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Curate the backlog with temperature tags

Goal: keep a growing backlog of pending molecules honest, so it never turns into sediment that a later cs run or patrol accidentally resurrects. Cosmon's tool for this is a small set of temperature tags you attach to pending work.

A pending molecule that just sits there untagged is the problem. The tag says, in one word, how hot the work is: whether to grab it now, park it, or let it cool. The cost of stale pendings is not disk space; it is scope pollution: a greedy runtime can pick them up.

The four temperatures

TagMeaning
temp:hot 🔥Actionable now: tackle soon; often unblocks other work.
temp:warm 🌡️Valid, not urgent: fine to park on the shelf.
temp:cold ❄️Interesting but deprioritised: revisit in a later cycle.
temp:frozen 🧊Blocked on an external decision or a missing prerequisite.

Tag a molecule

cs tag task-20260711-a1b2 --add temp:warm

Remove or change a tag the same way:

cs tag task-20260711-a1b2 --remove temp:warm --add temp:hot

See only the actionable queue

cs ensemble --tag temp:hot

Add --json to feed the actionable set into a script.

The rules that keep it clean

  • Every pending molecule older than ~48h should carry a temp:* tag. If it has none, either tag it or cs collapse it with a reason. An untagged, aging pending is a bug in your backlog, not a neutral state.
  • Drop the tag when you tackle it. A hot molecule you have started is no longer on the shelf; it is in motion. If it bounces back to pending (a revision), re-tag it.
  • Promote when a blocker clears. When a temp:frozen molecule's prerequisite lands, re-tag it temp:hot or temp:warm and consider tackling it.
  • Decomposition auto-tags its children. Any workflow that nucleates child molecules should immediately tag each child temp:warm, so no child is ever born invisible. The periodic sweep is a safety net, not the primary mechanism.

Periodic hygiene

Every week or so (or after a big session) let the system curate itself. The temp-review formula scans every pending by age and tag, triages the stale ones, and writes a report:

cs nucleate temp-review
cs tackle <id>
cs wait <id>
cs done <id>

The worker sweeps the backlog and produces a triage report: what it collapsed, what it tagged, the top priorities, and trends. Because curation is itself just a molecule, the backlog stays honest with the same nucleate → tackle → wait → done loop you use for everything else.

See also