# The list of open work

> The list of open work is **planned and not yet built**. Its three skills (`list_work`,
> `take_work`, `submit_work`) do not exist. Until they do, judging in a house is done
> free-hand or by recipe with the existing skills; see `working-by-recipe`.

## The idea

A house without a model does not lose the work that needs one. It lets it wait, visibly.
A document that arrives is recognised, stored and indexed at once. Then it appears on a
list, with the work "assign it to a topic". The next agent that connects is told how much
is open, and works through it.

## How it will work (planned)

1. **See what is open.** `list_work` (planned) answers by kind and number: so many
   documents to outline, so many to assign, so many name forms to resolve. The house's
   greeting and `overview` will carry the count, so you learn it without asking.
2. **Take an item.** `take_work` (planned) hands you the next item of a kind: the context
   the house assembled, a prompt that has proven itself in production, and the form the
   answer must have. Taking is a short loan, so that two agents do not judge the same item.
3. **Hand in the verdict.** `submit_work` (planned) checks your verdict with the house's
   own guards and applies it, or refuses it and names the guard that objected.

## What makes this different from judging by recipe

A recipe already gives you the route and the prompt. The list adds what a recipe cannot:

- **The context is assembled for you.** You do not have to find the topic list, cut the
  document to size or look up who was mentioned where.
- **The prompt comes with the item.** You do not look it up, and it is the one the house
  itself uses.
- **The house checks.** A verdict that cites a passage must cite it literally; an outline
  must name every block exactly once; a topic number must exist. What fails is refused,
  with the reason.
- **Nothing is done twice.** What has been judged leaves the list by itself. The list is
  read off the graph each time, not kept as a ledger.
- **Your name is on it.** A verdict records who gave it.

## The order of work

Outlining comes before everything else, because it changes the version of a document, and
every later judgment belongs to a version. The list will hold that order itself: it offers
"assign" for a document only once "outline" is done or not needed.

The kinds of work, in the order in which they are planned:

| Kind | What you decide |
|---|---|
| outline | how the blocks of a raw text really belong together: headings, paragraphs, verse, lists |
| assign | which of the house's topics a document belongs to, each with one sentence of reason |
| resolve names | whether a name form is a person, a place, an organisation, or noise |
| merge name forms | which forms denote the same individual |
| digest | a short, factual description of a volume |

## Two who can work the list

Without a model attached, the list waits for a visitor. With one (planned, see
`plugging-in-a-model`), the house works through the same items by itself as they arrive.
The difference between the two is when a judgment happens, not whether.

## Go deeper

- [who-does-the-thinking](who-does-the-thinking.md): how judging works until this exists
- [working-by-recipe](working-by-recipe.md): the same prompts, today, without the house checking
- [plugging-in-a-model](plugging-in-a-model.md)
- [documents-and-versions](documents-and-versions.md): why versions matter for the order
- [what-does-not-exist-yet](what-does-not-exist-yet.md)