Tracker-edge widening (sub-project 5): agreed deferrals + release notes

[vnovick]

Sub-project 5 (tracker-edge capture widening — spec: `docs/superpowers/specs/2026-08-05-tracker-edge-widening-design.md`) closes the dependency-autonomy decomposition. Deferrals + release-note material, none blocking.

📣 Release notes (operator-visible behavior changes)

• Previously dispatchable issues may now be blocked: Linear parents with open sub-issues, and GitHub issues whose bodies match the widened phrase set (`blocked by/on`, `depends on/upon`, `requires`, `waiting on/for` + `#N` lists). The Deps tab and `blocked_by:` reasons explain every hold.
• Parent↔child 2-cycle trap: a Linear board where a parent has a `blocks` relation on its own child ("spec work first") now forms a genuine tracker-kind cycle — both issues held, cycle alert raised. Resolution: remove the relation or restructure. The alert is the correct rendering of a real modeling contradiction, but boards using that pattern go from working to wedged on upgrade.
• GitHub blocker-state freshness: blocker states are now cached 5 minutes (was per-poll). Worst-case `blockers_resolved` latency via the refresh path ≈ 15 min (was ~10). Fail direction is safe — stale means still-blocked, never falsely unblocked. In exchange, blocker-state traffic drops ~10x (~480 req/hr at 40 refs vs ~4,800 uncached with the widened phrases).

Deferrals

• Colon-form capture gap: `Depends on: chore(deps): bump codecov/codecov-action from 4 to 5 #3` (the issue-template form, likely the most common) captures nothing — the colon is a list stop-token per the spec grammar. Worth a follow-up widening.
• Cross-repo ref mid-list silently terminates the list: `depends on chore(deps): bump codecov/codecov-action from 4 to 5 #3, foo/bar#4, chore(deps): bump apexcharts from 4.7.0 to 5.10.4 in /web #5` → only chore(deps): bump codecov/codecov-action from 4 to 5 #3.
• Linear children are labeled `tracker_relation` in dependency-audit Sources — operators can't distinguish sub-issue gating from a `blocks` relation.
• `&` works as a list separator but is undocumented in docs/dependency-management.md.
• `children(first: 50)`: a 51st sub-issue is silently invisible (fails open — parent dispatchable). Matches the inverseRelations(first: 50) precedent.
• Permanently-dangling GitHub refs (404 forever) are re-fetched every poll with a loud error each time — deliberate (404 ≈ transient permission loss), self-announcing, pathological only at ~40 dangling refs.
• GitHub native issue dependencies (structured blocked-by API): capture deferred by design decision. Constraints for whoever takes it: NEVER a per-issue fetch loop — piggyback the (now-cached) blocker-state batch path or GraphQL.

Adjudicated at review (recorded rulings)

• "Query complexity doubles" (Linear children selections): refuted by Linear API budget exhausted by per-issue poll loops; input-required backlog is a self-sustaining feedback loop #42's production data — complexityRemaining 2,999,817/3,000,000; request count is the binding constraint, and children ride existing requests (zero count delta).
• "requires chore(deps): bump apexcharts from 4.7.0 to 5.10.4 in /web #5 to be reviewed" creating an edge: deliberate, spec-pinned in TestExtractBlockersDocumentedAcceptance.

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