The parallel agent ticket-driven fix-and-land work loop

Issues are cleared by a fleet of background agents — one per ticket, each in its own isolated clone. The loop is: agree the fix, fork an agent, it repros-first and implements, then STOPS for a human to gate the commit; on approval it updates, re-tests, and fast-forward-posts. The method keeps many fixes in flight at once while every landed commit stays reviewed, tested, and ff-only.

One ticket per issue

Every issue is a numbered ticket e.g. todo/TOPIC/TOPIC-001.mkd, and the fix approach is agreed before any agent is forked.

Tickets are Plan-shaped pages (Issues, Blockers, Planned, Landed); DIS-NNN for spec/code gaps, GET-/POST-NNN for verb-specific.
Decide the fix first (the Planned section, or a design pass for open-ended ones), then fork — never on a vague idea.
A spec-code discrepancy or a bug found mid-fix becomes its OWN ticket, never a silent patch (this session spawned POST-001/002, GET-002).
Issue docs have size limits. Sizes count in 64-char lines (top intro 8 lines, section intro 4, bulletpoint 2).

One agent per ticket, in an isolated tree (worktree or clone)

Each agent gets its own tree WITH BEAGLE — either a store-backed worktree (cheap, shares the local .be) or a full independent clone — builds a debug tree there, and never touches another agent's files.

mkdir $HOME/todo/<TICKET>, then either (a) a store-backed worktree — cd $HOME/todo/<TICKET> and be get file:///home/gritzko/.be?/beagle (shares the global store, no full object copy), or (b) a full clone — be get be://localhost?/beagle (its own store + worktree). Debug build per CLAUDE.md; work only in that tree.
Drive be with the known-good binary on PATH, not the clone's freshly-built one, for the clone/commit/post steps.
Independent tickets run as concurrent background agents; disjoint files mean no collision while implementing.

Implement, stop, report — the human gates the commit

An agent repros the bug, fixes it, gets the suite green, then STOPS without committing and reports for a decision.

Repro-first (CLAUDE.md §17): write a failing test, confirm it fails, then fix; the repro and full ctest must end green.
The agent pauses at the commit boundary and reports root cause, fix (file:line), and test result; it does not post on its own.
The human says "commit" (land it) or "iterate" (another pass); a real design fork makes the agent stop and ask, never guess.
Commit message is 1 line max (64 chars), must start with the ticket code
Any Beagle bugs during the session should be filed as tickets (with maximum context added, see todo)
Moronic 10-line comments better be avoided. The budget is 4 lines, better less. Just mention the ticket for further detail.

Commit and ff-post, serialized

On approval the agent updates onto current trunk, re-tests, commits, and fast-forward-posts — one post at a time.

be get --nosub to update first, re-run the suite, then be post; the push is ff-only and NEVER forced.
may also use be patch in either direction to recoincile the changes; never do manual cp, patching or merging.
Post one ticket at a time: two concurrent posts race the same base and the loser is non-FF — re-land it, don't force.
Git-scheme (ssh:) remotes pass --nosub (submodules are manual there); messages may be multi-line once the parser allows.
Once a ticket is merged back into the main repo, the ticket's worktree can be removed to free disk space.

Reconcile against landed work

Because tickets land while others are in flight, each post rebases onto the current tip and merges any file two tickets both touched.

The update is usually a clean fast-forward; an overlapping file gets a 3-way merge keeping every landed change plus the new one.
The green suite on the merged tree is the gate; a red result or an ambiguous merge stops the agent to report, never force.
Keep each changeset minimal and file-disjoint where possible so reconciles stay clean.

Keep the board current

todo/README.mkd lists all the active topics and what's going on there; todo/TOPIC/README.mkd lists active tickets (all bulletpoint 2 lines per entry). A fully-landed ticket gets removed from README.mkd, a closed topic from todo/README.mkd.

Hazards seen this session

A handful of traps recurred; each cost a stop-and-report, and each has a standing workaround.

Clone shape varies — a plain git checkout has no beagle baseline to be post from; land such work onto a fresh beagle clone.
A stray /tmp/.be poisons store discovery; tests use the shared hermetic repo-setup lib, never a bare .be.
POSTCFLCT false-fires on a // comment quoting a marker string; verify no real markers, then --force that one scan only.
Never bypass the URI parser with hand-rolled string handling — fix the grammar; manual parsing is forbidden (CLAUDE.md).