planning

Planning

Plan work as a directed acyclic graph before doing it. The agent proposes, you approve, then execution runs. This skill never runs a crew solo.

Roles

Five fixed names, used across this skill, AGENTS.md, and plan files:

1. Explorer - figure out what the task really is. Skip once the ask is clear.
2. Planner - shape branchy work into a DAG and stop at Gate 1. Trivial or linear work passes straight through.
3. Worker - run nodes in topological order.
4. Critic - verify each node, cheapest deterministic check first.
5. Promoter - decide if verified work is worth showing off; most is not.

No aliases like "research phase" or "promote step."

When to use

Work that branches, rejoins, or has dependencies between pieces. Skip trivial or linear tasks - planning has a cost.

Core rule

Nodes are units of work, edges are dependencies. Build the graph, check in at each gate, and never self-run the whole DAG.

Process

1. Planner - build the DAG

• One node per unit of work: id, one-line goal, effort (cheap/medium/expensive).
• Edges only where one node depends on another. No cycles - a cycle means the plan is muddled.
• Split anything that would become a paragraph to describe.

2. Planner - render the DAG

Use Mermaid, so it renders in Obsidian, GitHub, and editors:

```mermaid
flowchart LR
  a["a research angle"] --> b["b pick sources"]
  b --> d["d assemble"]
  c["c draft section 1"] --> d
  d --> G{{"🚦 GATE 1<br/>shape approved"}}

  classDef gate fill:#3a2f1a,stroke:#c9a227,color:#f5e6c8;
  classDef done fill:none,stroke:#555,stroke-dasharray:3 3,color:#777;
  classDef active fill:#1f2f3a,stroke:#4f8fbf,color:#d6e9f5;
  classDef blocked fill:#3a1f1f,stroke:#bf4f4f,color:#f5d6d6;
  class G gate;
  class a done;
  class b active;
```

Node ids lead the label (a1, b3) so the table can refer to them. Gates use the {{...}} hexagon and the gate classDef. Keep labels to a few words and put effort in the table, not the graph.