discovery-review-criteria

Gate definitions and verdict rubric for the DISCOVER reviewer — applied across 3 lenses (completeness, prioritization, duplicate detection) with 6 gates (G1–G6).

When to use

When the backlog-discoverer-reviewer runs a review pass on DISCOVER artefacts
To evaluate the quality of triage reports and sprint proposals
To derive a formal verdict on issue coverage, prioritization coherence, and duplicate handling

Entry contract

triage-report-{date}.md — triage report with classified issues and sprint proposals
Read access to the GitHub repository for the G2 sample-check (open P0/P1 issues)
Declared team capacity (team-days)

Exit contract

Formal verdict: approved, changes_requested, or rejected
Findings per lens with severity (BLOCKER, HIGH, MEDIUM)
For G2 (BLOCKER): list of P0/P1 issues absent from the triage report

Invariants

G2 is the only BLOCKER gate — a P0/P1 issue missing from the triage is a critical failure
Effective capacity = team-days × 0.7 for P1/P2/P3 issues (P0 always overrides capacity)
XL issues never enter the sprint — G4 fails if an XL issue is included
No P3 before P1 — a P3 in the sprint while a P1 is excluded is a priority inversion

Gate	Lens	Severity	Definition
G1	Completeness	HIGH	All 3 discovery modes applied, or skipped modes justified
G2	Completeness	BLOCKER	No open P0/P1 issue absent from the report (top-5 sample-check)
G3	Prioritization	HIGH	No priority inversions; every P0 has a written justification
G4	Prioritization	HIGH	Effective capacity respected; no XL issue in the sprint
G5	Duplicates	HIGH	No undetected duplicate pair (normalised similarity > 80%)
G6	Duplicates	MEDIUM	All 40–80% pairs flagged in the “Duplicates Detected” section

Similarity thresholds:

Level	Similarity	Action required
EXACT	> 95%	One issue labelled `status/duplicate` linked to the original
NEAR	80–95%	Merge recommendation; both issues linked and documented
RELATED	40–80%	Flagged as “related”, recommendation documented
DIFFERENT	< 40%	No action required

Why this shape

Discovery is the least visible phase but the most expensive when it fails: a P0 issue absent from the sprint becomes a production incident or critical debt. Gates G2 and G4 protect against the two most frequent failures — invisible critical issues and over-loaded sprints.

« Maximizing the amount of work not done is essential. » — Reinertsen, D. G., The Principles of Product Development Flow, 2009.

Allowed customisation

Similarity threshold for G5 (L2 — do not lower below 70%)
Number of issues in the G2 sample-check (L2 — do not lower below 3)
Severity of G1 and G3 (L2)