Pipeline phases

Every task carries its pipeline phase as a Backlog label — exactly one of phase/spec, phase/plan, phase/impl, phase/verify per task. The label records where a task stands between review gate and archive.

Why this matters to you

Before phases, the pipeline lived only in agent instructions. Every new session started with reconstructing where work stood, gate approvals left no durable trace, and the dashboard could show task status but not pipeline position.

With phases you get:

• Faster session starts — the agent reads the task and its phase and resumes exactly where work stopped. No re-explaining, no guessing.
• One-command answers — sbl phase TASK-1 tells you where any task stands.
• Visible progress — the dashboard stepper, task table, and task modal show the live phase; the task modal offers a copyable advance command.
• Guarded transitions — sbl phase validates every change (no typos, no impossible jumps, no duplicate labels), and sbl doctor reports missing or unknown phase labels with fix hints.
• Zero bookkeeping — tasks created through the spec-to-backlog flow start at phase/spec automatically. You never maintain labels by hand.

Lifecycle

Label	Meaning	Advance when
phase/spec	Created from an approved design; review gate open	Human approved specs + acceptance criteria
phase/plan	Plan being written or awaiting approval	Human approved the written plan
phase/impl	TDD implementation running	Implementation complete
phase/verify	Verification & final summary	Tests/lint green, summary recorded
(removed)	Done / archived	Merge + archive complete

Commands

• sbl phase TASK-1 — show the current phase
• sbl phase TASK-1 plan — advance (or done to remove the label)
• sbl doctor — reports missing, duplicate, or unknown phase labels

Phase transitions happen at gate passages, driven by the agent or copied from the dashboard's task-modal chip. Never edit phase labels by hand.

Dashboard

The Feature Cycle stepper shows live task counts on phases 5–8; the tasks table and detail modal show a phase chip per task. The detail modal also offers a copyable sbl phase advance command, and live-reload reflects every transition immediately.