| name | implement-and-evaluate |
| description | Orchestrates the implement-feature, evaluator, fix-runner loop for the active feature until all Acceptance Criteria are met and quality gates are green. |
implement-and-evaluate
When: analyze has reported clean and spec.md + plan.md both carry status: approved; this is the main implementation loop for a feature, run task by task until tasks.md is fully checked off.
Template: none — this skill orchestrates other skills, it does not fill or produce a template-based artifact itself.
Output: a fully implemented, gate-green feature with every tasks.md checkbox ticked and every spec.md Acceptance Criteria scenario passing.
Mode Selection
Choose the execution mode ONCE, before the loop, by reading tasks.md (task count and independence) and plan.md (coupling between tasks). This picks how each task is executed in step 2a — see docs/design-notes/execution-mode-routing.md for the rationale.
| Signal | Mode | How each task runs |
|---|
| ≤2 tasks, or tightly-coupled (tasks share state / touch the same files) | inline | invoke implement-feature as a Skill (session model); fix-runner inline |
| ≥3 mostly-independent tasks, scopes overlap or undeclared | dispatch | delegate the whole task loop to subagent-driven-development — fresh implementer subagent per task, one at a time, tree snapshots, per-role model routing |
≥3 independent tasks with declared, pairwise-disjoint [scope: …] | dispatch-parallel | delegate to subagent-driven-development in parallel-batch mode — disjoint tasks run concurrently, each in its own worktree (isolation: "worktree"), merged back per batch |
dispatch and dispatch-parallel are the same skill (subagent-driven-development) — the difference is whether it fans out a batch of disjoint tasks or runs one implementer at a time.
Always run the partition — it is the visible input to this decision, not an afterthought. Before choosing the mode, run:
node .specify/gates/validate-parallel-scope.mjs partition specs/<active-feature>/tasks.md
Read the batches it computes and announce the result in one line before the loop — how many tasks, how the partition grouped them, and the mode you picked — e.g. Mode: dispatch-parallel — 6 tasks → batches [T1,T3,T4][T2,T5][T6] or Mode: inline — 2 tasks, coupled. This makes the mode decision auditable instead of silent; a partition that finds a real multi-task batch but gets run as plain dispatch or inline anyway is a missed parallelization the human can now catch. If the partition reports no batch larger than one task, say so (no disjoint batch → dispatch) — there is nothing to parallelize, so dispatch-parallel is off the table regardless of task count.
The partition output feeds the table: a real batch larger than one ⇒ dispatch-parallel is available (take it when the tasks are ≥3 and independent); no batch larger than one ⇒ choose between inline (≤2 or coupled) and dispatch (≥3 but scopes overlap/undeclared).
Dispatch carries real overhead (tree snapshot, brief file, round-trip, re-integration); the parallel variant adds worktree setup + merge-back per batch. It pays off only when parallelism or bulk context-pollution justify it; a short or coupled feature is cheaper inline. When in doubt on a borderline count, prefer inline — the review loop is the same either way.
Steps:
- Resolve the active feature from
.specify/state (fallback: newest dir under specs/).
1a. Run the partition (validate-parallel-scope.mjs partition …) and announce the chosen mode + batch plan in one line, per ## Mode Selection. Do this once, before the loop.
- Loop while
specs/<active-feature>/tasks.md has unchecked top-level tasks:
a. Execute the next unit of work per the mode chosen above:
- inline → invoke
implement-feature for the next unchecked task (ONE task per iteration).
- dispatch → hand the next unchecked task to
subagent-driven-development, which owns the snapshot + brief + implementer dispatch + model routing for it; then resume this loop at step 2b with the task's result.
- dispatch-parallel → hand the next unchecked batch (the disjoint-scope group from
validate-parallel-scope partition) to subagent-driven-development, which owns the batch snapshot + per-task briefs + concurrent worktree-isolated implementer dispatch + merge-back for it; then resume this loop at step 2b, evaluating the ACs of every task in the batch.
b. Invoke evaluator to score the relevant Acceptance Criteria against the new state.
c. If evaluator reports any FAIL, invoke fix-runner, then re-invoke evaluator to confirm.
d. Repeat b-c until evaluator reports all relevant scenarios PASS and gates are green, then proceed to the next task.
- Stop the loop early and report the blocker if: the phase-gate blocks an edit (spec/plan not approved), a fix-runner attempt requires scope beyond the current task, or the same scenario fails three iterations in a row without progress.
- Once all tasks are checked and a final fix-runner pass confirms
.specify/gates/run-gates.sh is green, run evaluator once more over the full Acceptance Criteria list as a final confirmation before handing off. After that pass, specs/<active-feature>/contract.md should carry a PASS status: for every AC-N and for its Full-Suite Check — a criterion still PENDING there was never actually verified, whatever the checkboxes say.
- Do not commit. Accumulate changes; commit happens later, once code-review and the human both sign off.
Next: review-and-simplify.
