The delivery board¶

How work is tracked here, and why it is set up the way it is. This is the JIRA-shaped half of the playground: a board with real columns, real fields, and automation that keeps it honest.

Board: Advanced RAG — Delivery (Projects v2)

Columns and what each one means¶

flowchart LR
    B["📥 <b>Backlog</b><br/><i>an idea with a title</i>"] -->|"acceptance criteria written"| R
    R["✅ <b>Ready</b><br/><i>anyone could pick this up</i>"] -->|"assigned + branch exists"| P
    P["🔨 <b>In progress</b><br/><i>exactly one owner</i>"] -->|"PR opened"| V
    V["🔍 <b>In review</b><br/><i>eval gate + human</i>"] -->|"merged"| D
    D["🎉 <b>Done</b><br/><i>merged and measured</i>"]
    V -.->|"changes requested"| P
    P -.->|"blocked >3 days"| BL["⛔ <b>Blocked</b><br/><i>needs a name and a date</i>"]
    BL -.-> P
    R -.->|"superseded"| X["🗄 <b>Won't do</b><br/><i>with a reason</i>"]

    classDef todo fill:#F6F4EF,stroke:#C9C4B8,color:#3A414B
    classDef active fill:#FBF1E2,stroke:#E9A83C,color:#101318
    classDef done fill:#E9F3EE,stroke:#3F8F6E,color:#101318
    classDef bad fill:#FBECE8,stroke:#CF4F35,color:#101318
    class B,R todo
    class P,V active
    class D done
    class BL,X bad

Column	Entry condition	The rule people break
Backlog	Anything. An idea with a title is enough.	—
Ready	Acceptance criteria are written down.	"Improve retrieval" is not acceptance criteria. "Full-chain recall on the comparison slice rises ≥5 points at unchanged k, and holds on the frozen slice" is.
In progress	Assigned to exactly one person, branch exists.	Two people, or nobody, on the same card. If it is genuinely shared, split it.
In review	PR open, CI green, eval scorecard posted.	Opening a PR without the measurement table. The template asks for it because a reviewer cannot supply it.
Blocked	Names who unblocks it and by when.	"Blocked" with no name is a card nobody will ever move.
Done	Merged, and the delta recorded.	Closing without recording whether the change actually moved the number.
Won't do	A reason, in one sentence.	Silently deleting cards, which destroys the record of what was considered.

Custom fields¶

Field	Type	Values	Why it exists
Phase	Single select	`P0 Harness` · `P1 Baseline` · `P2 Retrieval` · `P3 Context` · `P4 Evaluation` · `P5 Cost` · `P6 Agentic` · `P7 Hardening`	Maps every card to a delivery phase, so "what are we in the middle of" has an answer
Effort	Single select	`S <1d` · `M 2–3d` · `L ~1w` · `XL cohort`	Estimated before work starts; compare against reality in retro
Cohort	Single select	`C1` · `C2` · `faculty` · `open`	Separates student work from platform work on the same board
Risk	Single select	`low` · `medium` · `high`	High-risk cards get a design review before they leave Ready
Needs eval	Checkbox	—	Set automatically for anything touching `nanorag/`; the eval gate will run
Metric moved	Text	e.g. `full-chain +0.05 [+0.01,+0.09]`	Filled in when the card reaches Done. This is the field that makes the board worth keeping.

Views¶

View	Filter	Used for
Board	all open	The daily standup view
By phase	grouped by Phase	"Where are we in the delivery?"
Cohort	`Cohort` = a free-text group label	What each cohort or squad is working on
Needs review	column = In review	The reviewer's queue
Blocked	column = Blocked	Read this one first in a standup
Shipped with numbers	column = Done, `Metric moved` not empty	The retro view — and the one to screenshot for a CV
Good first issues	label `good first issue`	Where a new student starts

Automation¶

Three GitHub Actions keep the board honest so nobody has to remember to update it:

Trigger	What happens	Workflow
Issue or PR opened	Added to the board, lands in Backlog; a comment explains the entry conditions	`project-automation.yml`
PR opened touching `nanorag/`	`needs: eval-numbers` label applied; eval gate runs and posts a scorecard	`labeler.yml`, `eval-regression.yml`
PR merged	Card moves to Done	built-in Projects workflow
No activity for 45 days	Marked stale, then closed, so the board reflects reality	`stale.yml`

Exercise issues are exempt from stale — a student who takes six weeks is still a student.

Labels¶

Labels are three orthogonal axes. A well-formed issue has one from each of the first two.

Axis	Labels
Type	`type: bug` · `type: exercise` · `type: extension` · `type: reading` · `type: docs` · `type: chore` · `type: discussion-followup`
Area	`area: retrieval` · `area: evaluation` · `area: agent` · `area: cost` · `area: notebooks` · `area: toolkit` · `area: docs` · `area: ci` · `area: bedrock`
Status / meta	`status: triage` · `status: needs-review` · `status: blocked` · `status: stale` · `good first issue` · `help wanted` · `cohort` · `needs: eval-numbers` · `dependencies`

The one habit worth stealing¶

Every card that reaches Done has its Metric moved field filled in — including the ones where the honest entry is inside the noise band.

A board that only records wins is a board that teaches people to only report wins. The retro view, filtered to Done, is a record of what was actually true, and after a couple of months it becomes the most useful artefact in the repository.