/.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 config Close idempotent for file watcher shutdown (#4067) — #4069 shipped the docs-wayfinding guard, so the next highest-value Now-phase gap is keeping the CI evaluator trustworthy. A current master unit-test run is failing in config/source/file with panic: close of closed channel when a watcher calls config.Close during shutdown. Fix config.Close so repeated or concurrent close paths are safe, and prove it with the race-focused package test plus the broader suite. This is internal hardening, but it directly protects the autonomous loop's only merge gate.
2. Keep website quickstart on the first-agent on-ramp (#4071) — the README, Getting Started guide, docs index, examples map, CLI docs, and zero-to-hero guide now tell the provider-free first-agent story in order; the website Quick Start page still trails that canonical path by omitting some wayfinding anchors (micro agent demo, the no-secret transcript, debugging/inspect). Update the page and extend the focused docs harness so quickstart drift fails fast. This keeps developer adoption weighted alongside hardening instead of letting the queue become purely internal.

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