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UpdatedJuly 10, 2026 at 20:48

Invoke on any planning trigger from the PM — "plan", "let's plan", "write a plan", "draft a plan", "break this down", "plan the implementation" — for decision-weight work (multi-file, abstraction, cross-system, agent scaffold, reversed prior). Triage lives inside the skill, not in EM pre-skill judgment; writing a plan to disk without invoking this skill is a doctrine violation.

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coordinator:plan

Trigger: EM is about to plan implementation work where the spec carries decision weight (multi-file, new abstraction, cross-system, scaffolds new agents/skills (decision-weight → plan, NOT architectural-tier → not a staff-session; see When NOT to use), reverses a prior decision) OR the PM has typed "write a plan", "break this down", "plan the implementation".

When NOT to use: Trivial work (single-file fix, typo, link repoint, no abstraction) → just do it. Implementation-only ambiguity mid-coding → harness Plan tool inline. Architectural-tier (cross-system irreversible, multi-stakeholder) → surface to PM first. Note — a new skill/agent scaffold is non-trivial (Branch B), NOT architectural-tier: "novel" / "new surface" / "new skill/agent scaffold" / "be careful" / "this is unfamiliar" are conservative-bias tells, not the four positive criteria. Architectural-tier requires one of cross-system-irreversible / multi-stakeholder / security-privacy-boundary / naming-collision-with-product-policy. Skill-scaffolds route to Branch B/C, not a staff-session (2026-05-18: repeated over-escalation on "novel"/"be careful" framing alone). PM in exploration mode or problem-shape not yet converged → coordinator:shape first (see Branch A). Spec vague or multi-subsystem → coordinator:brainstorming first. Skill-authoring (writing a SKILL.md) → plugin-dev:skill-development. Plan already written and needs review → coordinator:review. Stuck pattern → see docs/wiki/stuck-detection.md.

Branch A — Triage: should I plan, and at what altitude?

Condition: EM has just received a planning trigger; first decision is whether a plan doc is the right artifact.

