# Ideas

Things that might be worth building and are not decided. **No records, no specs, no backlog
items** until one is approved - a `Proposed` decision record means "a fork awaiting
ratification", not "something we might do", and dressing speculation as a record implies a
choice was made when none was.

Each idea lives in one file and carries its whole shape - the itch, who it serves, a
provisional technical and business sketch, and the unknowns that decide it. Speculation is
welcome there and nowhere else.

Statuses run `idea` → `exploring` → `approved` | `parked` | `dropped`. An approved idea
**graduates** into the normal flow (a backlog intent, then a spec, then records) and its file
flips to `graduated` with links. Parked and dropped files stay: the reason something was not
built is worth more than the absence of a file, and the next person to have the same thought
finds out what happened rather than starting over.

**The index moved.** Every idea above is a `type: idea` row in
[`backlog.md`](../../backlog.md) now (per
[ADR-046](../decision-records/ADR-046-backlog-is-the-one-index-open-questions-and-ideas-get-a-type.md)),
so the dashboard's Backlog tab shows it alongside build work and open questions without
opening this file. The `backlog.md` row links back to the idea's file here for the whole
shape - the itch, who it serves, the sketch, the unknowns.