pause-task

name	pause-task
description	Deliberately set an in-progress task aside without losing its place — mark it paused with a reason, leaving all pipeline state intact. Use when shelving work to pick up later, or when asked to "pause", "park", "hold this task", "tạm dừng task", "để task này lại sau". The inverse of resume-task; for status, not pipeline progress.

Pause Task

Goal: shelve a task on purpose — record that it's intentionally set aside (status: paused) with a reason, while preserving its pipeline stage and every artifact exactly as they are, so resume-task can pick it up later with zero loss.

paused is a deliberate choice, distinct from blocked (stuck on an external dependency, not by choice) and from done (finished). pause-task is a lifecycle skill, not a stage: it touches only status and the log — never stage or artifacts:. It's the inverse of resume-task.

When to use

• You're stepping away from a task and want it clearly marked so it isn't mistaken for active work, and isn't auto-picked when resolving "the current task".
• The user asks to pause / park / hold a task.
• Not for tasks stuck on a dependency (that's just status: blocked, set by the stage skill) and not for finished work (use archive-task).

Shared task state

Part of the task pipeline — see ../WORKFLOW.md → "Task lifecycle". Unlike resume-task, this skill does write tasks/ — that's its job.

Method

Input: an optional task id argument in any form (pause-task 007, pause-task 7, pause-task TASK-007), normalized to the on-disk folder name TASK-<ID> (a non-numeric ticket key like PROJ-123 → TASK-PROJ-123). No argument → resolve the current task (below).

1. Locate the task: the normalized id argument, one named in conversation, else the most-recently-updated: task under tasks/TASK-* (skip tasks/archive/* and any status: paused task — already-shelved tasks aren't auto-picked). If several are active or it's ambiguous, list candidates and ask — don't guess.
2. Check it's pausable: the task must be active or blocked. If it's already paused, say so and stop. If it's done, suggest archive-task instead.
3. Get the reason: use the reason the user gave; if none, ask one line ("Tạm dừng vì lý do gì?") so the pause is self-explanatory later. Don't invent one.
4. Write the state in tasks/TASK-<ID>/task.md — get the real time first (date "+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M %Z"):
   • set status: paused; leave stage and every artifacts: value untouched.
   • bump updated:.
   • in the Now block, note it's paused and why (e.g. - Blocked by: none (paused — waiting on design)).
   • Snapshot the working tree: check git status — if this task's work sits uncommitted, list the mid-flight files in the Now block (e.g. - In flight: src/auth.ts, src/auth.test.ts (uncommitted)), so resuming doesn't mistake them for another task's changes. Suggest the user stash or WIP-commit before switching tasks — don't run git yourself.
   • append a dated Pipeline Log line: - <YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM +TZ> paused: <reason> — carrying your agent label (format: ../WORKFLOW.md → Agent handoff).
5. Confirm to the user: which task, what stage it's frozen at, and that /resume-task <ID> brings it back exactly here.

When done

Report the task id, the stage it's paused at, and the reason logged. Don't run any stage work — pausing only changes status. To bring it back, the user runs resume-task.