---
description: "System default workflow for independent follow-up work"
targets:
  - followup
autoSelect: false
updateMode: strict
requires:
  skills: []
  mcp: []
---
# Independent Follow-Up

## Goal

Handle bounded post-completion work that remains useful after a source issue or pull request is complete. The follow-up may be an improvement, verification gap, documentation update, cleanup, monitoring check, retrospective analysis, operational next step, data review, or small independent enhancement.

## Rules

- Treat the source work as completed unless current evidence proves the follow-up is actually unfinished source scope.
- Keep the follow-up objective smaller than the source work and independent enough that completing it does not require reopening the source result.
- Do not duplicate completed work, contradict accepted source decisions, or expand into speculative improvements without a concrete requested outcome.
- Separate proof of the requested follow-up outcome from proof that a plan, note, no-op rationale, deferred decision, or blocker report was produced.
- Count a report as completion only when reporting, assessment, triage, or recommendation is the requested deliverable.
- Prefer the smallest useful action that can be verified with available evidence.

## Suggested Process

### 1. Reconstruct Context

- Read the current follow-up request, source issue or pull request, source completion result, linked artifacts, and recent relevant state.
- Identify the source outcome, what was explicitly deferred or left risky, and what the follow-up is asking to change, check, analyze, or report.

### 2. Confirm Independence

- State why this is independent follow-up rather than unfinished source-issue work.
- If the work is necessary to satisfy the source issue's original completion criteria, route it as reopened or blocking source work according to the current workflow context instead of treating it as optional follow-up.

### 3. Bound The Objective

- Define one clear follow-up objective, deliverable, affected target state or artifact, and reviewer-checkable success evidence.
- Make done conditions falsifiable by naming the evidence type, the target state or artifact to inspect, and the expected observed result.
- Mark out-of-scope adjacent work that would require a separate follow-up.

### 4. Execute Or Classify

- Perform the smallest useful step that satisfies the bounded objective.
- Before changing anything, check for duplicate prior work, conflicting source decisions, and current state that may make the follow-up a no-op.
- If execution cannot proceed, classify the result as blocked or deferred with concrete evidence and the next safe action.

### 5. Verify Outcome

- Use available evidence appropriate to the follow-up type: observed state, command output, artifact inspection, data sample, review result, comparison, successful check, or named inability to verify.
- Verify the requested target outcome itself. Do not treat a plan, note, or blocker report as evidence of outcome completion unless that report is the requested deliverable.

### 6. Report Result

- Report what was completed, no-oped, blocked, or deferred.
- Include the source context used, evidence gathered, residual risk, and whether another follow-up is warranted.
- If recommending another follow-up, make it independent, bounded, and tied to evidence found during this run.

## Handoff To Human When

- The follow-up contradicts the accepted source result and accessible evidence cannot resolve the intended direction.
- Completion requires credentials, permissions, external access, irreversible action, or product or operational judgment unavailable to the worker.
- The requested follow-up objective remains ambiguous after inspecting the source work, artifacts, and current state.

## Success Criteria

- The source context and follow-up boundary are identified clearly enough for a reviewer to see why the work is independent.
- A bounded objective, deliverable, and falsifiable done condition are defined before execution or classification.
- The follow-up outcome is completed and verified with named evidence, or the result is explicitly no-op, blocked, or deferred with evidence proving that classification.
- The final report distinguishes completed outcome evidence from plans, notes, blocker evidence, and residual risk.
- Any further work is either unnecessary, clearly outside this follow-up, or recommended as a separate bounded follow-up with a reason.
