agent TODO format

docs/operations.md

@@ -217,7 +217,7 @@ A session runs on one of three vendors, picked by the model it is created with (
 
 For Claude, byre chooses the session ID (`vendor_session_id`) up front. Codex picks its own thread id: a Codex session is created with an empty `vendor_session_id`, and byre stores the thread id when its first process starts (`startCodex`); a session with an id resumes it with `thread/resume`. Antigravity does the same with its conversation id, which `agy` reports in its `init` line at launch (`startAntigravity`), resumed with `--conversation`. Processes start on demand: the first message after a restart resumes the session (`--resume` for Claude). Sessions are `running` from the moment a turn is sent until it ends (Claude's and Antigravity's `result`, Codex's `turn/completed`); on startup, every session still marked `running` was cut off mid-turn, and byre resumes it and sends a message telling the agent to re-check the working tree. Stopping the server kills all agent processes. Merging or discarding a task kills its sessions and marks them `completed`. Every agent CLI starts in its own process group, and killing one sends `SIGKILL` to the whole group. That way a launcher that runs the real agent as its child, along with the agent's MCP servers, can't keep holding byre's stdout pipe, which would leave the kill waiting forever for end of file.
 
-Every session gets byre's guidance (`guidance` in `internal/agents/guidance.go`): ask questions with `ask_human`, end each turn with a final message that summarizes it (including every departure from the plan), put everything the human needs in a question's context since that turn has no summary, don't commit (byre commits each turn), and don't push, touch other branches or run git maintenance. A task agent's guidance also names its port range, tells it to do the setup AGENTS.md describes in a new worktree (see "Worktree setup and ports"), and quotes the task's title, which may be all the human typed when creating the task. A task started from a `TODO.md` item gets one more line naming the item and telling the agent to remove it from `TODO.md` in its worktree when the work is done (`taskGuidance`; see "TODO"). A subtask gets one naming its parent and saying that its final messages go to the parent's agent (`subtaskGuidance`; see "Subtasks"). For Claude it is passed as `--append-system-prompt`, which Claude Code records on a session's first request and reuses on resume, so a running session keeps the text it started with; a `UserPromptSubmit` hook also attaches it as `additionalContext` to every user turn, which reaches existing sessions too. For Codex it is the thread's `developerInstructions`, and every `turn/start` also carries it as `additionalContext` under the key `byre`. For Antigravity it is an always-on rule in the session's plugin (`rules/AGENTS.md`, with the notes in `rules/notes.md`), written when byre starts the session's process, and every message also starts with it in `<system-reminder>` tags. The guidance names byre's tools vendor-neutrally ("byre's ask_human tool"): Claude sees them as `mcp__byre__<name>`, Codex as `<name>` in the namespace `byre` (Codex reserves the `mcp__` prefix), Antigravity as `<name>` on the MCP server `byre_byre`, called through its `call_mcp_tool` (recorded as `mcp__byre__<name>`).
+Every session gets byre's guidance (`guidance` in `internal/agents/guidance.go`): ask questions with `ask_human`, end each turn with a final message that summarizes it (including every departure from the plan), put everything the human needs in a question's context since that turn has no summary, don't commit (byre commits each turn), don't push, touch other branches or run git maintenance, and write `TODO.md` items the way byre parses them (see "TODO"): a top-level `- ` line holding only the title, with the description indented under it. A task agent's guidance also names its port range, tells it to do the setup AGENTS.md describes in a new worktree (see "Worktree setup and ports"), and quotes the task's title, which may be all the human typed when creating the task. A task started from a `TODO.md` item gets one more line naming the item and telling the agent to remove it from `TODO.md` in its worktree when the work is done (`taskGuidance`; see "TODO"). A subtask gets one naming its parent and saying that its final messages go to the parent's agent (`subtaskGuidance`; see "Subtasks"). For Claude it is passed as `--append-system-prompt`, which Claude Code records on a session's first request and reuses on resume, so a running session keeps the text it started with; a `UserPromptSubmit` hook also attaches it as `additionalContext` to every user turn, which reaches existing sessions too. For Codex it is the thread's `developerInstructions`, and every `turn/start` also carries it as `additionalContext` under the key `byre`. For Antigravity it is an always-on rule in the session's plugin (`rules/AGENTS.md`, with the notes in `rules/notes.md`), written when byre starts the session's process, and every message also starts with it in `<system-reminder>` tags. The guidance names byre's tools vendor-neutrally ("byre's ask_human tool"): Claude sees them as `mcp__byre__<name>`, Codex as `<name>` in the namespace `byre` (Codex reserves the `mcp__` prefix), Antigravity as `<name>` on the MCP server `byre_byre`, called through its `call_mcp_tool` (recorded as `mcp__byre__<name>`).
 
 A turn whose final message asks the human something in prose is bounced once (`takeBounce` in `internal/agents/guidance.go`): if `ask_human` wasn't called during the turn and the final message's last paragraph has a sentence ending in `?` outside code spans, code blocks, quotes, blockquotes, table rows and `<details>` sections, the agent is told to ask through `ask_human` and carries on. Questions earlier in the message (quoted, answered, or listed for someone else) don't count. A task started as a TODO discussion (its first `user.message` holds `discussPrompt` from `internal/agents/tasks.go`) is never bounced, since that prompt tells the agent not to use `ask_human`, and neither is a task with an open question already in the inbox, since the prose then points at that question. A bounce is recorded as a `byre` `user.message` with `mid_turn: true` and `bounce: true` carrying the nudge; the transcript draws neither it nor the agent message before it, so the rewritten message takes the blocked one's place. For Claude the bounce is a Stop hook (`bounceProseQuestion`) that blocks the stop; Claude Code reports the block as a "Stop hook error" notification, which is expected. For Codex, byre doesn't end its turn on `turn/completed`: it records the nudge and starts another Codex turn with it, and only that turn's end ends byre's turn. Antigravity works the same way on its `result`, since its `Stop` hook isn't given the final message. The per-turn flags reset when the next user message is sent. An agent told explicitly to ask in plain text will refuse the bounce.
 

internal/agents/guidance.go

@@ -20,7 +20,8 @@ const guidance = `You are running inside byre. The human reads your work in byre
 - A turn that asks a question has no summary; put everything the human needs in the question's context.
 - In that final message and in ask_human context, put long supporting detail (logs, full lists, data) in collapsed sections the human expands on demand: a line <details><summary>Title</summary>, the Markdown content, then a line </details>.
 - Don't commit. byre commits everything in the worktree at the end of each turn, using the turn's final message.
-- Don't push, don't switch or touch other branches, and don't run git maintenance (gc, prune, worktree prune). byre handles merging and pushing.`
+- Don't push, don't switch or touch other branches, and don't run git maintenance (gc, prune, worktree prune). byre handles merging and pushing.
+- TODO.md at the repo root is the project's list of work for byre. Each item is a top-level ` + "`- `" + ` line holding only a short title, which byre uses as the task's title and the item's identity, with its description in lines indented two spaces under it. ` + "`#`" + ` headings group items into sections, and a checked ` + "`- [x]`" + ` item is skipped.`
 
 const proseQuestionNudge = "Your final message asks the human something in prose. Ask it with byre's ask_human tool " +
 	"(context with the choices inline as `- ( ) choice` / `- (*) recommended` or `- [ ] choice` / `- [x] recommended` list items, question, why_blocked), " +