Status: Accepted
Date: 2026-07-07

Context

The .context/ frontmatter status enum was DRAFT | ACTIVE | DONE | SUPERSEDED.
Real items that are not done but cannot be actioned — date-gated (e.g. the
tessl-eval-decommission Bucket A, gated to ~15-07-2026) or externally blocked
(e.g. the plan-review execution-location lens, blocked on an eval-harness
limitation) — had no home but ACTIVE. Filed as ACTIVE, they surfaced as top
candidates in the “what’s next” read protocol despite being un-actionable, so the
protocol repeatedly recommended work that could not be picked up.

Decision

Add DEFERRED as a fifth lifecycle status: a real item that cannot be actioned
yet because it is date-gated or externally blocked, distinct from ACTIVE
(pick-up-next) and DRAFT (not yet reviewed).

• Scope is “cannot”, not “won’t”. DEFERRED is reserved for work that is
  genuinely un-actionable right now. Merely low-priority work stays ACTIVE with
  value: LOW — that axis already sorts it last within tier 1. Overloading
  DEFERRED with “deprioritised” was considered and rejected: it would duplicate
  the value axis and blur the “can it be done now?” line the status exists to draw.
• Read protocol ranks DEFERRED in a strict second tier. Candidates split into
  tier 1 (DRAFT/ACTIVE) and tier 2 (DEFERRED); tier 1 is always exhausted
  before tier 2. Within each tier the existing sort applies (value descending,
  effort ascending, themes[0]). A DEFERRED item never outranks a tier-1 item
  regardless of its value. Reactivate to ACTIVE when the blocker clears.
• Optional deferred_until reactivation date. A date-gated item may carry a
  deferred_until: YYYY-MM-DD field (only valid with status: DEFERRED, enforced by
  the validator; the context index carries it so the protocol can filter without
  opening files). The read protocol does not list an item whose deferred_until
  is still in the future — it is hidden from the pick until that date passes, then
  surfaces as reactivation-eligible. The date takes precedence over the
  blocked-but-visible default: an item can be both externally blocked and date-gated,
  and when it is, the date governs visibility. Externally-blocked items with no known
  ripen date omit deferred_until and stay visible in tier 2 (below all DRAFT/ACTIVE).
• value, themes, and effort remain required on DEFERRED (same as
  DRAFT/ACTIVE), enforced by validate-context-frontmatter.sh, so a parked item
  re-ranks cleanly on reactivation. Only DONE/SUPERSEDED are exempt.
• Excluding DEFERRED from the pick entirely (listing it separately) was considered
  and rejected: the intent was “lower priority than active, still in the same queue”.

Consequences

• Easier: authors can keep gated or blocked work out of the pick, so the ACTIVE
  set once again means “work you would genuinely pick up next”; parked items stay
  fully graded, ready to re-rank the moment they reactivate.
• Harder: one more status to reason about, and a re-grade obligation on
  ACTIVE ↔ DEFERRED transitions (added to the ways-of-working re-grade rule).
• Limitation — no forcing function. Nothing detects that an ACTIVE item is
  actually blocked and forces it to DEFERRED; the benefit depends on author
  discipline. This shares the gap recorded in
  known-issues-lack-enforcement-2026-07-06
  and is tracked for DEFERRED specifically in
  deferred-no-forcing-function-2026-07-07.
  The deferred_until convention likewise has no automated sweep yet
  (deferred-no-reactivation-sweep-2026-07-07);
  reactivation currently happens at read time when an agent scans tier 2.
• Adoption: the change delivers nothing until the actual blocked items are
  migrated. The plan-review execution-location lens (blocked on the eval harness) is
  re-statused to DEFERRED in the same changeset; the tessl-eval-decommission
  Bucket A (date-gated to ~15-07-2026) is re-statused with its own branch to avoid a
  cross-branch status conflict.
• Scope: schema + validator + author/read-protocol docs only. The Go CLI does
  not gate on the status enum, so it is unaffected. The .tessl mirror is gitignored
  and regenerated from source in CI.