Trivial? (single-file change, no new abstraction, scope obvious from the ask) → Just do it. No plan doc. See CLAUDE.md § Plan-First Workflow.
Implementation-only ambiguity? (multi-line edit where the EM is choosing between two equally valid shapes mid-typing) → Use the harness Plan tool inline. No plan doc.
PM has set a session axiom? (PM said "we are going to do X" / "the next thing is Y" / "build Z this session" — an explicit directive that names the work, not a question about the work) → Disposition default flips to plan, not brainstorm. The brainstorm-vs-plan triage is bypassed: the PM has already chosen scope; the EM's job is to plan the named work, not to re-litigate whether to scope it differently. Continue to Branch B. The architectural-tier check (final bullet) still fires — a PM axiom does not override an architectural surface-to-PM. See CLAUDE.md § Challenging the PM ¶ EM owns implementation discretion; PM owns product authority.
The planning trigger arrived via a PM-handed pickup whose handoff prescribes a plan? (the PM ran /pickup <file> or named a handoff, and that handoff's body says "plan-shaped, not straight-to-executor", "invoke /plan", "decompose before executing", or equivalent) → The plan is already authorized — do NOT ask "want me to plan?". A handoff is a PM-authored artifact (only the PM creates one), so a plan trigger embedded in a PM-handed pickup satisfies the /plan keyword-gate transitively. Proceed into this skill directly. A T3 spinoff fork of the workstream stays separately PM-gated (it creates a new continuity artifact — surface it as a one-line candidate per skills/spinoff Step 0) but must NOT block or be conflated with the plan. See CLAUDE.md § Challenging the PM ¶ /plan exemption; also skills/pickup Notes "T3 detection". Continue to Branch B.
PM in exploration mode, OR problem-shape not yet converged, OR the EM detects it is guessing at the problem? (open-ended framing — "what do you think?", "I'm not sure about X", a problem named without a deliverable; or the EM cannot confidently restate the problem the PM is solving) → Propose coordinator:shape before committing to plan — converge on the problem (the PRD half) first; its exit gate chains back here. This is the seam where premature convergence happens, and the EM-side complement to the global First Officer Engagement-Modes doctrine (which is personal and does not ship). Precedence: a PM session axiom and the architectural-tier check both take precedence — /shape is the exploration/unconverged-problem branch, NOT an override of a PM directive to plan named work. Discriminating test vs. brainstorming: if the PM HAS a problem and wants confirmation you understood it (vs. not knowing what to build at all) → coordinator:shape, not coordinator:brainstorming.
Cross-repo work, even when a handoff says "ready to execute" / "investigation complete, straight execution" / "XS"? (the work touches ≥2 sibling repos, OR it ships a cross-repo contract / hookspec / shared fixture, OR it requires sibling-EM coordination via memo) → Invoke coordinator:plan anyway — do NOT execute directly off the handoff's t-shirt. Handoff t-shirt sizing from inside an investigation is systematically too low for cross-repo plans: investigation reveals the structural problem ("here's what's wrong, here's the fix shape"), but planning reveals the implementation blast radius (N repos, M reviewers, contract fixtures, framing-inversion checks). The two scopes are different. The 2026-05-21 unreal-toml-concern handoff is the empirical case — tagged tshirt: XS ("investigation complete, straight execution"), actual scope was 3 repos / 4-reviewer pipeline / Decision-#0 framing inversion caught at review / a real bug discovered in peer-repo reference impl / ~2000 LOC. The handoff scope is "decide what to build"; the plan scope is "decide how it ships across N repos with M reviewers." T-shirt promotes from inside the plan body, not from inside the handoff. Continue to Branch B.
Non-trivial (default for everything else)? (multi-file, new abstraction, cross-system, scaffolds an agent/skill, reverses prior teardown, touches shared schema) → Continue to Branch B. Note on scope sizing: once in Branch C, scope the task list to the COMPLETE problem set, not the slice that fits one session — see Branch C's full-coverage row and docs/wiki/writing-plans.md § Full-Coverage Scoping.
Architectural-tier? (cross-system irreversible, multi-stakeholder, security/privacy boundary, naming-collision-with-product-policy) → Surface to PM: "this looks architectural — propose /staff-session, want me to draft the staff-session brief?" Wait for PM. See CLAUDE.md § Challenging the PM and § Plan-First Workflow.
- Non-criteria (these do NOT by themselves make work architectural-tier): "novel", "new surface", "new skill/agent scaffold", "be careful", "this is unfamiliar" are conservative-bias tells, not architectural triggers. Scaffolding a new skill or agent is non-trivial (Branch B), not architectural-tier — the skill-scaffold checklist (Branch C) is where its risk is handled, not a staff-session. Architectural-tier requires one of the four positive criteria above (cross-system irreversible / multi-stakeholder / security-privacy boundary / naming-collision-with-product-policy). If you cannot name which of the four fires, it is not architectural — continue to Branch B. Empirical: new-skill scaffolds were repeatedly over-escalated to /staff-session on "novel"/"be careful" framing alone (2026-05-18). See the top-of-body When-NOT-to-use block (the canonical anti-trigger home per super-skill-architecture.md:58 Rule 7); this bullet reinforces it in-tree.

Branch B — Pre-write substrate verification

Condition: a plan doc is the right artifact; substrate must be verified BEFORE the plan body is drafted.

B.0 — Problem-shape confirmation (the doubt-check)

Runs first — problem-shape is the highest substrate; verifying you understood the problem precedes verifying the file paths that solve it. This is the always-on floor that catches the case where Branch A's /shape offer was declined or skipped (the "just roll with it" case).

A ratified problem-set exists (a prior /shape ran, or docs/problems/<slug>.md is cited in plan frontmatter via problem_set:) → cite it; the doubt-check is satisfied; proceed to substrate verification.
No ratified problem-set, and scope_mode is feature / architecture / spike → produce the forced-articulation block before drafting tasks (and surface its material items to the PM): (1) restate the problem(s) in the PM's vocabulary, falsifiably; (2) name your single biggest uncertainty per the un-gaming clauses below; (3) flag any intent you inferred that the PM did not state.
No ratified problem-set, but scope_mode is production-patch / audit (obvious one-line problem) → the doubt-check is a single restating sentence, not the full triad. Proportional to scope — matches the coverage nudge's silence for these scope_modes, and honours P5 (AC7: no gate fires heavily on trivial work).

