groomlisted

# Backlog Grooming Grooming brings 🔲 Backlog tasks up to 🗂️ Ready: every open question resolved or explicitly owned, scope verified against the actual code, tests and manual-gate items enumerated — then the human signs off, batch by batch. This skill exists because the procedure is **load-bearing but routinely skipped**: under context pressure a single agent compresses the expensive Step-1 load and "just decides." Here the deterministic parts are done by a script (nothing to skip) and the judgment parts are gated on human sign-off (nothing to self-grant). **Read `reference/anti-patterns.md` now** — those failure modes are the whole reason this skill exists. Read `reference/presentation.md` before Step 2. --- ## Step 0 — Resolve manifest & mode 1. Read the repo's grooming manifest from the **central config tree** — `<config>/projects/<repo-dir>/grooming.json` (the loader resolves the config root via `$ORCHESTRATOR_CONFIG_DIR` / `--config-dir` / a host-aware default; `<repo-dir>` is the repo basename, override with `--project`). **If it is missing, stop** and tell the human (point them at `reference/manifest.example.json`). Do not improvise. 2. Note `architectural_control`: - `full` → this skill's default behavior (decide-and-rewrite within the rules). - `low` → **read `reference/low-control.md`** and follow the investigate-propose-route adaptation instead. The groomer does not own the architecture; resolution biases to proposing and routing