docs / guides / rule on a decision

Rule on a decision.

Agents record; you rule. The status line counts what awaits you, and two reads open the backlog itself: balladeer queues shows both ruling queues (proposals held for placement, and live conflicts), and balladeer placement shows the holds on their own.

Reading the status bar

N to confirm (N new)

Unconfirmed decisions awaiting a ruling; "new" are plain additions to your team's memory.

⚠ N replace older

The subset of to-confirm that would supersede a decision you already have. Confirming one retires the old decision (it stays in the record, marked); these deserve the closest read.

⚠ N awaiting placement

Decisions you or your agent intended that are held against a near-match and are not in your team's memory yet. One ruling resolves each.

⚠ N conflicts

Live disagreements: pairs of standing decisions whose accounts are incompatible. balladeer conflicts lists each pair side by side; a conflict resolves when your team dismisses or supersedes the losing side, or retracts the link (balladeer unrelate) if the two do not actually disagree.

(cached)

The bar is showing its last-known counts while it refreshes from your workspace.

⚠ conventions vN available

A newer version of the agent guidance shipped. The file Balladeer owns refreshes itself on this tick, so the chip names only what still needs a command from you: rerun balladeer setup-claude-code (or setup-agents) to update the copies you own, such as your CLAUDE.md block and any repo AGENTS.md.

clear · 0 decisions yet · not paired

Nothing awaits you; a brand-new memory that fills as your team works; or this machine has no workspace credential yet (balladeer login).

Ruling is one command either way:

You can rule on several at once: balladeer confirm (and the connector's confirm) takes a set of ids as one gesture, and most go through together. A member that needs its own review is held back from the set with the reason named: a supersession of confirmed canon, a side of an open conflict, a decision under live strain, or a MUST without standing. You confirm that one on its own, and dismissing a set never holds anything back.

What confirming commits

A confirmed decision is the team's call. Agents follow it, cite it, and argue back when new work contradicts it, until you override it or a later decision supersedes it. Dismissing says the capture was wrong from the start: the decision permanently leaves retrieval, so no agent sees it again, and dismissals teach the system what not to record.

Supersession is the other path, and it erases nothing: when a confirmed replacement retires an older decision, the old one stays in the record with its story, marked superseded wherever it surfaces. Keep the fork straight. A capture that was wrong from the start is dismissed and goes; a decision that was right and has been overtaken is superseded and stays findable as history.

Not sure what a standing means? Standings & receipts. Count says "awaiting placement"? Resolve a placement hold. Want to see what was written recently rather than what awaits a ruling? balladeer recent is the live feed, the last three hours by default.

Verified from live product as of 28 jul 2026.