spec-plan

Spec Plan

Write a proportional plan so clear that any engineer can follow it. The selected planning mode determines whether the plan stays in the conversation or becomes a persisted structured artifact. This skill does not write code or start implementation.

atelier-orchestrator owns automatic classification and the human may override it. When this skill is directly invoked without a selected mode, use Spec-backed Plan. If Inline planning reveals substantial design or coordination needs, ask the human whether to switch to a Spec-backed Plan before presenting the plan.

Terminal boundary

This skill produces exactly one plan output and then stops:

• Inline mode presents the plan in conversation and changes no repository files.
• Spec-backed mode creates or updates only plan.json from an approved design.md.

Planning drafts and annotation cycles stay in conversation. Do not modify design.md, persist a Markdown plan draft, create tracker entries, invoke another workflow skill, or edit implementation files. These rules still apply when the human asks to plan and implement in one request. Implementation requires a later, explicit request after this skill has finished.

Planning Rules

• Organize tasks around required behavior, not one task per layer.
• Record a short list of behavior the change must preserve.
• For each task, identify existing code to reuse, modify, or delete.
• Map every new abstraction to a present requirement and its current consumers.
• Introduce shared infrastructure only when at least two current consumers demonstrate the same need.
• Group tests by changed contract and active boundary. Do not repeat the CRUD matrix across layers.

Proportionality Gate

Before presenting any plan, compare its size and concepts with the requested behavior. If a bounded migration or refactor introduces shared infrastructure, unrelated behavior, or a plan substantially larger than the behavior being changed, stop and simplify it.

Outputs