED -> EVALUATION_PENDING	immutable submission version, locked post-submit checker policy id/version/hash/body copied from the task context
EVALUATION_PENDING -> REVIEW_PENDING	durable, final, current CheckerRun for the exact Submission with outcome exactly allow_review, verified artifact bindings, no blocking failures
EVALUATION_PENDING -> NEEDS_REVISION	durable, final, current CheckerRun for the exact Submission with outcome exactly needs_revision, verified artifact bindings, outcome source auto_checker, contributor-visible checker failures with severity, message, suggested fix
REVIEW_PENDING -> NEEDS_REVISION	immutable Review, at least one blocking ReviewFinding, reviewer completed_review under the completed lease freeze, atomic complete-context kept/rebased/blocked preparation for the next attempt; no FinalAcceptance or submitter contribution
REVIEW_PENDING -> ACCEPTED	immutable accepting Review, FinalAcceptance, reviewer completed_review, submitter accepted_submission sourced from FinalAcceptance, applicable awards
REVIEW_PENDING -> REJECTED	immutable rejected Review, bounded reason, same-task assignment block, reviewer completed_review; no FinalAcceptance or submitter contribution
NEEDS_REVISION -> SUBMITTED	exact complete-context preparation head/digest, replacement Submission stamped with its selected guide/policy context, response for every unresolved blocking finding, policy limit/deadline not reached
NEEDS_REVISION -> CANCELLED	covered manager limit/deadline closure or Operator legacy-context closure, bounded canonical reason, assignment release; no synthetic Review or contribution
compensation pending -> fulfilled	immutable fulfillment receipt, external reference, and audit event

Lane Capacity

Each project defines capacity limits:

• maximum active tasks per contributor
• maximum active ReviewLeases per reviewer
• maximum stale active age
• maximum pending/failed payable-award fulfillment age

Capacity limits prevent the queue from looking healthy while hidden work is stuck.

For early pilots, use conservative defaults:

• contributor active task limit: 2
• reviewer active ReviewLease limit: 1
• review SLA: 24 hours
• compensation fulfillment reconciliation SLA: daily

Queue Health Metrics

• tasks ready
• tasks screening
• tasks active
• submitted awaiting checks
• review pending age
• needs revision age
• unfulfilled compensation award amount
• rejected count
• fulfilled compensation total

Failure Modes

Review Pending Pileup

Cause:

• not enough reviewers
• reviewers lack context
• checker output too noisy

Fix:

• assign reviewer owner
• improve review packet
• split projects by reviewer skill

Needs Revision Looping

Cause:

• vague feedback
• contributor not closing findings
• task spec unclear

Fix:

• require revision replay
• audit reviewer wording
• update project guide

Payable Contribution Fulfillment Drift

Cause:

• contribution award creation and fulfillment are disconnected

Fix:

• frozen contribution policy evaluation creates awards only for payable contributions; explicit unpaid rules create none
• compensation fulfillment dashboard is reviewed daily

Ready Lane Contains Weak Tasks

Cause:

• no ready gate
• task creator skipped project guide
• acceptance criteria are vague

Fix:

• run ready gate before READY
• add task creator checklist
• require reviewer simulation for first-of-kind tasks