Un-gaming clauses for step (2) — a yes/no "I have the shape ✓" is a banned response (EM confidence is coupled with helpfulness and self-reports green every time):

The least-certain item must be the scope boundary whose wrong guess would cost the most rework ("name the boundary that, if guessed wrong, invalidates the most of the plan") — NOT "name something you're unsure about."
State the probability-weighted consequence ("if I'm wrong about X, chunks C2–C4 are rework") — a trivial selection self-evidently fails this test.
The surfaced uncertainty must be a PM-altitude question (product intent, scope boundary, success criteria). Tactical/EM-decided uncertainties (naming, test framework, commit shape, file structure) are disqualified as off-altitude — not merely low-stakes — regardless of how unsure you are, per global ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md § PM Altitude. Resolving them is your job; surfacing them is noise.

Discriminating test vs. brainstorming, if the doubt-check reveals the problem itself is unconverged: if the PM HAS a problem and wants confirmation you understood it (vs. not knowing what to build at all) → coordinator:shape, not coordinator:brainstorming.

Known boundary: this floor protects the plan path only. Work mis-triaged as "trivial → just do it" at Branch A bypasses both /shape and the doubt-check by construction — there is no floor on the just-do-it path. The mitigation is EM alertness to exploration signals at the Branch A routing row, not a second doubt-check (which would over-ceremony the trivial path, violating P5). Named here as a known boundary, not a silent one.

