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Milestone Template

template-milestone Template

active template
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Milestone Template

Every milestone gets a milestone note. Milestones are the structural boundary for plans — they define an era of work on a project. When a milestone completes, everything beneath it (plans, phases) is considered "done" and eligible for cold-tier exclusion from hot queries.

Template

Section Order

  • Vision — what this era achieves (stable, rarely changes)
  • Success Criteria — measurable "done" conditions
  • Context — why now, what came before
  • Plan — the single plan under this milestone
  • Related — links to related milestones and docs

Key Principles

Principle What it means
One active milestone per project Like "one plan per project" before it. Focus. The active milestone is the current era. Previous milestones are completed.
One plan per milestone Each milestone gets exactly one plan. The plan contains all phases. When the plan completes, the milestone completes.
Milestones are boundaries, not containers Keep milestone notes lean. The plan holds the detail. The milestone holds the "what" and "why" — the plan holds the "how."
Completion = cold tier When a milestone completes, all its children (plan, phases) become cold-tier. They're still findable via semantic search but excluded from list_notes by default.
New projects start with Milestone 1 Every project begins with a first milestone, not a bare plan. The milestone frames the first era of work.

Lifecycle

Status Meaning
<code>not-started</code> Milestone is scoped but work hasn't begun
<code>active</code> Plan is active, phases are in progress
<code>completed</code> All success criteria met. Plan completed. Children go cold-tier.

Naming Convention

Slug: milestone-YYYY-MM-DD-short-description
Tags: milestone,active (or milestone,completed)
Note type: milestone (once the note_type exists in the enum; use doc with tag milestone until then)
Project: the project this milestone advances
Parent: none (milestones are top-level within a project)

Relationship to Project Page

The project page's Milestones section lists all milestones in chronological order. The active milestone is bolded. Completed milestones show their completion date. The Plan section on the project page references the active milestone's plan.

What Changed (2026-03-16)

  • New template. Previously milestones were informal markers on project pages with no structure. Now they are first-class notes with a template, lifecycle, and hierarchy role.
  • Convention: "One plan per project" evolves to "one active milestone per project, one plan per milestone." Plans are still the work document. Milestones are the boundary.
  • First dogfood: milestone-2026-03-16-knowledge-architecture under pal-e-docs project.
  • template-plan — plans live under milestones
  • template-project-page — project pages list milestones
  • plan-2026-03-16-knowledge-architecture — the plan that created this template
  • phase-2026-03-16-2-milestone-note-type — the phase adding milestone to NoteType enum