work-items(triage): status side-exit routing does not reliably clear priority: needs-triage, letting already-decided items re-enter the queue

[kyle-sexton]

This was generated by AI during triage.

Lane: triage
Category: behavioral

Triggering example

Issue #505 was previously routed to status: needs-decision (a fully-formed decision comment already lives in its body) but still carried priority: needs-triage, so it resurfaced in this cycle's queue query as if it were raw/unrouted intake. It wasn't — the triage pass had to spend a read-and-confirm step to establish nothing further was needed, then strip the stale label.

Observed vs expected

• Observed: routing an item to a status side-exit (status: needs-decision, and plausibly status: needs-info) does not reliably clear priority: needs-triage in the same action, so already-decided items can re-enter the needs-triage queue query indefinitely.
• Expected: every side-exit routing (needs-decision, needs-info, needs-human, status:ready) is defined to always remove priority: needs-triage in the same step, so the queue query is a true measure of unrouted intake.

Suggested fix

Add this as an explicit invariant to the triage skill/lane rules (candidate line for #478's absorption list: "every routing outcome — status:ready, needs-human, status:needs-decision, status:needs-info — removes priority: needs-triage in the same edit; never leave both labels present").

Related

478 (v4 loop-prompt routing rules absorption — natural home for this invariant)

[kyle-sexton]

This was generated by AI during triage.

T1 — routing status: ready. Clear, self-contained invariant fix for the triage skill: every side-exit routing (status:ready, needs-human, status:needs-decision, status:needs-info) must remove priority: needs-triage in the same edit.

Related to #478 (loop-prompt routing rules absorption, already status: ready — not edited here per rule 6) as a possible landing spot, but this issue is independently actionable on its own as a standalone SKILL.md fix if #478 lands first or separately.