Judge Task Lifecycle

Judge task meaning. Do not decide from exact wording alone.

Active Task State

Apply the To-do Boundary section supplied from extract-atomic-memory before these state rules.

Decide in this order and stop at the first step that applies.

1. Does the candidate report OR INSTRUCT that an existing active task is done, finished, handled, cancelled, or dropped? If yes, the answer is complete or remove on THAT task. Never open_or_refine, and never none. A report ("I finished X", "X is done") and an instruction ("mark X complete", "tick X off", "close X", "remove X from my list") both land here. An instruction to change a task's state IS the state change; do not treat it as a request you decline to act on. A candidate that speaks about an active task's ending is never a new task, however it is worded, and restating the task's name inside such a sentence is naming the task to close, not opening one.
2. Otherwise, if the candidate describes work still to be done, use open_or_refine.
3. Otherwise use none.

• Use open_or_refine only for a current task that remains active.
• Use complete only when the candidate says an active task was achieved.
• Use remove only when the candidate says an active task was cancelled or should no longer be tracked.
• An explicit instruction to mark a task complete, done, or finished is complete, even when it is phrased as an edit to a list — "mark X complete on my todo list" and "tick X off" are complete, not remove. Taking a finished task off a list is what completing it looks like; the words that decide are whether the work was done. Reserve remove for a task abandoned, cancelled, called off, no longer needed, or added by mistake — cases where the work will NOT happen.
• Use none when the candidate does not change active-task state.
• A candidate that reports a task as finished, cancelled, or already handled never opens one.
• If that task is active, complete or remove it. If it is not active, make no task change.
• Match tasks by meaning, not exact wording. Refine an existing task instead of opening a duplicate.

Existing Task Relation

• Use same_instance when the assertion refers to one listed active task, including different wording with the same meaning.
• Use distinct_instance when the assertion is a different active task.
• Use none when the assertion does not describe an active-task relation.
• Use uncertain when the evidence does not settle the relation.