/internal/docs/PRIORITIES.md

Priorities

The ranked work queue for the autonomous improvement loop. The architecture-review pass (the architect) owns this file: each run it turns the roadmap plus an internal scan (gaps in the services → agents → workflows lifecycle, API coherence, drift, tech debt, test and DX friction) into a single ordered list — highest-value first — and links each item to a tracking issue. The hourly continuous-improvement pass works the top item whose issue is still open. So the architect decides what, and the increment loop builds it.

Reading / editing. An item is done when its linked issue closes (the increment that builds it adds Closes #<issue>). Roadmap phase (Now → Next → Later) is the primary ordering; internal findings are interleaved by value, not kept in a separate list. The human can reorder this list — or the issues — at any time to redirect the loop; direction always wins.

Off-limits to the loop (the architect proposes these as notes, never as queue items the loop can auto-merge): brand/positioning copy, breaking public-API changes, architectural rewrites. Those go to the human.

Work queue (ranked)

1. Make the first-agent on-ramp discoverable from README and website navigation (#3640) — the install and first-run smoke contract shipped in #3635, but adoption still depends on a new developer finding the next step without already knowing the guide names. Put the walkable path from install/scaffold to first agent, chat/inspect, and 0→hero in the README/site wayfinding so the verified harness becomes lived DX rather than hidden depth.
2. Make plan/delegate live-provider conformance avoid duplicate task side effects (#3626) — atlascloud still has an open Now-phase trust gap where plan/delegate created duplicate launch tasks and missed the delegated notification. This remains the highest open runtime fix because plan/delegate is the bridge from agent reasoning to service side effects; developers cannot trust the services → agents lifecycle if a model can replay tool calls and leave handoff pending.
3. Make universe checkout conformance send exactly one concierge notification (#3633) — the newest live-provider scan found the durable checkout/universe path resuming correctly but notifying the buyer twice. Rank it next because durable workflows are the 0→hero proof, and resume idempotency must be boring before deeper observability or future interop work matters.
4. Expose fallback_echo during A2A streaming fallback conformance (#3560) — this remains the next scoped Now-phase interop/conformance gap: it protects the A2A streaming promise developers see in the README and site by ensuring the non-native streaming fallback path still receives the tool surface, without letting protocol depth outrank the on-ramp or side-effect safety.
5. Propagate agent run cancellation and deadlines through model and tool calls (#3544) — the highest-value remaining Now-phase resilience gap after the live-provider side-effect fixes is predictable failure semantics across agent runs, model calls, tool calls, plan/delegate, and flow handoffs. Tool retries and live-provider deadline tuning are in place; the lifecycle still needs cancellation/deadline propagation so work fails safely instead of becoming opaque loops.
6. Emit OpenTelemetry spans for agent run timelines (#3525) — recent work made runs inspectable, correlated trace metadata through scheduled dispatch, verified restart resume, added opt-in tool retries, hardened provider conformance, and fixed provider-emitted text tool calls. The next Next-phase step is to turn that RunInfo foundation into standard OTel spans for agent runs, model calls, tool calls, checkpoint/resume, cancellation/deadlines, and failures.
7. Add an AP2 mandate layer over A2A and x402 (#3552) — this is a forward interop investment, not a Now-phase blocker: Go Micro already has A2A agents and x402 paid tools, so a small signed-mandate foundation can keep agent payments aligned with the open-protocol story without pulling the queue away from adoption, resilience, or observability. Keep it additive and opt-in while the AP2/FIDO work settles.

Seeded by Claude Code from the roadmap + open issues; thereafter maintained by the architecture-review pass.