Skip to content

spec-kitty agent tasks mark-status fails on missing checkbox task IDs even when subtasks are referenced #783

@robertDouglass

Description

@robertDouglass

Repro

After a successful `spec-kitty merge` of a finalized mission, attempting to bookkeep the WPs:

```bash
spec-kitty agent tasks mark-status WP02 WP03 WP04 --status done --mission
```

returns:

```
No task IDs found
```

Observed cause

The mission's generated `tasks.md` references subtasks as a single `Subtasks: T001, T002, T003` line per WP, not as discrete `- [ ] T001 …` checkboxes. `mark-status` appears to scan for checkbox-style task IDs and returns empty when it can't find them, even though the WP-level state machine works fine.

Workaround

  • Skipped `mark-status` for the WP-level promotion — `spec-kitty merge` correctly auto-promoted WP01.
  • For the remaining WPs, force-moved with `--done-override-reason` to clear the lane state.

Suggested fix direction

`mark-status` should accept WP IDs (`WP02`) directly without requiring per-subtask checkbox parsing, OR `tasks-finalize` should emit the subtasks as checkboxes if that's the contract `mark-status` expects. Current behavior makes the post-merge bookkeeping step unreliable for any mission that uses the inline `Subtasks: …` rendering.

Surfaced from

Shared Package Repackaging Program — `spec-kitty-events` mission `events-pypi-contract-hardening-01KQ1ZK7`. Sibling friction-point issues are likely to come from the other repos in the same program.

Metadata

Metadata

Assignees

No one assigned

    Labels

    bugSomething isn't workingworkflowWorkflow/UX improvements

    Type

    No type
    No fields configured for issues without a type.

    Projects

    No projects

    Milestone

    No milestone

    Relationships

    None yet

    Development

    No branches or pull requests

    Issue actions