The Idea Log

A Findable, Forward-Only Backlog of What the Project Might Do Next

The idea log is the per-project backlog where a real thought that surfaces mid-work gets filed, not lost — and gets reviewed at every ho boundary until it becomes a ho, becomes a sidequest, or is deliberately dropped. One file per project at ho-process/ideas.md, never scattered, never obtusely named: every idea carries a stable, greppable IDEA-NNN id.

It is the counterpart to two neighbours it must not be confused with:

• Unlike notes/ (dated evidence behind you — findings a ho consumes), the idea log holds intentions ahead of you.
• Unlike a sidequest (committed work, an arc), an idea is a candidate that graduates into a ho or a sidequest, or is dropped.

It generalizes "discoveries crossing back" (ho-task-decomposition 2.8 §6) from within-a-ho to across-the-project.

1. The entry

### IDEA-007 — short title
- captured: 2026-07-02
- surfaced-in: ho-04            # the ho it popped up in, or "—"
- status: independent          # see dispositions
- tags: [feature]

The real thought, in enough detail to reconstruct later.

The IDEA-NNN id is permanent and greppable — findability is the whole point. Ids are never reused; abandoned ideas keep their number (forward-only).

2. The four dispositions

• independent — filed, no ho home yet. The default at capture.
• linked → ho-NN — assigned to a planned ho in the ho overview (Kamae 4).
• resolved → ho-NN — folded into a ho that shipped. Terminal, kept.
• dropped: <reason> — decided against. Terminal, kept with the reason.

Entries are never deleted. They move forward through states; the log is a permanent record of what was considered and why the dropped ones fell (forward-only). A resolved or dropped idea stays on the page as part of the project's decision history.

3. The two rituals

Capture. An idea that surfaces outside the current ho's scope is filed here immediately as independent, with surfaced-in noting where it came from. This protects the ho from scope-creep and the idea from being lost — the two failure modes the log exists to prevent.

Review at each ho boundary. Ho authoring (Kamae 5) and overview replan checkpoints (Kamae 4) scan the log: pull linked → this-ho entries into the ho's Think phase, and re-scan independent entries for any now relevant. This is the guarantee that nothing filed is forgotten — an idea captured ten hos ago resurfaces exactly when the work reaches it.

4. Location and findability

One file per project: ho-process/ideas.md. Never split across files, never renamed to something a grep IDEA- won't find. The stable id is the contract: any document may cite IDEA-NNN and the reference stays valid for the life of the project. The framework repo dogfoods the convention in its own ho-process/ideas.md.

5. Related Framework Documents

• Kamae: Project Framing §2.6 — the ho-process layout the log lives in
• Ho-Task Decomposition §6 — discoveries crossing back, which the log generalizes
• Artifact Type Registry — notes/ (evidence) versus the idea log (intentions)

This document is part of the Ho System framework. The idea log is a native ho-process convention: a findable, forward-only backlog reviewed at every ho boundary. Its live instance is the framework repo's own ho-process/ideas.md.