# Keep work items current

Find open work, add new items and close them, so the backlog always says where things stand.

**Outcome:** anyone, a person or an agent, can open Work Item and see what is open, what is waiting and on what, without looking anywhere else.

**Reader:** everyone who changes the systems, including AI agents that work on them.

## Find open work

1. Open Data → **Work Item** → **Grid view**.
2. Filter **Status** is not `Done` and not `Cancelled`. Group by **Status** or **Systems** if you need a queue. The base has no saved queue view yet.
3. Read **Title**, then **Detail** for what done looks like, and **Source** for where it came from.
4. For a Waiting item, **Waiting On** names the person, answer or event, and **Blocked By** names any item that must finish first.

[![Work Item is the single backlog of open work on the systems.](/systems/systems-central/screens/sc-work-item-grid.png)](/systems/systems-central/screens/sc-work-item-grid.png)

## Add an item

Add a row whenever work is left open: a fix found during a session, a question nobody answered, a review someone owes or an approval pending. Write it here: this table is the only backlog.

1. **Title**: start with a verb (`Add a technician check to Service Visit`).
2. **Kind**: Debt, Feature, Review, Question or Approval: what closing it takes.
3. **Detail**: two to four sentences: what is wrong or missing, then how we will know it is done.
4. **Status**: `To Do`, or `Waiting` with **Waiting On** filled. Use **Blocked By** when the wait is another Work Item.
5. **Priority**: `High` only when it blocks other work or breaks something in use.
6. **Source** and **Recorded On**: the path or link of the document where it was written, and that date.
7. Link **Systems**, and **Record Types**, **System Rules** or **Architecture Decisions** when they apply. Link **Assignee** only when a person has taken it.
8. **Due Date** only for a real, agreed deadline.
9. Leave **Checked** unticked. A person ticks it after confirming the item is real and well described.

Search first: an existing item with the same outcome gets a new Source line instead of a second row.

## Move and close an item

| When | Set |
| --- | --- |
| Someone starts | Status `In Progress`; Assignee if a person |
| It cannot move | Status `Waiting`; Waiting On or Blocked By |
| The wait clears | Clear Waiting On; back to `To Do` or `In Progress` |
| Detail's definition of done holds | Status `Done`; Done On today |
| It will not be done | Status `Cancelled`; Done On today; the reason in Detail |

Never delete a finished item. Done and Cancelled rows are the record of what happened.

## In every session

1. At the start, read the open items for the systems you will touch: filter Systems, or search by keyword.
2. During the session, move items you work on to In Progress.
3. At the end, close what is finished (Done, Done On), add a row for each new open point, and update Waiting On where the wait changed.
4. Do not tick **Checked** on items you created yourself as an agent; that is a person's review.

No automation does any of this. The table is only as current as the last session left it.