brief

brief — decision by dialogue before the task

Principle: brief sits ABOVE plan and task. The discipline ladder: brief answers "what are we doing and is it even worth it" (the result is a decision), plan answers "how to break the epic down" (the result is a DAG of tasks and waves), task answers "how to execute" (the result is code). You take on brief when the direction isn't chosen yet and the choice itself is the work. Ceremony is proportional: a discussion is just a conversation, until the commit gate not a single file exists, a dead discussion is free. The one discussing neither executes nor decomposes — they work out a decision, commit it, and hand it off.

Not for this skill: a stated task, even with a couple of open questions → task (inside its M/L there's a "spec brief" — a phase that refines an already-accepted direction, don't confuse it with this skill); a chosen initiative that just needs breaking into tasks → plan; "how does this work", a review, a one-off opinion question → a normal answer. Realized along the way that the direction is already chosen and there's nothing to discuss → leave and hand off to task or plan.

Step 0. Orientation and resume

There's a CRAFT.md → read it first: the project map, the starting point. The craftlight block upsert in the root CLAUDE.md (reference and procedure — skills/task/templates/CLAUDE-block.md) rides with brief's first write to disk — the saved pre-gate draft or the Step 3 artifact, whichever comes first — never earlier: until then brief writes no files, and a call that never writes must not edit the user's CLAUDE.md.

• The message is a question about a past decision ("what did we decide about X") → this is a read, not a resume: grep the verdict lines of docs/crafts/*/BRIEF.md, answer from the matching brief, no resume ceremony.
• A docs/crafts/*/BRIEF.md with status draft (an unfinished discussion saved before the commit gate) and the message is a bare resume trigger ("continue the discussion", "back to the brief") → show the last "Decided: … / Remaining: …" from the Log and offer to continue: the brief is external memory, resuming reads the BRIEF, not the chat history. Several draft briefs → ask which one.
• The message brings a new topic while a draft brief exists → discuss the new one; no blocking question — one FYI line: parked: brief "<slug>" is a draft — say "back to the brief" to resume it.
• Refusal to resume → leave the draft in place; drop it only on an explicit request (status abandoned). Resuming specs and plans is the concern of task and plan; brief operates only on briefs.