plan-gate

Plan Gate

Proactively assess task complexity before implementation begins and route to the appropriate planning mechanism. This skill acts as a lightweight decision point that prevents both under-planning (jumping straight into code on a multi-phase effort) and over-planning (running a full /plan-improvements cycle for a simple bug fix).

This skill is read-only. It NEVER modifies files, commits, or pushes.

Instructions

Step 1: Quick Scope Assessment

Spend no more than 30 seconds on this. Do NOT do a deep codebase analysis — that's what the planning commands are for. Just answer these questions by scanning the request and doing minimal file checks:

Task Signals:

Signal	Check
Files affected	Will this touch > 3 files? > 10 files?
Phasing needed	Can this be done in one pass, or does it need stages?
Dependencies	Are there ordering constraints between sub-tasks?
Ambiguity	Is the scope clearly defined, or does it need scoping?
Requirements docs	Do BRD/PRD/TDD files exist in the repo?
Existing plan	Does IMPLEMENTATION_PLAN.md already exist?
Codebase familiarity	Has /prime been run recently? Is CLAUDE.md comprehensive?

Step 2: Check for Existing Artifacts

Quickly check for these files (Glob, not deep reads):

IMPLEMENTATION_PLAN.md    # Existing plan — may just need /implement-plan
RECOMMENDATIONS.md        # Previous analysis — plan may already exist
PROGRESS.md               # Active execution — plan is in flight
PRD*.md, BRD*.md, TDD*.md # Requirements docs — /create-plan is appropriate
docs/requirements/*.md    # Requirements in docs folder

Step 3: Route to the Right Approach

Based on the assessment, recommend ONE of these paths:

Path A: Just Do It (No Planning Needed)

When: Task is clearly scoped, touches 1-3 files, no ambiguity, single-session work.

This looks straightforward — I'll proceed directly.

Do not display the routing table below. Just start working.