# PDR 002: Rank work in context and explain expedites

- HTML version: https://robbiepalmer.me/projects/work-graph/pdrs/002-rank-work-in-context
- Project: Work Graph
- Status: Accepted
- Opened: 2026-09-18
- Decided: 2026-09-18

## Context

A global numeric priority asks the owner to calibrate every item against every
other item. The meaning of a number changes as work enters and leaves the
graph. A strict parent-first order has the opposite problem. Moving one
initiative can place all of its tickets ahead of every ticket elsewhere, even
when only its leading outcome deserves that position.

The useful planning judgment is usually local: put this initiative above that
one, or this ticket below a nearby ticket in the same project. The resulting
queue still needs to account for projects, initiatives, dependencies, and work
that must interrupt the normal order.

## Decision

Let owners and agents rank initiatives against initiatives, projects against
projects, and tickets against tickets in the same scheduling project. Express
changes with relative moves such as above or below a nearby item. New entries
join the middle of their relevant stack instead of demanding a globally
meaningful priority number.

Combine those contextual positions into one ready queue. Do not group every
ticket from a higher-ranked initiative ahead of all work in lower-ranked
initiatives. A leading ticket in one project may outrank later tickets from a
project or initiative that is otherwise higher.

Keep decomposition from creating a new priority dimension. Child work inherits
the scheduling position of the outcome that produced it, while dependencies
still decide which ready leaf can advance that outcome.

Support an explicit expedite only when the caller supplies a reason. An
expedited outcome moves ahead of normally ranked work, and its urgency reaches
unresolved blockers so the queue can advance the interrupted outcome. The
blockers lose that donated urgency when the source expedite is removed.

## Consequences

People can maintain priority through nearby comparisons without learning the
queue's scoring formula. Speculative work can enter one stack without forcing a
repository-wide rerank.

The displayed order may change when a surrounding initiative, project, or
ticket stack changes. Work Graph must expose enough rank and expedite
provenance to explain that movement.

Relative moves are limited to one comparable stack. The product rejects direct
comparisons between tickets in different projects or between unlike scope
types. Expedites remain visible exceptions rather than hidden priority edits.

## Evaluation

The policy is useful when the owner can express the intended next work through
local moves, and when an agent can explain why a blocker moved forward. Revisit
it if the projected queue repeatedly contradicts the owner's ordering despite
correct contextual ranks.

## Migration note

This record extracts the product policy first recorded in ADR 006. It keeps the
original date and accepted status. ADR 006 retains the ordinal-rank storage,
reciprocal-rank fusion, tie-breaking, and donated-urgency projection. The
migration does not change current queue order.

## Related records

- Project: [Work Graph](https://robbiepalmer.me/projects/work-graph.md)
- Implemented by ADR: [ADR 006: Reciprocal-rank fusion for contextual priority](https://robbiepalmer.me/projects/work-graph/adrs/006-contextual-stack-ranking.md)

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