Concurrent-session pre-flight done? (run BEFORE scouts or reviewer dispatch — not at Branch C) → ls docs/plans/<today's-date>* AND git log --since=today --oneline -- docs/plans/. If another session has already authored a plan for the same scope today, surface the collision to the PM before proceeding. Two concurrent EMs independently planning the same work is the failure mode; the concurrent-session check fires here, before any scout or reviewer has spent tokens, not at the cross-plan conflict scan in Branch C (which runs after drafting). See also docs/wiki/writing-plans.md § pre-plan substrate check must include today-dated plans and recent git log. → source_memo: collision check (when this plan actions a cross-repo memo). If the plan was triggered by a memo accept — i.e. it carries (or will carry) a source_memo: frontmatter pointer — additionally grep every plan for a sibling already citing the same memo: grep -l "source_memo:.*<memo-basename>" docs/plans/*.md plus a body-mention fallback: grep -l "<memo-basename>" docs/plans/*.md. A hit means another session already routed a plan from this memo (the 2026-06-23 example-game-repo B3 collision: two sessions realized the same accepted memo because nothing cross-checked source_memo at plan-write time). Surface the collision to the PM before drafting — same as the today-dated filename case. Residual (not assumed-covered): this catches the plan-routed collision only; a commit-only or inline realization leaves no plan carrying source_memo:, so those collisions are caught instead by the M2.5 memo claim-lock (while in_progress) and the archived realized_by claim-of-record (after actioned), not by this grep. See docs/wiki/writing-plans.md § pre-plan substrate check; skills/pickup/SKILL.md M3 (realized_by).
Seven-dimension confidence checklist green? (no-duplicate / no-fabrication / architecture-compatible / official-docs-read / reference-impl-seen / root-cause-known / fix-locus discrimination) → All seven green → continue to Branch C. Any red → loop back to investigation Tier 1–3 or escalate to PM. See CLAUDE.md § Pre-Dispatch Verification ¶ seven-dimension confidence checklist.
Fix-locus discrimination — is this the right layer to fix the bug? → Green: planner has identified the upper-layer registry/dispatch/extension site by file:line (one level above each proposed edit site) AND can name a concrete reason patching the upper layer is wrong (registry already gates this case; upper layer is closed contract; upper layer is hot-path with unrelated callers). → Red: planner cannot articulate why the upper layer is the wrong locus, OR the upper layer is a registry/dispatch/extension site that already has the gate type the patch would re-implement at the call site. → Action on red: loop back to investigation Tier 1–3 on the upper-layer mechanism (Tier 2 / project-RAG preferred when indexed; Tier 3 grep works on unindexed repos). If an upper-layer gate exists, reframe the plan around extending it, not patching the call site. See docs/wiki/writing-plans.md for the planning-time discipline (Fix-locus discrimination). CLAUDE.md § Pre-Dispatch Verification carries the analogous review-time discipline (¶ Reviewer rationale must discriminate).
File paths / framework names / helper APIs / test harness / cited counts verified against disk? → Run the disk check inline (ls, grep -c, head_limit:0 for enumerations). Any drift → fix the plan substrate before drafting body. See CLAUDE.md § Pre-Dispatch Verification ¶ verify file paths and ¶ paginated grep.
Plan changes existing code (replaces/edits/removes a symbol that the plan assumes is present)? → Grep the symbol-to-replace at plan-write time to confirm the fix-locus is still un-shipped. A green docs-checker verifies the external API claim is correct — it does NOT verify that the in-repo symbol you plan to change still exists in the shape you assume (a concurrent session or a prior commit may already have shipped the fix, renamed the symbol, or removed it). For every change-existing-code chunk, grep the literal symbol/string the plan proposes to replace; confirm it is present, at the cited path, in the assumed form. Absent or already-changed → the fix-locus has shipped or moved: re-investigate (Tier 1–3) and amend the plan substrate before drafting the chunk. This is orthogonal to fix-locus discrimination (which layer to patch) above — this is fix-locus liveness (is the patch target still there). It is also distinct from the path-verification row immediately above: that row confirms the FILE exists at the cited path; this row confirms the SYMBOL inside it still has the shape you plan to replace — a file can be present at the right path while the symbol within it has already been renamed, removed, or shipped. See CLAUDE.md § Pre-Dispatch Verification ¶ "Spec is not authoritative on call-site count or constant identity" and ¶ "Survey plan-substrate state before dispatching."
Plan reverses a prior teardown / re-introduces a removed pattern? → Run the negative-search procedure (grep state/lessons.md and wiki for the central nouns + prohibition vocabulary). See docs/wiki/writing-plans.md § Negative-Search Before Drafting.
Native-code (C++/UE/Rust/etc.) plan? → Add 2–3 in-tree file:line citations to the dispatch brief. See CLAUDE.md § Pre-Dispatch Verification ¶ native-code plans.
Plan renumbers or rekeys a published API (constants, error codes, route numbers, step indices)? → Reverse-reference scan must grep ≥3 pattern shapes for each renumbered value: bare number, quoted string ('N' / "N"), fmt-string form ({n} / %d), and comment form (# step N, // route N). Bare-number grep misses string-form citations; string-form grep misses comment-form. Internal cross-references rot silently when only the canonical declaration site is found.
Plan adds a new dispatch / handler / op / job to a surface that already has registered entries? → Check whether a table/registry pattern exists (e.g. UE_REGISTER_*, register_action, plugin-style auto-registration). If yes, the plan MUST use the registered surface; adding a parallel else if / switch / hand-rolled lookup is a recurring footgun that re-introduces dispatch-fragility bugs. Project-level wikis carry the concrete instances (see docs/wiki/writing-plans.md for project-specific examples).
Plan ports / mirrors / adapts a feature from a peer repo (cross-repo port, plugin addon, downstream re-implementation)? → Before authoring a parallel addon surface that mirrors the peer's shape, check whether the host has its own registration seam / hookspec / extension point that the ported feature could attach to. Default to host-registration over parallel-surface — a parallel addon front-end duplicates routing, splits maintenance, and turns every host upgrade into a re-port. Grep the host's plugin/extension/hookspec/registry directory for an existing seam; if one exists, the plan MUST attach via that seam. Authoring a parallel surface requires a documented reason (host seam is closed, fundamentally wrong shape for the port, etc.). See docs/wiki/writing-plans.md for the cross-repo port checklist.

