Portfolio workflow

This is the canonical guide to maintaining Life Itself's initiatives and documenting projects. Tao remains our handbook for culture, principles and general ways of working; it points here for this workflow rather than maintaining a second version. Read the data model for record fields and the task conventions for Beads labels and queries.

Start a project

1. Choose one home: a project file here (use the portfolio skill for its number and fields), or copy the A10 template into the Google Drive projects folder.
2. Describe the work: intended outcome, owner, scope and current position. Share it with the people involved and agree any commitment of their time or shared resources.
3. Link the task tracker: use the team's existing GitHub/Asana tracker, or Beads for planning/agent work. Keep task status there and context in your project document.

That's enough to get started: no Tao issue, proposal-sheet entry or duplicate project record is required. Google Docs access depends on team sharing permissions. Project-creation practice is still evolving; the detail below explains the boundaries, not additional start-up steps.

Initiatives and projects

An initiative is an enduring area of work, such as Research or Hubs. Its current record belongs in initiatives/ here. Usually the job is to keep an existing initiative accurate, not create a new one: check its purpose, owner, status, working-material links and tracker, and add a dated note when something changes.

A project is bounded work with an intended outcome. There are two ways to document it:

• In this repository: create a numbered project file in projects/, following the data model and portfolio skill. Link its existing Beads epic when there is one.
• In Google Docs: use an A10 or similar project document, shared with the people doing the work. The document can be the project's home; a duplicate project file here is not required to get started.

Either way, make the outcome, owner (or ownership question), current position and task location easy to find. Link supporting material instead of copying it. If a portfolio record here also represents a Google Docs project, link the document and keep the record to useful summary metadata rather than duplicating its detail. External-only projects are not automatically included in this repository's generated portfolio view.

No Tao issue is required to start a project. Project creation is still a work in progress; these are the available routes, not a new approval process. Content-production items have a separate workflow under development (lip-93f.2); do not require a portfolio project for every article, video or other item. Small tasks can live directly in their tracker.

Where tasks go

Use Beads here for planning/agent work and Rufus's own planning tasks. Keep GitHub Issues or Asana where the team already works. Follow the initiative or project's recorded tracker rather than moving tasks merely to standardise tools.

GitHub + Beads is fine when their scopes are explicit—for example, collaborator requests in GitHub and agent implementation in Beads. Link related work and state which tracker owns each task's status; do not maintain two copies of the same queue. A repository or Drive link is a home for working material, not necessarily a task tracker.

Collaborators who cannot use Beads can use the relevant GitHub tracker or pass an update to someone editing here. If no route exists yet, agree one with the owner; planning-repository Issues is the temporary fallback for planning work, not a catch-all for every initiative. Beads in collaborators' Claude cloud environments remains unverified (lip-tqk.1), but that does not block this routing policy.

Read and update

Start with the portfolio guide and generated index for the inventory, and the roadmap for delivery priorities. The reconciliation report records source coverage, candidate matches and uncertainties; the pilot report records the completed AI-assisted walkthrough. Imported records are not automatically confirmed active commitments. Read a record's dated status note and evidence before treating it as current. in-progress is active now; next is selected next; imported unknown records are a separate review set.

Rufus, Fae and Asdra can edit directly here, including with AI. Other team members may edit when comfortable or send Rufus a correction: include the initiative link, what should change and the supporting source. Rufus is the portfolio maintainer, helping get updates recorded and checking gaps. Initiative owners remain responsible for confirming their own information; an editor or AI does not acquire ownership merely by updating a file.

When adding, updating or reviewing portfolio records, use the portfolio skill. Search existing titles, descriptions, aliases, slugs and linked Beads first. A new piece of context may belong in an existing project rather than warranting a new record. Read only the linked project material relevant to the request.

For an update, modify the supported facts, append a dated status note and preserve sources. Record decisions in the issue tree without erasing the question. Put new actionable work in Beads or the explicitly named external tracker, with a link from the record. A short milestone summary in Markdown is useful; a duplicate child-task list is not.

Review and handoff

Agreed with Rufus on 2026-09-25: use a brief check in the existing coordination meeting when needed to review changed or stale initiatives, uncertain owners/statuses, broken links and work that has ended. Rufus checks gaps; initiative owners confirm changes. No new meeting or weekly review of every initiative is required. A stale date is a reason to check, not proof that work stopped. Capture unresolved actions in the relevant tracker.

Rufus accepted this handoff on 2026-09-25 (lip-tqk.12 closed). A walkthrough with Fae and Asdra can be done if useful, but is not a prerequisite; no formal training programme is required.

At the end of work, record what changed and what remains in the relevant Bead, update portfolio context when it materially changed, validate links/metadata and commit substantive updates. Do not create a parallel NEXT.md. For external repositories, record their canonical tracker location and consult it rather than maintaining another detailed queue here.

Sources and views

Tao's old portfolio snapshot is deprecated as an editable portfolio; keep it as historical reference and use the records here for current updates. The Programs & Projects DB spreadsheet is also a reconciliation source, not the current portfolio. Preserve row references, identifiers, original assertions and useful links. Retain unknowns/conflicts for review. Financial/accounting uses of the spreadsheet are not replaced by this migration. The transition decision is complete (lip-tqk.8); Rufus is handling the spreadsheet's deprecation notice separately.

The portfolio index is derived from Markdown frontmatter; edit the records, then regenerate it with python3 scripts/build_index.py or let the pre-commit hook rebuild it when record changes are staged. Check freshness with python3 scripts/build_index.py --check. Do not edit the index independently. Initiative-work queries are documented in Beads conventions. A GitHub repository link does not imply public access: check actual sharing before directing someone to a private record or publishing it.

AI prompts

• “Read the roadmap and relevant portfolio records. Show active and selected-next work separately, with owner, dated status, next milestone and task links. List unverified records separately and state the inventory's coverage.”
• “Use the portfolio skill to update this existing record from the following facts. Preserve unknowns, sources and decisions; put actionable tasks in its canonical tracker.”
• “Find an existing initiative/project matching this proposed work before creating anything. Suggest the minimum record and identify any fact that needs confirmation.”
• “Review this project's completion evidence. Update its lifecycle and dated note only if supported; reconcile the relevant Beads without automatically closing unrelated work.”

Adaptation from Rufus's planning system

Source root: ~/src/rufuspollock/planning. These dispositions describe adaptation scope, not a claim that deferred skills were fully evaluated. Agreed decisions and original source links are in the infrastructure project; migration coverage is in the reconciliation report.