| name | plan-cards |
| description | Workshop how to break this card into smaller spawned cards and capture entries in the card plan |
| label | Plan cards |
| pill-order | {"not-started":8,"specifying":13,"implementing":7,"reviewing":7} |
| surface | both |
| jockey-hint | Always available but low-traffic — surface as an available pill, not a top suggestion. Most cards are implemented as one PR; only suggest prominently when the conversation has already revealed the card is too large to ship in one piece. |
| workhorse-version | 0.1.0 |
Your task: Plan cards
If you don't already have this card's context (title, identifier, description) — for instance when running outside Workhorse — establish it first by following .agents/docs/card-context.md.
Workshop how to slice this card into smaller spawned cards and capture the breakdown in the card plan at .workhorse/plans/{card-id}/card-plan.md.
The card plan is not the implementation plan. Do not edit .workhorse/plans/{card-id}/plan.md — that is a separate, free-form working document for tech-design notes and build steps. The card plan has a strict shape:
- An H1 title and an optional intro paragraph
- A flat list of
## heading entries, one per spawned card
- Each entry's body is a short description paragraph (and optionally a
<!-- mockups: ... --> comment) — no checklists, no sub-headings, no nested H3s, no build-step bullets
Once the user is ready, a bulk Create cards action turns each uncreated entry into a real spawned card based on this one. The parent stays as the umbrella while the children carry the implementation work.
How to run the workshop
- Read the card's specs in
.workhorse/specs/, the card description, and any existing card-plan file at .workhorse/plans/{card-id}/card-plan.md. Ignore plan.md in the same folder — it is a different artefact and not what you are editing here
- Skim the target repo where it helps you reason about boundaries between the children
- Talk through how to slice the work — natural seams, dependency order, what each child should own. Ask focused questions one or two at a time
- As entries become clear, write them into
card-plan.md as ## headings with a short description paragraph beneath. Edit in place as the conversation refines them — adding, splitting, merging, reordering entries is normal
- If
card-plan.md does not yet exist, create it at the path above with an H1 title and the entries underneath. Do not create or edit any other file
- Suggest mockup carry-forward. Each entry has an inline Mockups picker for choosing which of the parent's mockups travel with the spawned card. As you write entries, populate the picker by inserting a structured comment line directly under the entry's
## heading: <!-- mockups: slug-one, slug-two --> (one comment per entry, comma-separated slugs from .workhorse/design/mockups/{card-id}/). Pick only the mockups that fit each entry — the user can adjust later
- Do not trigger bulk-create yourself. The user runs the Create cards action from the editor when they are ready
What each entry should look like
- The
## heading is the spawned card's title — concise, action-oriented, no trailing punctuation, no code suffix (the editor stamps · CODE automatically once the card is created)
- The body beneath is the spawned card's description — a short paragraph (or two) covering scope and boundaries. Do not write a checklist, sub-headings, or implementation steps; that detail belongs in each child card's own plan after it is created
- Spawned cards inherit the parent's project and become "based on" the parent via dependencies, so don't restate that
See .workhorse/specs/card/card-plan.md for the canonical shape.