Mining: ranking notes

Bands left as assessed; the list genuinely spans P2 (template-manager chain with concrete performance and unblocking payoff), P3 (one real bug fix, interface features, test coverage, regtest tooling) and P4 (theoretical or sub-1000-sat edge cases). Within P3 the ordering puts the bug fix and external-interface stability work ahead of added test coverage and developer tooling, per the category's 'template validity and correctness first, tooling last' ordering.

• Review chain: #35675 (BlockTemplateManager extraction) is the base for both #35581 (waitNext fee inflow) and #33922 (getMemoryLoad / template memory tracking). #35675 must be reviewed first; reviewing #35581 or #33922 ahead of it duplicates effort, since #35581's own manager code is the part extracted into #35675.
• Partial overlap: #35581 and #35675 both add a 'block template manager'; #35675 is the agreed extraction, so #35581 should be read as the fee-inflow delta only.
• #35598 was carved out of #33922 as out-of-scope test coverage; the two touch the same waitNext/feeThreshold behaviour and are best looked at together, with #33922 (after #35675) first.
• #36097 depends on unmerged upstream bitcoin-core/libmultiprocess#342; its cancellation model would also change how #36192's 'IPC connection survives a failed createNewBlock' expectation is expressed, so #36097's approach decision should be settled before further interrupt-adjacent work lands.
• #36132 and #36156 both change BlockAssembler/Mining edge-case semantics that reviewers themselves called theoretical or worth under 1000 sats; they sit correctly in P4 and should not displace the template-manager chain.

This pass by claude-opus-5 on 2026-09-17 saw every PR in the category at once and checked the bands given to each PR alone against each other, ordered the PRs, and noted chains and overlaps. Back to the category.