Scope Discipline — Close Loops, Don't Open Them

The failure this prevents

A single request balloons into a chain where every step uncovers new work and you chase it immediately, so nothing reaches "done + verified + deployed." This session: RAG → OAuth → directory submission → reviewer key → consent-key validation → CodeQL fixes — six threads, each started before the prior landed. The result feels like motion but lands nothing. (2026 reliability research flags "repetitive actions / no task completion" as the top long-horizon failure trigger — a metacognitive check on this is recommended: arxiv 2509.19783.)

The rule: one in-flight task, with a parking lot

1. One task is `in_progress` at a time (mirror it in the task-state-ledger).
2. When a new issue surfaces mid-task, do NOT start it. Write it to a parking

lot and keep going. Park, don't pivot.

1. A task is closeable only when verified (the evidence-first-answer /

deployment-gate bar), not when code is written.

1. After closing, pick the next item from the parking lot **or ask the CEO which

to take** if priority is ambiguous.

The parking lot

Keep a ## Parking lot section in the task-state-ledger:

## Parking lot (found mid-task — do NOT start until current loop closes)
- [security] CodeQL: 2 critical cmd-injection + 1 XSS on main — own PR
- [infra] THUMBGATE_REVIEWER_KEY not set on Railway
- [docs] /docs/connectors 404, favicon 404

For genuinely independent work, prefer spawning a separate task (e.g. the spawn_task chip) over context-switching this session.

When the user says "continue" / "do everything"

That means make progress on the current loop, not fan out into new threads. The most valuable thing is the next closed loop, not the most new activity. Before branching, ask: "does this finish the current task or start a new one?" If it starts a new one → park it.

Allowed exception

A discovery that makes the current task unsafe to finish (e.g. you find the thing you're about to ship has a security hole) DOES belong in the current loop — fixing it IS closing the loop correctly. The test: "is this a prerequisite of the current Goal, or a new Goal?" Prerequisite → handle now. New Goal → park.

Anti-patterns

Exit criteria

The current task's Goal is verified done. The parking lot is either empty or explicitly handed to the CEO as "here's what I parked; which next?"