# PDR 003: Make Work Graph authoritative for executable work

- HTML version: https://robbiepalmer.me/projects/work-graph/pdrs/003-make-work-graph-authoritative
- Project: Work Graph
- Status: Accepted
- Opened: 2026-09-19
- Decided: 2026-10-25

## Context

Shortcut supported quick capture, hierarchy, and backlog ordering for a
human-led workflow. Semi-autonomous delivery needs one work authority that
people and agents can use continuously. Reconstructing readiness, priority,
ownership, evidence, and blocked decisions from several trackers makes every
new session repeat planning work.

Repository-local agent trackers solve a narrower coordination problem. This
initiative spans projects, repositories, long-running environments, and
delivery systems. Its authority must cross those boundaries without taking
ownership of durable project prose.

## Decision

Use Work Graph as the authoritative source for migrated personal executable
work. It owns what should happen, what is ready, the current priority, who holds
the right to act, what needs human attention, and what evidence supports
completion.

Keep the public knowledge graph authoritative for initiative and project
meaning, architecture, and other durable prose. Work Graph mirrors the stable
scope identity needed for scheduling but does not replace those narratives.

Treat Shortcut, GitHub Issues, dependency automation, security tools,
telemetry, and live agent sessions as inputs, links, observations, or
projections. They must not become competing places where authoritative
lifecycle or priority changes. An editable projection writes through to Work
Graph before presenting the change as committed.

The installed CLI is the minimum complete operator interface. It must let an
owner or agent capture, inspect, and reprioritise work and explain the current
blocking paths, ready leaves, and independent branches. Access through an agent
from another device is enough. A dedicated graphical client is optional and
does not gate this decision.

## Consequences

Workers and the owner share one scheduling and coordination model across
projects. They no longer need to reconcile several partial backlogs before
claiming work.

Work Graph becomes critical personal infrastructure. Its availability,
backups, migrations, client compatibility, and recovery procedures replace
some of the operational work previously owned by a tracker vendor.

Integrations require explicit direction. A convenient view that accepts local
state changes without writing through would recreate the split authority this
decision removes.

## Evaluation

The proposal was accepted on 25 October 2026 after Work Graph had managed its
own delivery for several weeks. Independent workers claimed work without
double execution, stale lease operations were rejected, the CLI supported
remote planning and critical-path inspection, active Shortcut work was
reconciled into the graph, and delivery evidence could be tied back to work.

The acceptance evidence remains on the `work-graph-authority-acceptance` work
item and its delivery tickets. Revisit this decision if a second system must
own lifecycle or priority for the same migrated scope, or if operating the
central service costs more than the coordination it replaces.

## Alternatives considered

### Keep Shortcut authoritative

Shortcut remains a capable human interface. It does not own worker leases,
dependency-derived readiness, evidence policy, or the initiative-wide critical
path. Adding those in a separate coordinator would leave two systems
responsible for one lifecycle.

### Adopt Beads

Beads fits repository-scoped, offline-first agent work. Work Graph needs one
server-side authority across projects and repositories, plus contextual
ranking and observed delivery state. Adopting Beads would still require a
separate policy and integration layer for those behaviours.

### Return to GitHub Issues, Linear, or Jira

These products provide mature human interfaces. Expressing Work Graph's
relationships, leases, evidence, and scheduler semantics through fields and
automation would move the real authority into an integration layer while the
tracker showed only part of the state.

## Migration note

This record extracts the product decision opened in ADR 007 on 19 September
2026 and accepted on 25 October 2026. The dates, rationale, acceptance evidence,
and replacement of Shortcut remain unchanged. ADR 007 retains the central
coordination and integration architecture that implements this policy.

## Related records

- Project: [Work Graph](https://robbiepalmer.me/projects/work-graph.md)
- Informed by ADR: [ADR 000: Recursive work-item graph with combined cycle checks](https://robbiepalmer.me/projects/work-graph/adrs/000-flexible-work-item-graph.md)
- Informed by ADR: [ADR 002: Execution leases with fencing](https://robbiepalmer.me/projects/work-graph/adrs/002-leases-with-fencing.md)
- Informed by ADR: [ADR 003: REST API and TypeScript CLI before MCP](https://robbiepalmer.me/projects/work-graph/adrs/003-rest-api-and-cli-first.md)
- Informed by ADR: [ADR 006: Reciprocal-rank fusion for contextual priority](https://robbiepalmer.me/projects/work-graph/adrs/006-contextual-stack-ranking.md)
- Implemented by ADR: [ADR 007: Central coordination boundary for authoritative work](https://robbiepalmer.me/projects/work-graph/adrs/007-authoritative-work-graph.md)

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