/.github/loop/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 first-agent preflight failures actionable (#3841) — developer adoption remains the current goal, and the README/docs now provide a no-secret first-agent route, micro agent preflight, a debugging guide, docs wayfinding, and a 0→hero harness. With #3544 closed by #3845, the highest-value remaining Now-phase item is making the first local failure feel like a guided doctor: when Go, the CLI, provider-key setup, or the gateway port is wrong, the CLI should say exactly what to fix and where to continue, without needing secrets or provider calls.
2. Emit OpenTelemetry spans for agent run timelines (#3525) — runs are increasingly inspectable and recent work correlated trace metadata, verified restart boundaries, added retry/cancellation hardening, and narrowed provider failures to diagnosability gaps. The next highest-value Next-phase internal increment is to turn the RunInfo foundation into standard OTel spans for agent runs, model calls, tool calls, checkpoint/resume, cancellation/deadlines, and failures so operators can understand the service → agent → workflow lifecycle in production.
3. Resume long-running agent runs from checkpoints (#3847) — the roadmap and blog promise a harness that recovers from failure, and flows already checkpoint/resume. After the adoption preflight and observability foundation, durable agent resume closes the most visible lifecycle seam between flows and agents: long agent work should survive restarts without replaying completed tool side effects or resuming canceled/expired runs.
4. 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, observability, or durable agent operation. 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.