Roadmap
A roadmap of goals. Your agents build in its order.
The roadmap is the part of your context layer that says what you want next: goals in order, each with what achieving it means. Every agent session starts with the current goal, and work for earlier goals is picked up first.
Goals in order, no dates
A roadmap is your project's goals in order, each with what achieving it means, and nothing on it is a date.
Put the goal that matters most first, and move it when that changes. Nothing slips, because nothing was promised for a day.
Milestones under each goal
A milestone is a step on the way to its goal, with what reaching it means, and a goal passes its milestones in order.
Attach items, docs pages or files to it. Attach a story, and every task beneath it comes along and counts.
What "done" means, written with the goal
Every goal and milestone carries its own test of done, and every run on its work reads it.
A goal also says what it leaves out, so an agent knows where its work ends. A milestone is reached once its work is done and no gap is open, at once or when you confirm it.
The order steers the work
The roadmap's order decides what your agents pick up first: ready work for an earlier goal or milestone comes before work for a later one.
Hold a goal
Hold a goal, and your agents finish it before they start work for any later goal.
Hold a milestone the same way. Work already started carries on, and lifting the hold sets the work behind it moving again.
Gaps: what's still missing
A gap is work nobody planned that a milestone can't be met without. While it's open, the milestone isn't reached.
Runs name the gaps they find, an agent that did none of the work reviews it for more, and you can raise one too. Each becomes an item, moves to another milestone or is dismissed.
Progress per milestone
Each milestone shows its work done against its work in scope, always up to date, with work added later marked as added.
Once its work is finished, a milestone can start a workflow, such as a release check. Analytics draws its burn-up over time.
Launching billing
One goal with two milestones, from the first item to the release check.
Write the goal
"Launch billing": customers can pay and change their plan, and refunds are left out. You put it first.
Add its milestones
"Checkout works", then "Invoices go out", each with what reaching it means. You attach the checkout story, and its tasks come with it.
Agents build in order
Ready checkout work is picked up before anything for a later goal, and every run reads what "Checkout works" means.
A gap turns up
A run finds that checkout can't work without tax rates and names the gap. You turn it into an item on the milestone.
The milestone is reached
With every item done and no gap open, "Checkout works" is reached, and its finished work starts the release check.
The work moves on
Your agents now take the work for "Invoices go out", and nobody had to reassign anything.
You wrote one goal and two milestones, and made one call on a gap. The order did the rest.
Questions about the roadmap
Why does the roadmap have no dates?
How do coding agents use the roadmap?
When is a milestone done?
What happens when I reorder goals?
Does the roadmap show a burn-up chart?
Put your goals in order
Write the first goal and what it means, and your agents build toward it.