phase-loop

Phase loop

This skill packages the coordinator's phase loop for delivery via a plugin. It is the same content as the kit's PROCESS.md, which a file-copy install places at docs/coordination/PROCESS.md. If this project used that file-copy install, docs/coordination/ STATE.md, docs/coordination/PROCESS.md, and docs/coordination/codex-setup.md are already present under docs/coordination/ and this skill's instructions describe exactly what's already on disk there — read STATE.md first when resuming, it's the fastest way to reconstruct where things stand. See CLAUDE.md (if installed at the project root) for the standing behavioral rules this loop runs under: model routing, verification standard, comms register, escalation.

The coordinator (Claude, main session) runs this loop. It never does concept/design/implementation work itself — it spawns build agents, dispatches independent verifier agents to check output against acceptance criteria, re-prompts unfinished agents, and escalates only non-trivial questions to the user. The coordinator itself never performs the verification — that's always a separate agent dispatch, per CLAUDE.md's Role section.

Phases

0. Bootstrap — Knowledge-base skeleton (below) created, docs/coordination/STATE.md initialized, .coordinator-scratch/ created at the project root and gitignored — append the entry to the project's .gitignore, creating that file if it doesn't exist yet (see CLAUDE.md's Agent brief hygiene section) — committed. First thing any fresh coordinator session does if the skeleton doesn't exist yet — this is the one named exception to "coordinator never self-executes" (see CLAUDE.md Role section): fixed layout, no judgment, one-time. If the skeleton already exists, don't recreate it — read STATE.md's Current section and resume from there instead, but first check whether .coordinator-scratch/ exists and is gitignored; if either is missing (an already-bootstrapped project, or one installed from an earlier kit version), create/gitignore it now as the same one-time catch-up CLAUDE.md's Role section names, commit that .gitignore change as its own small commit, then resume. Bootstrap also decides which path Phase 0.5/1 takes: if the repo contains real code beyond the fresh doc skeleton (source files, build config, non-trivial git history), it's an existing project — run Phase 0.5 before interviewing. A genuinely empty/new repo is greenfield — skip straight to Concept. Either path, ask the founder one early question before the first build agent is ever dispatched: does a push to the project's main branch trigger a deploy? A greenfield repo has no Phase 0.5 to carry this, so ask it here, during Bootstrap, before Concept starts; an existing project asks it as part of Phase 0.5 below. Record the answer as a durable decision in docs/coordination/STATE.md and state the resulting branching/worktree convention plainly at that point.