From 82b6c9475bda0029f52829c52acc4cbf101ca82a Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Relayflow Lead <lead@relayflows.local>
Date: Sat, 29 Aug 2026 17:13:00 -0400
Subject: [PATCH] drive: cloud run 51422f20

Work produced by cloud run 51422f20-a45d-4b5b-b1d3-6e97d8834ac8 in a workflow sandbox and delivered from
this host, because a sandbox has no remote and no GitHub token.

Verification and adversarial review ran in-run; see ops/reviews/ in the diff.
---
 sdk/src/backlog-picker.ts        | 13 +++++++------
 sdk/tests/backlog-picker.test.ts |  4 ++--
 2 files changed, 9 insertions(+), 8 deletions(-)

diff --git a/sdk/src/backlog-picker.ts b/sdk/src/backlog-picker.ts
index 8ffbfbbc8..cccf9e17b 100644
--- a/sdk/src/backlog-picker.ts
+++ b/sdk/src/backlog-picker.ts
@@ -15,9 +15,11 @@
 
 /** First bold top-level bullet: `- **Title** rest`. */
 const ENTRY = /^- \*\*(.+?)\*\*\s*(.*(?:\n  .*)*)/m;
-const ACTION_TITLE =
+/** Work describes a change or a required outcome; reference notes do not. */
+const WORK_INTENT =
+  /\b(?:add|build|change|close|create|document|fix|implement|must|persist|refuse|release|remove|rename|replace|sharpen|touch(?:es|ing)?|update|validate|verified by|wire)\b/i;
+const IMPERATIVE_TITLE =
   /^(?:add|build|change|close|create|document|fix|implement|persist|refuse|release|remove|rename|replace|sharpen|update|validate|wire)\b/i;
-const NOTES_TITLE = /^(?:notes?|release notes|upstream issues)\s*(?:\(|:|$)/i;
 
 export interface BacklogEntry {
   title: string;
@@ -122,11 +124,10 @@ export function packageFromEntry(entry: BacklogEntry): Record<string, unknown> {
   const explicitChecks = (entry.body.match(/`[^`]+`/g) || [])
     .map((candidate) => candidate.slice(1, -1))
     .filter((candidate) => /\s/.test(candidate));
-  const definitionOfDone = NOTES_TITLE.test(entry.title)
-    ? []
-    : explicitChecks.length > 0
+  const definitionOfDone =
+    explicitChecks.length > 0 && WORK_INTENT.test(`${entry.title} ${entry.body}`)
       ? explicitChecks
-      : ACTION_TITLE.test(entry.title)
+      : IMPERATIVE_TITLE.test(entry.title)
         ? [entry.title.replace(/[.:]\s*$/, '')]
         : [];
   return {
diff --git a/sdk/tests/backlog-picker.test.ts b/sdk/tests/backlog-picker.test.ts
index b38e479b0..2d3af35e7 100644
--- a/sdk/tests/backlog-picker.test.ts
+++ b/sdk/tests/backlog-picker.test.ts
@@ -108,9 +108,9 @@ describe('work package validation', () => {
     });
   });
 
-  it('refuses a dated notes blob even when identifiers look actionable', async () => {
+  it('refuses an observations blob even when identifiers look actionable', async () => {
     const work = packageFromEntry({
-      title: 'Upstream issues (2026-08-27):',
+      title: 'Incident observations',
       body: 'relay#1620 (`--daemon` crash + `worker status` blind). Acceptance: `regressions/`.',
     });