INVESTIGATE backlog — priority view
Purpose: triage tool, not a roadmap. Decides what to investigate next — not what to build next. The 17 INVESTIGATE files in this folder were written at different times for different reasons; this doc separates the ones ready to be done from the ones that should wait, and orders the ready ones by what they unblock.
Last updated: 2026-05-07. Re-rank whenever an INVESTIGATE moves to completed/ or a new one lands.
How to read the tiers: tier order is the order to start the investigation, not the order to finish. Tier 1 means "next on deck"; Tier 4 means "don't open this yet — wait for prereqs or product clarity."
Tier 1 — do next (load-bearing or unblocks active work)
| # | Investigation | Effort | Why this tier |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | semantic-foundation-before-expansion | L | Decides concept-catalogue format (dbt MCP / YAML generator / dbt Semantic Layer). Explicitly freezes NGO-supply expansion until resolved — i.e. blocks 4 other INVESTIGATEs (data-discovery, supply-frontend-display, folkehjelp, multi-ngo-extensions) from going past their own boundaries. Highest unblocking ratio. |
| 2 | mart-meta-dimensions-cardinality | M | Directly feeds PLAN-007 phase 4 (the active customer-frontend rewrite) — the catalogue UX needs cardinality + example values to render "what each column actually contains". Investigation gap is small; ship-side gap is real. |
| 3 | felles-datakatalog-classification | S | Already half-shipped (eu_theme: namespace landed in PLAN-007 phase 2.10). Closing this out is a few hours of LOS-vocabulary mapping work and gives Atlas one-line interop with data.norge.no — high payoff for the effort. |
Tier 2 — do after Tier 1 (independent, ready, valuable)
| # | Investigation | Effort | Why this tier |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | reports-and-indicators-from-catalogue | XL | Substrate for prioritising new sources. Without it, "what to ingest next" is gut feel. Big effort, but defines the grammar Atlas's data side aims at. Begin once Tier 1 settles the catalogue shape. |
| 5 | multi-ngo-supply-model-extensions | M | Small schema change (dim_chapter.source_url, chapter_subtype, chapter_kommune_coverage) that unblocks both supply-frontend-display and folkehjelp-supply. Cheap; high downstream payoff. |
| 6 | developer-docs-surface | M | Once PLAN-007 lands and marts.* + raw.* are publicly queryable, external developers will arrive without docs. Investigate the shape of developer-atlas.helpers.no before users land, not after. |
| 7 | data-freshness-surface | M | Catalogue UX gap: non-technical personas can't tell "is this current?". Independent of other tiers; ships value to the customer-frontend on its own. |
| 8 | indicators-schema-coverage | S-M | PR #89 enabled +persist_docs so marts.* column descriptions reach PostgREST and MCP agents. Surfaced that 249 of ~566 marts columns lack descriptions, mostly indicators__* per-source pass-throughs (25 % coverage). Independent of other tiers; settles whether to hand-fill, generate from manifest.yml dimensions, or punt. |
Tier 3 — defer until prereqs ship
These have known prerequisites that are still open. Don't open them yet — the prereq's outcome materially changes the investigation's scope.
| # | Investigation | Waits on | Why defer |
|---|---|---|---|
| 8 | new-norwegian-public-sources | reports-and-indicators-from-catalogue (Tier 2) | The 26-source pick is much cheaper once the report grammar tells us what gaps to fill. Sequencing this first risks ingesting sources we then deprioritise. |
| 9 | supply-frontend-display | multi-ngo-supply-model-extensions (Tier 2) | URL structure and viewing layers depend on the schema shape. Investigating UX before schema = rework. |
| 10 | folkehjelp-supply | multi-ngo-supply-model-extensions (Tier 2) | Same reason — schema decisions land first, then the second-NGO ingest validates them. |
| 11 | data-discovery-surface — partially-spawned 2026-05-07 | semantic-foundation-before-expansion (Tier 1) for the OpenMetadata path; PLAN-008 for the Atlas-native near-term path is ready to execute now | The Atlas-native subset (Scalar spec viewer + lineage panel + dbt docs hosting) is ready to ship via PLAN-008-developer-discovery-surface.md. The wider OpenMetadata adoption stays deferred per the original Tier-3 reason. |
| 12 | cloud-agent-source-onboarding | new-norwegian-public-sources | "Autonomous agent that onboards sources" needs a clear list of what sources to onboard before the orchestration design is meaningful. |
| 13 | private-atlas-deployments | product clarity (which NGO drives this?) | L-effort and architecturally significant. Worth doing only when there's a concrete first private tenant to design against; speculative architecture rots fast. |
| 14 | deployment-pipeline | UIS / dagster decision (external) | External-blocked. The CI/CD shape depends on what UIS lands; investigating now risks designing against the wrong substrate. Revisit when UIS signals dagster direction. |
Tier 4 — ideas, not investigations
These are sketches / parking-lot entries, not concrete research targets. Don't open them as INVESTIGATEs — let the surrounding context resolve, then either promote to a real INVESTIGATE or delete.
| # | Item | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| 15 | ngo-events-and-minisites | Explicitly parked in the file itself. Re-evaluate after Folkehjelp ships and a second NGO is in flight — by then the actual gap will be visible, not speculated. |
| 16 | tag-indicators-sdg-icnpo | Overlaps with semantic-foundation's ICNPO tagging on the supply side. Hold until Tier 1 #1 resolves; the answer there may absorb this entirely. |
Tier 0 — already in flight
| # | Investigation | State |
|---|---|---|
| — | customer-frontend-data-display | Recommendation accepted; child PLAN-007 active in ../active/. No fresh investigation work needed. |
Cross-cutting notes
- Two natural workstreams: data-platform (Tier 1 #1, Tier 2 #4–5) and frontend/UX (Tier 1 #2, Tier 2 #6–7). They can run in parallel — different files, different agents, no merge contention.
- Supply-side cluster: #5 → (#9, #10) is a tight chain. Resolving #5 unblocks two Tier-3 investigations together.
- Catalogue cluster: #1 → (#11, #15 #16, plus parts of #4) is the other tight chain. Resolving #1 collapses the most uncertainty.
- External blocker: only #14 (deployment-pipeline) waits on someone outside Atlas. The other 16 are agency-of-the-team-only.
- Idea-vs-investigation ratio: 2 of 17 are still ideas (Tier 4). Healthy — most of the backlog is concrete work, not brainstorm residue.
How to use this doc
- Pick the top unstarted item from Tier 1; if all of Tier 1 is in flight or done, move to Tier 2.
- When starting an INVESTIGATE, leave it in this folder (per the lifecycle rule — INVESTIGATEs stay in
backlog/until every child PLAN ships). Update itsStatus:line to note the work is in flight. - When an INVESTIGATE produces a recommendation and a child PLAN is drafted, update this doc: strike the row, note the PLAN it spawned.
- When a Tier-3 prereq lands, promote its dependents up to Tier 2 in the next refresh.
- Re-rank quarterly or after every 3 INVESTIGATEs ship — whichever comes first.