learn-cli: Skill for Claude Code

deviate — record an approved mid-run departure from the confirmed plan

The skill is named deviate; it is the execution-time leg of the devague method — the sixth leg, sitting between the two execution skills:

scope -> think -> spec-to-plan -> assign-to-workforce -> deviate -> summarize-delivery

Where /assign-to-workforce fans out a converged plan's waves and /summarize-delivery closes the loop afterward, /deviate runs during the fan-out, at the exact moment reality stops matching the plan the human approved at gate 2 (the implementation split plan). It is not a new standing gate — it is the human owner of gate 2 amending the approved split mid-flight, scoped to the one deviation in front of them.

The plan the user confirmed is a contract. Task agents hit constraints, discover a dependency was wrong, or find the acceptance criteria no longer make sense once code is in front of them. Until this skill existed, that reality either silently reshaped what got built (undocumented drift) or the run stalled with no recorded path forward. /deviate is that path: the departure is named, approved, and recorded before anyone keeps building against it.

The method

1. STOP the run. The moment a task agent (or the main agent) discovers the confirmed plan no longer matches what needs to happen, halt — do not keep implementing against the stale contract and do not let the fan-out continue past this task.
2. Present what, why, and what it affects. Lay out, for the human:
   • what is diverging — the specific change from the confirmed task(s);
   • why — the constraint or discovery that forced it;
   • what it affects — the plan item ref(s) involved (--task), any other task ids or coverage targets it touches (--affects), and which acceptance criteria are no longer accurate.
3. Get explicit human approval. This is the one non-negotiable step. A deviation is not real until a human says yes to this specific departure — not a standing blanket permission, not an inference from silence.
4. Record it via devague deviate. Once approved, record the deviation as a first-class ledger entry (never edit the plan itself — the plan stays the untouched historical contract; see devague/delivery.py). An --origin llm record lands proposed and still needs the user's --confirm — recording is not the same as approval landing as final.
5. Adjust the affected task briefs. Update the working instructions the task agent(s) are building against so they reflect the approved departure, not the stale plan text.
6. Resume. Only after the record exists (and, for an llm-origin record, only after it is confirmed) does the fan-out continue.