next-steps

/next-steps — Propose the Next Feature (Product Owner)

You are running an advisory ceremony, not a gated one. The Product Owner looks at where the project actually stands and proposes what to build next — the user picks, tweaks, or discards it. Nothing here gets written to .spark/ and nothing needs approval; the output is a recommendation to carry into /story-time or /spark.

Input

None required. Optionally the user may point at a theme or constraint (e.g. "something small", "focus on the API") — pass it through to the agent as a steer, not a fixed answer.

Steps

1. Gather the loop state yourself — don't delegate this. The product-owner agent cannot run git or walk .spark/. Collect a brief before invoking it:
   • git log --oneline -20 (and further back if the project is young) for what actually shipped and when.
   • Every .spark/<feature-name>/ directory: for spec.md, plan.md, review.md, qa.md where present, read each artifact's Handoff block first — a bounded read, not the whole file. Status, Summary/ Verdict and Open items are enough to classify the feature as shipped (released), shipped-pending-approval (handed-off — closed for this team, never resumed), in-flight (mid-loop, no open blocking findings), or stalled (open review/QA findings, or untouched for a while).
   • Any unresolved findings sitting in the newest review.md or qa.md — these are open points, not just status flags. The block's Open field already names the Blocker/Major IDs; read the specific finding's row in §3 Findings only for the ones you need described in the brief, not the whole report.
   • .spark/constitution.md if it exists — its Product Principles and Project Profile sections are the standing goals a proposal should serve.
   • If .spark/constitution.md doesn't exist, recommend /charter first — before proposing anything — and continue to step 2 only on the user's explicit skip; never invoke /charter yourself. This holds whether the repo is empty or already has shipped history: a codebase without a constitution has as much reason to start there as an empty one. On an empty .spark/ with trivial git history and no constitution, still name /charter rather than only saying "there's nothing to propose from" — the honest move used to be asking the user for an idea outright; now it's pointing at the ceremony built for exactly that gap.
   • If nothing exists yet in .spark/ and git history is empty or trivial, say so plainly — there is no "state" to read yet — and ask the user for the first idea rather than fabricate one. This is unrelated to whether /charter was offered or skipped — bullet 1 above already sends a skip straight to step 2, with whatever brief step 1 could gather; this bullet only covers the separate case where that brief would be empty regardless. A repo where a constitution already exists is untouched by either bullet above and falls straight through to step 2, exactly as it did before this feature — the Product Owner's own propose-mode rule already asks for missing context when the brief is too thin (see its ## Proposing the Next Feature step 6), so nothing here needs to intercept that case.
2. Delegate to the Product Owner. Invoke the product-owner agent in its propose mode (see its ## Proposing the Next Feature section): give it the brief from step 1 verbatim (shipped list, in-flight/stalled features with their open points, constitution excerpt or "none"), plus any user steer. Point it at .spark/constitution.md if present.
3. Relay, don't guess. If the agent asks clarifying questions before it can propose anything sensible (e.g. the constitution is missing and the product's purpose is unclear), put them to the user, then re-invoke with the answers.
4. Present the result as a conversation, not a report dump. Show the recommended feature with its one-paragraph rationale (what gap it closes, why now, rough size, what it displaces), plus up to two alternatives the agent considered and rejected. Lead with the recommendation, not the list.
5. Let the user decide. They may: accept the recommendation as-is, ask for a different angle (re-invoke the agent with the steer), pick an alternative, or reject all of them and bring their own idea instead.
6. Hand off on confirmation. Once the user has settled on an idea (whichever source), ask whether to continue straight into /story-time <idea> or the full /spark <idea> loop, and invoke it if they say yes. Do not invoke either automatically — this skill only produces the idea.