Current work

Current Work

Agent instruction protocol: 1.0.

Behavioral compliance depends on the connected agent or integration. The Day Shift CLI exposes repository policy and evidence, but it cannot force an unsupported agent to obey them.

The verified CLI automation protocol version 2 selection examples are frozen in apps/docs/content-agent/agent-reference-examples.json.

Current work is one explicit artifact and revision, not the largest unfinished-looking directory. Preserve the selection until a workflow transition names a different active artifact.

Selection bundle

Carry these values as one bundle:

• selected repository-relative artifact path;
• artifact type, workflow level, and parent chain;
• current content revision;
• declared and effective agent mode with policy source;
• evidence profile and runtime-attribution requirement;
• readiness, current attempt, and review-boundary state;
• allowed implementation target paths and protected paths;
• derived next action, reason code, blockers, and alternatives;
• inherited lifecycle run directory when one is active.

A derived next action is navigation evidence. It does not authorize the command it names.

Selection procedure

1. Prefer an artifact explicitly named by the user.
2. If none is named, inspect bounded work candidates and use declared order and dependency evidence.
3. Reject later-sibling selection while an earlier required sibling is incomplete, unless an explicit exception exists.
4. Verify the selected artifact still exists, its parent links resolve, and its revision matches the evidence being consumed.
5. Re-resolve after any write that changes the selected artifact, its paired evidence artifact, or a required parent.

Do not infer current work from a broad dirty worktree, an old summary, a status label without evidence, or the mere presence of a scaffold placeholder.

Machine-readable selection example

The frozen bundle keeps discovery, selection, and inspection separate:

• examples.workCandidates is advisory and read-only. Its one bounded actionable candidate carries the exact work select argument vector, resolved workflow level, effective agent mode, evidence profile, and derived reason code.
• examples.workSelection records the explicit user-local selection write with writeApplied: true. This write changes coordination state only; it does not implement the task or grant task authority.
• examples.currentWork proves that later inspection is read-only, the selection is fresh, and the canonical resolver still returns the same next-action evidence.

The matching entries in commandDescriptors keep work candidates and work current non-writing while naming work select as the sole write-capable selection transition.

Stale or conflicting selection

Stop if the selected revision changed, a required dependency disappeared, the active run names another artifact, or the requested action conflicts with the workflow’s next legal transition. Preserve the old evidence as history; do not rewrite it to look current.

Report the selected path, observed revision, stale or conflicting evidence, and the narrowest callable recovery. Use Stop and escalate when recovery needs an external decision.

Handoff

For a selected task, continue with Task instructions. For evaluation output, use Review boundaries. Return to Agent orientation when selection or policy context changes.