Workflow: preserve architect lane when resuming blocked research

[fujiwaranosai850]

Summary

A blocked architect research issue loses its role-specific return path.

The intended completed-research architecture is coherent and must remain unchanged:

1. Architect researches in Researching.
2. Architect creates separate implementation task(s) in Planning.
3. work_finish(role: "architect", result: "done") transitions the research issue to Done and closes it.

The gap is limited to blocked research:

Researching --BLOCKED--> Refining --APPROVE/task_start--> To Do

Because Refining is shared and its single approval transition targets the developer queue, supplying clarification and restarting a blocked research issue dispatches a developer rather than returning the unfinished research to an architect.

This issue is intentionally separate from the OpenClaw compatibility/native-subagent work and its upstream PR. Defer implementation until that integration is stable.

Historical context

• Upstream issue #213 and PR #217 introduced an iterative architect lane with To Research and Researching states.
• Commit 7bb9428 deliberately changed successful architect completion from Planning to Done + closeIssue, while requiring separate implementation tasks in Planning. Preserve this decision.
• Commit 6dddf747 / upstream PR #312 added diagrams that still show Researching → Planning; those diagrams were stale when introduced even though adjacent prose correctly describes closing the research issue.

Expected behavior

After a blocked architect receives human clarification, advancing the hold state should return the same research issue to the architect lane, normally through To Research, without dispatching a developer.

A likely deterministic model is:

Researching --BLOCKED--> Research Refining
Research Refining --APPROVE--> To Research

The existing generic developer path can remain:

Doing --BLOCKED--> Refining
Refining --APPROVE--> To Do

An equivalent role-preserving design is acceptable if it does not guess from stale labels or mutable issue metadata.

Acceptance criteria

• Completed architect research still transitions to Done, closes the research issue, and leaves separate implementation tasks in Planning.
• Blocked architect research enters a hold state that preserves an unambiguous architect return path.
• Restarting/approving blocked research returns it to To Research or otherwise dispatches an architect, never a developer.
• Generic blocked developer work continues to return to the developer queue.
• task_start remains deterministic for every hold state; no heuristic inference from issue history or stale role labels.
• Default workflow configuration, workflow guide/reference, README and workflow diagrams, requirements/tool documentation, and architect/orchestrator instructions agree on both the completed and blocked paths.
• Regression tests cover architect done, architect blocked → human approval → architect redispatch, and developer blocked → human approval → developer redispatch.
• Upgrade/migration behavior is defined for existing installations whose copied workflow.yaml lacks any new architect-specific hold state.

Out of scope

• OpenClaw native subagent compatibility, model override policy, or routing changes.
• The pending upstream PR for the current OpenClaw compatibility work.
• Reverting architect completion to Planning.
• Mixing this workflow correction into the compatibility PR.