Branch C — Compose the plan body

Condition: substrate verified; ready to draft body. The four PM doctrinal lenses bind here — this branch is where the wrong shape gets baked in.

Lenses applied in rows 2–5 below: time (agent-scoped only) / refactor>patch / PM-owned YAGNI / soon=now.

Scope mode declared? (prototype | production-patch | feature | architecture | spike) → Pick one before drafting tasks. Mode shapes review depth and the evidence bar. See docs/wiki/writing-plans.md § Scope Mode.
Full-coverage check: does the task list cover the COMPLETE problem set the PM named, or only the slice that fits in this session? → Default scope is the complete problem set — a session boundary is a scheduling constraint on execution, not a scoping input on the plan body. Planning MAY span multiple sessions; /handoff-for-execution mid-plan is normal continuity, not evidence the plan was mis-scoped. Partial-to-fit-one-session is the anti-pattern this row exists to catch — a task list that stops because the session felt long enough, not because the problem is covered. Any item cut from full coverage MUST become a deferred: true spine row with pm_approved: true (never a silent drop) — see the "soon = now" row above for the authoring-time discipline and the plan-coverage-checker's deferral-flag lens for the mechanized enforcement. See docs/wiki/writing-plans.md § Full-Coverage Scoping — Default Is the Complete Problem Set.
Acceptance criteria testable + time framed for agents, not humans? → Each AC is a binary pass/fail check. Time annotations OK when agent-scoped ("this dispatch runs ~90s"); reject human-sprint framing ("two-week effort", "Q3 milestone"). See CLAUDE.md § Plan-First Workflow ¶ don't-import-human-effort-timelines (project-level) and § Operating Assumptions (global ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md).
Plan will go through coordinator:review? (the gate predicate — any plan of non-trivial scope) → AC tables are an OPTIONAL plan artifact in ID | Criterion | Status form (prose checkboxes), serving as the reviewer's design lens. No test-cell grammar, no mechanical gate. Plans are not required to carry one.
Refactor-or-patch decision: which is correct here? → Default to refactor when AI is the implementer and the patch is in a patch-accumulating area. If a reviewer would propose a refactor, propose it now. See CLAUDE.md § Core Principles ('Do the right thing, not the easy thing').
A "we'll add X later" / scope-trim / YAGNI argument is part of the draft? → Always surface to PM — never EM-unilateral. YAGNI is a product call. See CLAUDE.md § Challenging the PM ¶ ask the PM when.
A "soon = now" deferral candidate? (an item the draft would defer because the EM thinks it's lower priority than the headline work) → Either ship it in this plan or get explicit PM disposition. No silent deferrals. See CLAUDE.md § Plan-First Workflow ¶ implement-and-iterate (project-level) and § Operating Assumptions (global ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md).
Each chunk has an identified test surface? → For each chunk, name the test (or explicitly document why no test). Where a chunk's output is exercised by another chunk's test, the plan should name which chunk authors the test file. The implementation chunk does not author its tests unless the brief says so explicitly. See docs/wiki/test-design-discipline.md and docs/wiki/writing-plans.md § Bite-Sized Task Granularity.
Plan will hand off to an executor agent? (sub-conditions are additive — apply baseline always, plus any modifiers that apply)
- Always — every executor-bound stub: Apply the standard hard-constraints block (explicit file scope, no commits, no out-of-scope edits, no fallback escape hatches). See docs/wiki/writing-plans.md § Hard Constraints (a) — Explicit file-scope, (e) — No fallback escape hatches.
- Additionally, plan uses parallel executors with file overlap risk? → Run file-overlap analysis listing each file each executor will touch. See docs/wiki/writing-plans.md § Hard Constraints (g) — File-overlap analysis.
- Additionally, plan stub spawns sub-agents (orchestrator-shaped)? → Mark stub as read-only-planner; sub-task dispatch happens at EM level, not nested. See docs/wiki/writing-plans.md § Hard Constraints (b) — Read-only orchestrators.
- Additionally, plan touches concurrency-shared state (shared file appends across N machines/sessions, shared index, shared lock)? → Prefer per-machine paths over atomic-merge logic. See docs/wiki/writing-plans.md § Hard Constraints (f) — Concurrency-safe file design.
