Task: Health review 1 — sprint 18 mid-sprint analysis

Goal 1 (ORE imports) has zero started stories at day 4 of 7. The five stories that serve it — ORE sample data, running samples, ORE Example 1 types, instrument visibility, instrument creation in TradeDialog — are all BACKLOG. With three days left this goal will not be achieved in this sprint.

Goal 2 (more ORE types) has partial coverage: Work through all types for ORE Example 1 is BACKLOG; Resolve RFL complexity issues is STARTED but is a prerequisite/unblocking task, not the ORE types work itself. Minimal progress expected at close.

Scope creep signal: 10 of 24 stories have no direct mapping to the four stated goals. These include Inline org-roam export, SQLite CLI quality-of-life, ORE Studio Emacs dashboard, Tufte viz skill, Add investigation support, and Remove unused workflows. These are legitimate housekeeping and enabler work, but they absorbed most of the sprint's energy in days 1–2.

Recommendation: The sprint goals are now unreachable for the ORE imports and types tracks. Consider either: (a) accepting this sprint as a compass + tooling sprint and updating the goals retroactively to match reality, or (b) hard-stopping new housekeeping work and funnelling the remaining 3 days into ORE sample data and the imports pipeline.

At 46.5 commits/day the sprint is tracking to ~325 commits at close — slightly over the 300 target. Day 3 (2026-05-24) was a burst day (27 PRs merged) driven by the compass and dashboard work. If the remaining days maintain the day-4 rate (which is likely lower as focused code work produces fewer small commits), the sprint may land within target.

Recommendation: No action required yet. If day 5–6 continue at 30+ commits/day, pause and question whether more PRs are needed or whether consolidation commits can be batched.

PR velocity is exceptional. 47 PRs in 4 days reflects the exploratory nature of the sprint — many small, focused PRs rather than large branches. PR #838 is the only open PR and was raised today; no WIP concern.

Recommendation: Maintain the small-PR discipline. If ORE imports/types work starts, expect larger PRs (C++ code changes) — batch them sensibly to avoid review fatigue.

DONE/total ratio: 13/24 = 54%. Throughput is healthy.

The 5 undecomposed BACKLOG stories are all in the ORE imports/types track — they have not been decomposed because they have not been picked up. This is normal, but it means there is zero implementation visibility into how complex these stories are. If the decision is made to start them in the last 3 days, task decomposition will be the first step.

Build and publish user manual PDF has been STARTED for 3+ days with 5 tasks. This is the longest-running open story; verify it is genuinely in progress and not stalled waiting on prerequisites.

Recommendation: The 5 undecomposed ORE stories are not a problem if they remain BACKLOG. If any are to be started this sprint, decompose before starting so progress is trackable.

Four STARTED stories across four worktrees: user manual, RFL/build, sprint health review, and compass goto. The themes span documentation, C++ build, agile tooling, and compass — not tightly coherent but each is in a distinct worktree with a dedicated agent. No single contributor is context-switching between them.

The compass goto work on local3 is extending a just-merged feature (PR #834); this is normal post-merge polish. local4 is doing focused RFL/PCH build work. Focus is adequate for a parallel-agent workflow.

Recommendation: If a fifth worktree picks up an ORE imports story, re-check focus. Five simultaneous themes for a 7-day sprint would be at the AMBER/RED boundary.

Story throughput is high (3.5/day) but requires context: the majority of DONE stories were small-scope (1-task) housekeeping, tooling, or agile scaffolding items opened and closed on the same day. This inflates the throughput number.

Zero-day cycle time stories (opened and closed 2026-05-24): SQLite CLI setup, Lock down UUID invariant, Compass locate, Compass scaffold, Track PRs per task, Org-roam index links, Remove unused workflows, Product backlog refinement. These are real delivered value but not comparable to multi-day feature stories.

The ORE imports track has produced no velocity whatsoever — all five stories are still in their initial BACKLOG state.

Recommendation: Track throughput separately for feature stories vs housekeeping stories in future reviews. Housekeeping velocity is real but masks feature velocity. Consider adding a #+category: tag (feature / housekeeping / enabler) to stories to support this.

Sprint 18 is delivering well on compass tooling, developer experience, and agile infrastructure — but it is failing on its two primary goals: ORE imports into workspaces and more ORE types. At day 4 of 7, those tracks have zero velocity; three days remain. The sprint has not failed yet, but without an explicit decision to pivot resources to the ORE track, it will close with Goals 1 and 2 unachieved. The most important single action is to decide now whether to pursue those goals in the remaining time or to accept this sprint as a tooling sprint and reset goal expectations. Velocity looks high in aggregate but is dominated by same-day housekeeping stories; feature-level throughput is lower than the headline number suggests.