/plan
Guide a collaborative planning session to refine an idea into a structured build plan.
Context — Explore the Codebase
Explorer maps all relevant codebase areas. A 2–3 line summary of what exists and what will be affected is presented before any refinement begins.
Refinement — Socratic Dialogue
The brainstorming skill drives a Socratic dialogue with the human — one question at a time, multiple choice where possible, exploring 2–3 approaches before settling.
Continue until the brainstorming skill reaches a fully-formed design with clear answers to: - What must it do? - What must it NOT do or break? - What does "done" look like (specific, testable)?
### Skill collision rules - brainstorming: dialogue and design only — skip its built-in spec doc save, spec review loop, and writing-plans invocation; /plan owns those steps
Design — Architect Plan
The architect skill produces a design plan. If skills were confirmed during refinement, the architect includes a Skills directive in the plan.
Scan the available skills list and infer any skills relevant to the deliverable type. Present your suggestions with a one-line rationale each: > "Based on what we're building, I'd suggest: > - `frontend-design` — polished HTML/CSS output > - `brand-guidelines` — Anthropic brand styling > Confirm all, drop any, or add others?" Collect the confirmed set as confirmed_skills.
External Review — Plan Quality Check
An external LLM reviews the plan document for gaps, contradictions, unverifiable acceptance criteria, and missing edge cases. Findings are appended to the plan before the Author saves it.
After architect produces the plan, run external plan review if EXTERNAL_REVIEW_API_KEY is set: - Check for internal contradictions - Flag unverifiable acceptance criteria - Surface missing edge cases - Append findings to plan before save
Save — Plan & Backlog Task
The plan is saved as a structured markdown file that becomes the /build plan, then a backlog task is created with full field mapping.
# Feature: [Title] ## What it must do [Functional requirements from the refinement session] ## What it must NOT do [Constraints and non-goals] ## Acceptance criteria [Specific, testable outcomes] ## Technical approach [From architect — chosen approach, files to change, dependencies, risks, execution order] **Skills:** [comma-separated list, or omit if none] ## Edge cases [Known edge cases to handle]
| Plan section | Task field | Rule |
|---|---|---|
| # Feature: <title> | title | Extracted heading |
| ## What it must do + ## What it must NOT do | -d | Both sections verbatim |
| Each - [ ] item in Acceptance criteria | --ac | One flag per item |
| ## Technical approach | --plan | Full section verbatim |
| ## Edge cases | --notes | Prefix with "Edge Cases:" |
| **Skills:** line | append to --notes | If present |
Completeness audit: Re-read the plan file and audit it against the full conversation. Check for: decisions made but not captured, field-level detail missing, constraints discussed but not written down.
Hand off — Choose Next Step
Three options are presented to the human after the plan and task are saved.
Run /build immediately using the saved plan. Proceeds without pausing for individual confirmations.
Keep the plan for later. The exact /build command and task ID are shown for reference when you're ready.
Type a custom instruction. The plan and task are already saved — branch off in any direction.