Deferred Findings Backlog

Centralized visibility for non-blocking review findings that were deferred. Spec: .correctless/specs/deferred-findings-backlog.md. Architecture: ABS-033.

What It Does

Review skills (/creview-spec, /creview) identify non-blocking findings and present disposition options. When the user selects “defer,” the finding was previously marked in the review artifact but never resurfaced. Over 22 features, 47 non-blocking findings accumulated with status “pending” — invisible to /cstatus, /cmetrics, and the pipeline.

This feature introduces:

Centralized backlog at .correctless/meta/deferred-findings.json — a JSON file tracking all deferred findings with schema version, auto-assigned DF-{NNN} IDs, severity (MEDIUM/LOW/ADVISORY only — HIGH/CRITICAL must be fixed during review per PRH-003), and status tracking (open/in-progress/resolved/wont-fix).
Review skill integration — /creview-spec and /creview write deferred findings to the backlog on “defer” disposition, with the sync script as a structural backstop for prompt-level write drift.
/ctriage skill — wizard-style bulk triage (one finding at a time with progress counter), four disposition options per finding (fix now, keep open, won’t fix, re-prioritize), incremental saves after each decision.
/cauto backlog sweep — surfaces all open findings between /cdocs and consolidation (advisory, never blocking).
/cstatus visibility — severity breakdown, 20-item threshold warning, drift detection suggesting scripts/sync-deferred-backlog.sh when review artifacts contain pending findings not in the backlog.
/cmetrics trend — total open, severity breakdown, oldest open finding, 30-day added/resolved counts.

How It Works

graph LR
    A["/creview or<br/>/creview-spec"] -->|"user defers<br/>a finding"| B["deferred-findings.json"]
    C["sync-deferred-backlog.sh"] -->|"seed / re-sync<br/>from artifacts"| B
    B -->|"reads"| D["/cstatus<br/>(severity breakdown)"]
    B -->|"reads"| E["/cmetrics<br/>(30-day trend)"]
    B -->|"reads"| F["/cauto sweep<br/>(before PR)"]
    B -->|"read + write"| G["/ctriage<br/>(wizard triage)"]

    style B fill:#74c0fc,color:#000
    style G fill:#ffd43b,color:#000
    style D fill:#51cf66,color:#fff
    style E fill:#51cf66,color:#fff
    style F fill:#ffa94d,color:#000

Backlog File Schema

{
  "findings": [
    {
      "id": "DF-001",
      "source_file": ".correctless/artifacts/review-spec-findings-my-feature.md",
      "finding_id": "RS-004",
      "feature": "my-feature",
      "severity": "MEDIUM",
      "description": "No rate limiting on the retry endpoint",
      "category": "security",
      "status": "open",
      "deferred_at": "2026-05-15T14:30:00Z",
      "resolved_at": null,
      "resolution": null
    }
  ],
  "schema_version": 1
}

Sync Script

scripts/sync-deferred-backlog.sh serves dual purpose:

Initial seed: imports all existing pending findings from review artifacts into the backlog
Ongoing re-sync: structural backstop for prompt-level write drift (the review artifact is always the source of truth per AP-029)

The script is idempotent — deduplicates by source_file + finding_id pair. Severity mapping: BLOCKING/HIGH are skipped (must be fixed in review), NON-BLOCKING maps to MEDIUM, LOW to LOW, INFORMATIONAL to ADVISORY. Also supports --validate mode for CI schema checking.

Design Decisions

Local-only: the backlog lives under .correctless/meta/ which is gitignored. The sync script can reconstruct it from committed review artifacts on any machine. Team-shared state is a v2 concern.
Advisory only: PRH-001 prohibits gate enforcement — the backlog never blocks pipeline transitions. This avoids the AP-023 “override as routine” problem.
Multi-writer: ABS-033 declares this as a multi-writer advisory file (review skills + ctriage + sync script). Unlike ABS-029 (sole-writer for audit artifacts), the backlog is not safety-critical and last-write-wins is acceptable.
Won’t-fix items persist: resolution rationale is the audit trail. Items are never deleted from the file.