Global 🟡 lifecycle rule to prevent premature resolution

[wtmoose]

Friction

Agents prematurely remove 🟡 markers — resolving open questions during discussion without explicit human approval, or marking items complete before the human confirms. The constraint against premature removal exists in multiple guides but is scattered and inconsistently phrased. For example, the work spec implementation guide says "NEVER remove 🟡 from the current task," while the planning guide says "do NOT remove 🟡 markers preemptively." Despite the rules existing, agents violate them — possibly because the rules are local to each guide rather than established as a prominent, universal invariant.

Suggestion

No concrete solution yet. Centralizing the 🟡 lifecycle rule into a single core definition was considered, but the constraint already exists in the guides that were violated — adding more documentation may not address the root cause (agent not respecting rules it has already read). Filing as an open problem for tracking. Possible directions: (a) centralize the rule anyway for consistency, (b) make the standardized gate line (see related ticket) serve as a structural enforcement mechanism, (c) accept this as an inherent LLM limitation and rely on human correction.

Affected files

Unknown — depends on solution direction. If centralized: new Guides/Core/progress-markers.md or equivalent, with updates to all guides that currently define local 🟡 rules.