A single chunk would hand ONE executor multiple independent deliverables? (N new modules, N disjoint files, N separable sub-tasks whose write targets do not overlap — the "one executor authors 7 modules" shape) → Decompose it into N chunks at plan-write time — fan-out-shaped chunking is a plan-author obligation, not an execution-time afterthought. Schema-coupling pointer: this row is the prevention surface; the late-correction surface is skills/execute-plan/SKILL.md "Phase 1.6 Dispatch Ledger" (disjoint-write-target expansion at ledger-write time). Doctrine root: docs/wiki/dispatching-parallel-agents.md "Coupling Rules Out Concurrency". The ledger schema lives only in execute-plan; no duplication here. A chunk is a fan-out candidate, not a single dispatch, whenever its deliverables have disjoint write targets. The ONLY justifications for keeping multiple deliverables in one chunk are (a) genuine write-overlap (two deliverables edit the same path — and even then it's a sequence of small dispatches per the Coupling Rules, not one fat executor) or (b) an unpinnable shared interface. A shared read-only source and a pinned import contract are NOT serialization reasons — reading a common file and importing a pinned interface are reads, not writes, and only WRITE-overlap gates parallelism. A plan that collapses N disjoint-write deliverables into one executor under a "file-overlap" justification has mistaken read-overlap for write-overlap — the exact 2026-05-29 failure (one executor handed 7 modules sharing only a read-only semantic.py + a pinned import) this row exists to prevent. Size each resulting chunk to ~5–10 min on one coherent surface (15 min hard ceiling). See CLAUDE.md § Subagent Dispatch (HARD RULE — small-remit-and-many). Also: docs/wiki/dispatching-parallel-agents.md "Read-Overlap Is NOT Write-Overlap" and "Coupling Rules Out Concurrency, Not Decomposition".
Plan renames or moves any path? (any task contains git mv, a path rename, a file relocation, or a directory restructure — the trigger is path movement, not scope_mode) → Schedule a post-execution doc-link-checker dispatch by default as the plan's closeout chunk — SUBJECT to the worker's substrate precondition below. Renames orphan inbound doc links (wiki cross-refs, README index entries, spec backlinks, @-imports) that the renaming executor does not see. The plan body MUST include a terminal closeout chunk: "post-execution: dispatch doc-link-checker over docs/, *.md, and spec-backlink surfaces for links to the moved paths." This is default-on for any path-moving plan regardless of scope_mode; scope_mode: architecture plans almost always qualify, but a single git mv in a production-patch plan triggers it too. → Dispatch condition (substrate precondition — reviewer-routed-workers.md:79-87): schedule the dispatch ONLY when the moved paths have RELATIVE inbound markdown links NOT already covered by validate-references (in run-all-checks) OR PUBLIC-URL inbound links. Skip (and note why) when inbound links are private-repo absolute self-URLs (the worker returns 401/404 with no auth — no signal) or are already covered by run-all-checks/validate-references (the relative-link leg is redundant). The #anchor-resolution check that doc-link-checker uniquely adds only works post-merge by an authed human — note it for one-click post-merge sanity rather than reflex-dispatching the worker into abstention. See docs/wiki/reviewer-routed-workers.md § doc-link-checker Substrate Precondition (:79-87), docs/wiki/writing-plans.md § Close-Out Chunks, and Reviewer-Routed Workers (doc-link-checker).
Plan mutates a shared symbol (state enum, gameplay tag, public field, exported function signature)? → Add a reverse-reference scan subsection to the plan listing every consumer. See docs/wiki/writing-plans.md § Shared-State Pre-Flight Gate.
Cross-plan conflict scan run? (mandatory before dispatch) → Grep docs/plans/*.md for each chunk-scope file path AND for each new abstraction / registry entry / hookspec / schema field the plan introduces. Fold findings into a ## Cross-plan coordination section: enumerate each sibling plan touched, what assumption it carries, and whether this plan amends / defers to / supersedes it. No conflicts → write the section anyway with scanned — no overlapping file scope or seam citations. Missing section is the failure mode this row exists to prevent. See docs/wiki/writing-plans.md § (c) Cross-plan reconciliation — Cross-plan conflict scan procedure.
