The dossier is where work becomes decidable
Before work can be assigned, it has to be understood. A dossier keeps that understanding attached as an open question becomes a decision, a task and a durable record.
It is a working document rather than a preliminary specification: analysis, inline decisions, execution cards, current state and final documentation remain readable as one continuous history.
Work does not begin as a task
A dossier starts while the shape of the work is still uncertain and stays open until the result can be understood without reconstructing the conversation.
The five phases below describe the normal direction of travel. They are deliberately permeable: execution can expose a missing decision, and documentation can reveal a new question.
From open question to durable record
One dossier carries the reasoning forward as work becomes concrete.
Analysis
Frame the problem, gather evidence and make uncertainty explicit before proposing implementation.
Inline decisions
Resolve questions beside the reasoning they affect, with the decision and its consequence stated plainly.
Cards
Turn accepted slices into bounded cards with an outcome, context, constraints and required evidence.
Live tracking
Follow execution, findings and review state without replacing the dossier with a separate status report.
Documentation
Fold the accepted result and remaining questions back into the record so later work starts informed.
Questions, decisions, execution state and evidence stay in one readable history.
Decisions stay where the reasoning happened
A decision is recorded at the point where alternatives, evidence and consequences are visible. The dossier can then distinguish what remains open from what is settled without hiding either state.
This makes review economical. A reader can scan the decisions first, then move outward into the analysis only where more context is needed.
The dossier preserves the path to a decision, not just its final wording.
Dossiers, tasks and epics have different jobs
A task is the bounded unit in which an accepted slice of work is executed and reviewed.
An epic bundles decided work into a delivery horizon.
A dossier holds the entire lifecycle of emerging work: the questions, decisions, execution and record that precede and outlive those units.
The record remains live
Cards report their state back into the dossier while the work is active. Accepted results, rejected approaches and unresolved questions remain visible after delivery.
The result is documentation with provenance: it explains what changed, why that path was chosen and which assumptions the next round of work should revisit.