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Issue Lifecycle

Most work in bipartite follows one path: draft an issue, check it, file it, implement it on a branch, gate the PR, land it, and turn its follow-ups into the next issues. Each step is a skill. This page gives only the order. Each skill's own SKILL.md (in skills/) says what it does and how, and the description: line at its top is the one-line summary.

flowchart LR
    D[Draft] --> C[Check & file] --> W[Work] --> G[Gate] --> L[Land]
    L -. DEFERRED follow-ups .-> D

1. Draft

  • /bip-issue-next drafts ISSUE-<slug>.md in the repo root from a PR's follow-ups, a focus file, or the current conversation, then hands it to /bip-issue-check.
  • /bip-issue-iterate works through a draft paragraph by paragraph with you over many rounds, for one that needs to get smaller and more correct first.
  • /bip-remove-metaspeak cuts reasoning-out-loud residue from a draft that has been through several rounds.

ISSUE-*.md files are drafts and are never committed.

2. Check and file

  • /bip-issue-check ISSUE-<slug>.md reviews the draft for implementation-readiness, fixes gaps, and submits it via /bip-issue-file.
  • /bip-issue-update N re-checks an issue that is already filed, which may have drifted from the code since.

3. Work

Pick one by where you want the work to run:

Where How
This session /bip-issue-work N
A new tmux window with the issue loaded bip spawn org/repo#N (Workflow Coordination)
An EPIC's clone pool, autonomously /bip-conductor-spawn, run from a /bip-conductor session (see the README's orchestration section)

The worker branches (per-issue worktrees are optional: see Worktree Layout), implements, and opens a PR with Closes #N. Work it can't fold in goes in the PR body's DEFERRED section.

4. Gate

  • /bip-pr-check is the quick readiness check (clean tree, description, body).
  • /bip-pr-review is the full pre-merge review. It uses the repo's PRE-MERGE-CHECKLIST.md if there is one.
  • /bip-comment-check checks a reviewer's comment against the code before you act on it.

5. Land

/bip-pr-land squash-merges the PR, deletes its branches, and returns to an up-to-date main. Follow-ups from DEFERRED go back to step 1 via /bip-issue-next <PR>.

Across context resets

A session that fills its context runs /bip-tuckin before /clear and /bip-continue after (Continuation prompt). A fresh session dropped into a spawned clone that already has a PR or a stalled worker starts with /bip-spawn-resume.