Plan amends an assumption that another live plan also depends on? (the current plan revises a path / contract / constant / sequencing decision that one or more sibling plans in docs/plans/ reference — by **Depends on:** header, shared-symbol citation, or explicit cross-reference) → Edit the body of every affected sibling plan in this same change — do not let sibling plans silently drift. Procedure: (1) grep docs/plans/ for references to the amended assumption (path, constant, contract name); (2) for each hit, open the sibling plan and edit the body inline so the assumption matches the new shape; (3) add a one-line amendment note at the top of each edited sibling: **Amended <YYYY-MM-DD> by <this-plan-slug>:** <one-line change>; (4) commit the amending plan and all edited siblings together. Silent drift is the failure mode this row exists to prevent — a sibling plan that still cites the old shape will be dispatched against stale substrate. See docs/wiki/writing-plans.md § (c) Cross-plan reconciliation is a separate pass.
Plan supersedes another plan or its seam? (the new plan declares supersedes: / predecessor_plan:, or replaces a chunk/AC of a sibling plan wholesale — distinct from amending a shared assumption above) → Append a one-line back-notification to the top of the superseded plan in the same commit: **Superseded <YYYY-MM-DD> by <this-plan-slug>:** <reason>. This rides the sibling-amendment pass above — no new automation. The distinct **Superseded…** token (vs **Amended…**) is deliberate: amend = a sibling's assumption shifted in place; supersede = the plan/seam is replaced wholesale — two lifecycle events the original session must be able to tell apart. The note is a backstop signal the original session sees at next /workstream-start orient; it does NOT prevent same-session HEAD-drift discovery (which arrives sooner in a fast collision). Closes the realization-layer back-notification gap (2026-06-23 example-game-repo B3: Session A learned of the takeover only via HEAD drift). See skills/pickup/SKILL.md § Routed-plan reconcile-and-surface; the source_memo: collision check in B.0 above is the upstream prevention.
Plan scaffolds a new autonomous skill / agent / command? → Apply the skill-scaffold checklist before drafting the body: (1) destructive-action prohibition block (see docs/wiki/coordinator-tripwires.md — Destructive-action prohibition in autonomous-dispatch prompts) for any write-capable autonomous skill; (2) explicit out-of-scope list; (3) spinoff-schema awareness if the skill can author handoffs (kind / predecessor / deployment_state fields per docs/wiki/spinoff-handoffs.md); (4) recheck-marker semantics if the skill has a cadence (recheck-due files per coordinator:learn-lessons mode recheck); (5) discovery-surface integration (where does this skill announce itself — /workstream-start mention, /workday-start surfacing, hook integration?); (6) platform-vocabulary collision check on the invokable name — an invokable skill/command verb can collide with evolving Claude Code platform vocabulary (native command names, harness primitives). Grep the proposed verb against the platform's command/primitive surface before shipping it; a collision forces a confusing skill→methodology demotion later (/fan-out collided with native vocab 3 days post-ship, 2026-05-30). Prefer a name with no native-primitive twin. Empirical: bug-blitz the Staff Engineer R1 caught 5 majors on a skill scaffolded without this pass; the checklist exists because the failure mode is recurring. See CLAUDE.md § Adding a Convention to the Coordinator System for the contact-point enumeration shape.
Plan contains a chunk that authors a handoff, spinoff, or workstream-complete artifact? → Reject the chunk. Handoffs (/handoff), spinoffs (/spinoff), and workstream-complete captures (/workstream-complete) are PM-gated session-continuity artifacts, not plan deliverables. A plan that pre-authorizes "Chunk N: write a spinoff to " launders the PM gate through plan approval — by execution time, the EM treats it as a checklist item and the spinoff's Step 0 gate never fires. Two failure shapes this row prevents: (a) the plan's terminal chunk is "author handoff" used as a wrap-up ceremony when commit-and-stop or /workday-complete is the right artifact; (b) the plan's terminal chunk is "author spinoff to " used as cross-repo messaging when the actual primitive is PM-as-relay (copy-paste in chat, or use cross-repo-memo --to <receiver-em> --topic <slug> for structured briefs). If the plan genuinely needs cross-EM coordination, the chunk is "surface cross-repo brief to PM" with the brief composed inline or sent via cross-repo-memo. See docs/wiki/cross-repo-communication.md.
Plan brief contains code blocks (shell, Python, config) the executor will consume? → Mark every fenced block either TEMPLATE (illustrative — executor adapts paths/values) or VERBATIM (executor copies as-is). Convention: place a fenced comment above the block, e.g.  or . Unmarked pseudocode-shaped bash gets faithfully transcribed into broken shell — the convention is the fix.

