focus-flow/Codex Documentation/Current Software Plan/V1_BLOCK_07_Child_Tasks.md

V1 Block 07 — Child Tasks

Status: Planned

Purpose: Support breaking a large task into smaller owned child tasks without adding dependency complexity.

Chunk 7.1 — Parent/child model rules

Recommended Codex level: medium

Tasks:

Implement parent/child ownership fields and helpers:

• parent task id on child tasks
• list/query children by parent
• parent can be incomplete while children are planned/completed
• parent/child helpers must remain domain-only and UI-independent

Rules:

• This is not full task dependency support.
• Do not add arbitrary DAG/dependency logic.
• Children are owned by parent only.
• Child ownership does not block scheduling unless a later planned feature explicitly adds dependency behavior.

Acceptance criteria:

• Test: child references parent.
• Test: parent can query/aggregate children through helper.
• Test: child ownership does not create dependency/blocking behavior.

Chunk 7.2 — Child entry defaults

Recommended Codex level: medium

Tasks:

Support row-style child entry data:

• child title
• priority up/down/dropdown value
• reward up/down/dropdown value
• time required
• optional project override

Rules:

• If no priority is set, children are inserted in the order added.
• Children can have their own reward, priority, difficulty, and time.
• Children inherit project from parent unless overridden.
• Reward can remain not set; do not treat missing reward as very low reward.
• Preserve original entry order for children that have no explicit priority.

Acceptance criteria:

• Tests cover child creation with explicit fields.
• Tests cover no priority preserving insertion order.
• Tests cover inherited project and overridden project.
• Tests cover reward not set remaining distinct from very low reward.

BREAKPOINT: Stop here. Confirm extra high mode before implementing the child-task edge-case regression suite.

Chunk 7.3 — Child-task edge-case regression test suite

Recommended Codex level: extra high

Tasks:

Before implementing parent auto-completion, add or expand tests for edge cases that could make child tasks behave like unwanted dependency logic.

Cover these cases:

• parent with zero children does not auto-complete by accident
• parent with planned children remains incomplete
• child completion updates child state without forcing parent completion until all children are complete
• parent completion can force-complete remaining children only through the explicit parent-complete action
• child tasks keep their parent id when scheduled, pushed, moved to backlog, or marked complete
• children without priority preserve row insertion order
• children with priority can be sorted by priority without losing stable insertion order within same-priority groups
• parent project inheritance works
• child project override works
• child task reward not set remains distinct from very low reward
• no arbitrary dependency/DAG fields or scheduling-blocking behavior are introduced

Rules:

• Tests should name the business rule being protected.
• Prefer small fixtures over large scenario setup.
• Do not mark this chunk complete unless dart analyze and dart test pass.
• Do not implement new user-facing behavior in this chunk unless needed to make the edge-case tests compile against planned domain APIs.

Acceptance criteria:

• A dedicated child-task test group exists.
• Tests cover ownership, ordering, inheritance, and non-dependency behavior.
• Existing scheduling and backlog tests still pass.

BREAKPOINT: Stop here. Confirm high mode before implementing auto-completion propagation.

Chunk 7.4 — Parent auto-completion

Recommended Codex level: high

Tasks:

Implement completion rules:

• Parent auto-completes when all children complete.
• Marking parent complete force-completes remaining children.
• Completing from any child can provide a domain-level option/result to mark entire parent complete.
• Parent/child completion should update relevant task statistics without duplicating events.

Rules:

• Do not silently complete sibling child tasks when one child completes.
• Do not complete parent until every child is complete unless the explicit parent-complete action is selected.
• Do not add generalized dependency resolution.

Acceptance criteria:

• Test: all children completed completes parent.
• Test: parent complete force-completes children.
• Test: partial child completion does not complete parent.
• Test: completing one child does not complete siblings.
• Test: explicit parent-complete action records the correct completion state for parent and remaining children.

Commit suggestion:

feat(tasks): support parent-owned child tasks