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# Story Tiers (A/B/C/D Framework)

Status: Concept. Proposed 2026-05-20 to solve B/C/D story starvation problem.

The Problem

Ishai works with an intentional hierarchy of work: A story (main urgent task), B/C/D stories (important ongoing work that must keep progressing even when A dominates). Without an explicit system, B/C/D stories die silently when A is urgent.

Examples of current B/C/D stories:

• B story: Vault quality / knowledge base (SUB-010). Needs continuous grooming, cross-linking, decision capture.
• C story: Stakeholder presence. Regular sync-ups, decision sharing, expectation setting (separate from raw-share reviews).
• C story: Design system alignment. Keep DS & V2 frontend in sync, backlog new tokens/components, Apollo DS maintenance.
• D story: Apollo progress. Steady iteration on auditor flow, but not blocking anything.

Current system: Active Board tracks milestone + due-date. Missing: explicit story-tier field to distinguish "deliberately parked while A runs" from "forgotten."

Proposed Solution

1. Add story-tier field to Active Board rows: each row gets a [a], [b], [c], or [d] label (e.g. [a] Cosmo PG page redesign [m1]). - A story: immediate, unblocked path to M1 completion, or hard deadline. - B story: important, must progress weekly, but A takes priority in a conflict. - C story: valuable, lower urgency, target every other week. - D story: nice-to-have, touch when above are clear.

2. Expand Nudge Engine rule (CLAUDE.md): in addition to surfacing overdue A-story items + stale-high items, each session boot surfaces exactly one B-story or C-story item untouched in 5+ days. Label it [B-story nudge] or [C-story nudge] so it's visually distinct from overdue A-story items.

3. When to promote B to A: milestone close (within 1 week), stakeholder deadline, or explicit Ishai decision. Promotion happens in conversation, gets noted in activity log.

4. Board hygiene: B/C/D items do NOT require milestone + due-date (A items do). They live in the Action Items buckets (Design Tasks, Open Design Questions, Concepts to Develop) unless explicitly promoted. Promotion moves them to Active Board with a milestone.

Implementation

• Step 1: Add story-tier field to Active Board table header (new column before priority).
• Step 2: Retro-label all current Active Board items (currently all are A by default).
• Step 3: Lock the Nudge Engine rule amendment in CLAUDE.md.
• Step 4: Update /morning and /weekly-review skills to parse + surface story tiers.

Why This Works

Fixes ADHD-leaning workflow pattern: without explicit tier labeling, B/C/D disappear from attention. The Nudge Engine already solves "overdue A," this extends it to "starving B/C." One nudge per session keeps non-urgent work visible without noise.

Example Session Boot Output (with new rule)

`` Active milestones: M1 Cosmo V2 MVP (3 days to target).

Tier-0 A-story musts (≤5): - [a] PG page detail redesign [m1] (due 2026-05-23) - [a] Weekly kanban interactions [m1] (overdue 2026-05-18)

A-story blocker: none.

B-story nudge: - [b] Vault cross-link pass [vault-quality] (last touched 2026-05-14, 6 days ago) ``