# Epics An epic is a bounded initiative: it spans several areas, owns quests and folios, and ends. It is not a category. An **area** is where work happens (a module, permanent), a **release** is when something ships (a named goal that holds epics and quests), and an epic is what is being built: it is specified, it is worked, and it completes. Its status is the permission on everything inside it. There are five. You set the first two, the next two follow from the work, and the fifth, shelved, sets the whole plan aside. ## Draft, ready, in progress, completed **Draft** is where an epic is specified. The quest set is being written: quests are filed into the epic, moved in and out, reworded, shelved and brought back, and the whole plan can be deleted. Nothing inside it can be started. A draft epic's quests stay out of the project's backlog, the kanban board and the reports, and the epic's own page is where you read them. **Ready** says the spec is done. The epic's quests join the backlog, where anyone can pick them up, and the plan can still be edited: quests still move in and out. An epic can go back from ready to draft as long as nobody has started it. **In progress** starts on its own, the moment the first quest of a ready epic is accepted or assigned. From then on the quest set is frozen: its quests are accepted, completed, shelved and unassigned, but no quest enters, none leaves, and none is deleted. **Completed** also happens on its own, when the last open quest of an epic in progress is completed or shelved. It is final: nothing reopens. Neither does a quest, in any epic: a completed quest is immutable, and follow-up work is a new quest linked to the old one. The epic's own title and description stay editable, because the record of what happened is meant to be curated, and folios can still be filed under it. An outcome note written after the work shipped belongs exactly there. So the epic page offers two moves, and only while nobody has started: **Mark as ready** on a draft epic, **Back to draft** on a ready one. Mark as ready asks first, because it changes what everyone else sees in the backlog and the first accept after it freezes the plan. An epic that has started offers no status move, since its remaining one happens when its work is done; it offers **Shelve** instead (see below). ## Shelving an epic **Shelved** is a plan set aside: it will not be worked now. Shelve is offered on a draft, ready or in-progress epic, and refused on a completed one. It asks first, naming how many open quests it sets aside. Every open quest in the epic (to do, in progress, on hold) is handed back to to do, with its assignee cleared and its hold lifted, and shelved. Completed quests stay completed, and quests already shelved stay as they were. A shelved epic is not completed: an epic that depends on it stays blocked, and nothing inside it can be accepted, completed, moved in or out, or deleted until it comes back. **Unshelve** brings back exactly the quests the epic's shelve set aside, as to do and unassigned. A quest that was shelved on its own before stays shelved. The epic returns to in progress if work on it had started, and to ready otherwise, a shelved draft included. Shelving one quest at a time is still how a single piece of work is declined. Shelving them all that way completes an in-progress epic, which says the work was done; shelving the epic says it was set aside. ## Deleting an epic **Deleting an epic deletes its quests with it.** It is meant for a plan that was created by mistake or abandoned before anyone started it, so it is allowed only while the epic is a draft or ready. A started or completed epic holds work, and is shelved instead. The epic's folios are kept: they are unfiled from it, never deleted. The confirmation names how many quests go with it, and the bulk delete leaves out, and names, any selected epic that has started. ## The predecessor gate **An epic cannot start while the epic it depends on is not completed.** An epic may name one predecessor. The roadmap draws the order ("After Epic 7"). You can still mark the dependent epic ready, which lets you specify a whole chain at once; what waits is its first quest. Accepting it is refused until the predecessor completes, and the epic page says "Blocked by Epic 7" in the meantime. Over the API the refusal reads > Cannot accept quest #Q412: Epic #E22 depends on Epic #E20, which is not > completed. Record a predecessor only when the epic genuinely cannot start before the other one ends. An epic that overlaps its neighbour records nothing. ## Completing an epic There is nothing to click. An epic completes when every quest in it is completed or shelved. Shelving is the epic's equivalent of waiving an objective on a quest: it records that the work was specified and declined. An accepted quest that will not be done is unassigned first, then shelved. A ready epic never completes this way, even if all its quests get shelved: nothing in it was worked, and its plan is still open for a quest that will be. ## You forgot something The plan is frozen once the epic is in progress, on purpose: the plan as committed stays readable, and an amendment gets its own name and its own dates. Three routes, depending on what was forgotten. - **It belongs to a quest already in the plan.** Add an objective to that quest. Objectives are the small-discovery valve, and nothing refuses them. - **It is genuinely new work.** Open a new epic that depends on this one. Feature, then Feature V2. The predecessor gate keeps the order honest. - **It turned out to be unnecessary.** Shelve the quest. The plan keeps the record that it was specified and declined; deleting it would not. Trying to add a quest to an epic in progress is refused with both routes named: > Cannot add a quest: Epic #E30 is in progress. Its plan is frozen. File this > in a new epic, or add an objective to a quest already in it. ## From an agent Over MCP the same rules apply, and every refusal is a plain message that names the epic, so an agent knows what happened. - `epic_create` opens an epic in the draft status. - `quest_create` with `epic_number` files quests into it, while it is draft or ready. With `accept: true` into a draft epic, the quest is created and the accept is refused as not ready, reported in the result rather than as an error. - `epic_set_status` takes `ready` or `draft`, and nothing else. Deciding that a spec is done is the owner's call, so an agent refused because an epic is a draft should say so rather than mark it ready itself. - `epic_shelve` and `epic_unshelve` set a whole plan aside and bring it back, and say how many quests moved. Under a shelved epic, quest calls answer "Unshelve the epic first". - `epic_delete` deletes the epic and its quests, while it is draft or ready, and says how many quests went. - `quest_accept` and `quest_complete` work the quests. The first accept of a ready epic starts it; under a draft epic they answer that it is not ready for development yet; under a completed one, "File this in a new epic". - There is no call to complete an epic: it completes with the request that resolves its last open quest. `quest_list` hides a draft epic's quests by default, exactly as the backlog does, so that a list of quests is the list of quests that can be accepted. Pass the epic's id as `epic` to read one epic's quests whatever its status, or `includeDrafts: true` to see everything. Going the other way, an epic can hand ITSELF to an agent: **Review** asks one to sharpen the plan while it is still open (draft or ready), and **Work on it** hands the whole epic over, quest by quest, once it is ready. Both are in the epic's Agent Prompts menu, which is off until a project turns it on. See [Agent prompts](6-agent-prompts.md). ## What the roadmap shows The roadmap lists open releases and the epics inside them, sorted so that a predecessor sits above what depends on it, with an "After Epic N" chip on the dependent. An epic is shown with its status, so an empty progress bar on a draft or ready epic reads as "not started" rather than "stalled". The roadmap draws order; it does not say whether the gate currently blocks, because that needs the predecessor's status and the roadmap may be public. The epic's own page says "Blocked by Epic N" while it does.