Status report — how it works here

Rule under the work-conduct law. The law says that the work state outlives the session and is read from the outside; here — in what shape it is shown to the owner when they asked.

What it is called here

In the law	Here
the work state	the "State" cell in the reply table
the place where the state is read	the reply to the owner and the progress entry in the task folder
the work asked about	a paragraph about the epic, under it all its tasks in order and those created outside it
the mark of done work	a run number, a PR number, a count of scenarios — not the word "done"
what backs the state	a command run by the same turn as the reply

Where it lives

Ready-made calls and a sample of a filled table — in the pattern status-report-table next to it. Here is said what the reply must hold; how it is asked from the host and the tree — there.

Flow

The flow of one status reply: what is asked from the tree before the first line of the reply and in what order it lands for the owner.

flowchart TD
    A[The owner asked where the work is] --> B[The state is asked by commands: branch, PR, run, board]
    B --> C{The work runs under an epic}
    C -->|Yes| D[The task order is taken whole from the epic plan]
    C -->|No| E[The row of the current task goes first]
    D --> F[A row per epic task: ordinal number, what it is about, state]
    F --> E
    E --> G[A row per task created outside the epic]
    G --> H[The State cell carries a number from a command's output]
    H --> I[Under the table — what we wait for from the owner and the call that lifts it]

How the law applies here

The table is assembled by a command, not by the memory of the session. A session that has just started remembers no order of calls, and one that has worked for hours folds the answers otherwise than the previous one: two answers about one and the same work then disagree. The command takes the order of the tasks from the epic plan and the state of each of them from the hosting; the tree names the call in the companion.
The work state is shown as a table, not as prose. A retelling the owner reads whole to find one row, and next time does not read at all.
The epic itself is described by text above the table, not by a row in it. The columns are made for a task — number, subject, state — and an epic squeezed into them loses the one thing it is named for: why it is and where it goes. The paragraph says this in one or two sentences and names how many tasks the epic has and which one runs now.
The epic's tasks are listed all, and in the order the plan assigned them. With only the done and the next one named, the owner sees neither how much is left nor where the work goes, while the epic's order is assigned in advance and holds to the end. Each row has a short description, in one's own words and one sentence: a task number says nothing about its subject.
Every cell about the tree's state is backed by a command run by the same turn. A statement without a command the owner reads as a verified fact and learns of a divergence last. The output is named by a number — the run number, the time, how many scenarios of how many; "all green" without a number is not written.
A run confirms the commit it ran on. A run older than the branch tip speaks of a past tree and will be read as of the present one; the tip is checked before the run number goes into the cell.
A red run on an open PR is the first line of any reply about the work, whatever its cause. A runner failure checks no code, and for the owner the run is red all the same: the merge button is open. A refused rerun does not lift the line — the reply says the PR stays unchecked and is not merged before a green run.
A draft PR is called a draft aloud, together with what we wait for. A draft's merge is locked by the host, and a green page permits the owner nothing; silence they read as breakage.
A task folder left as an empty template is "created, not started". A created task with an unfilled grill reads as work in progress and gets created a second time.
Under the table — no more than two lines. What we wait for from the owner and the call that lifts it. The rest the owner asks themselves, and asks exactly what they need.

What of the law is not here

None of the agreements on the shape of the reply is checked by machine: the reply to the owner does not land in the tree, and there is nothing to read it. It is held by the memory of whoever replies, and a violation is visible only to the owner — by looking for a row in the text and not finding it.

Patterns

status-report-table — ready-made calls for each cell and a sample of a filled table.

status-report

SKILL.md.claude/skills/status-report/SKILL.md

Status report — how it works here

What it is called here

Where it lives

Flow

How the law applies here

What of the law is not here

Patterns

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