Exit — Auto-Invoke `coordinator:review`

Condition: plan body drafted, saved to docs/plans/YYYY-MM-DD-<slug>.md, ready for review.

Enforcement check: the plan file MUST have been scaffolded via coordinator-doc-new --type plan before body authoring. Frontmatter is schema-derived, not hand-authored — the generator is the source of truth for which keys are required and their default values. If the frontmatter was hand-authored, conform it now:

coordinator-doc-new --type plan --title "<title>" --out docs/plans/YYYY-MM-DD-<slug>.md

The scaffolder derives its output from schemas/plan.schema.json (tc-0 GENERATE-altitude doctrine — kills required-key drift and section-ordering skew at the source). Do not hand-author the frontmatter block.

Read the scaffolded file before authoring the body. coordinator-doc-new writes the file via Bash, so the harness has no cached state for it — the first Write/Edit against it bounces with "File has not been read yet" until you Read it once. Read the scaffolded skeleton, then author the body. (One wasted Write otherwise; cheap to avoid.)

Commit the plan at write-time, before invoking review. A plan saved to docs/plans/YYYY-MM-DD-<slug>.md but left untracked nearly escapes the audit trail — lazy commit at /workstream-complete is the failure mode this rule prevents (2026-05-20: an untracked plan was almost lost at workstream-complete). Stage and commit the plan doc with an explicit-path commit (git add -- docs/plans/<slug>.md && git commit -m "plan(<slug>): draft" -- docs/plans/<slug>.md) the moment the body is drafted and saved, then proceed to review. The plan is now in git history before any reviewer or executor touches it; review findings integrate as follow-up commits. The explicit-path form follows the scoped-commit baseline — see scoped-safety-commits.md (and CLAUDE.md § Concurrent-EM Git Operations: "Scoped commits default to plain git add -- <paths> && git commit -m "<subject>" -- <paths>. Never git add -A / git add ."); this is that established practice applied at write-time rather than workstream-complete, NOT a license for a sweep commit — the explicit-path scoping to the single plan doc is the point. (This is the plan-author's own commit of the plan doc — distinct from, and not to be confused with, the review-integrator's commit-after-integrate discipline, which governs integrated review findings.)

→ Invoke coordinator:review immediately. Do not ask the PM whether to proceed to review — plan→review is the pipeline, not a checkpoint. If the plan was worth formally writing, it is worth formally reviewing; the gating on review-or-not happens inside coordinator:review Branch A (Branch A.2 carries the auto-skip terminals for genuinely-trivial / PM-waived). Pausing to ask "want me to invoke review now?" is a doctrine violation — the answer is always yes, and the auto-skip path lives downstream.

Reviewer altitude is binary: named Opus persona, or no review. Plan review is an Opus-persona judgment task (the Staff Engineer / the Game Dev Reviewer / the Director of Engineering / the Data Science Reviewer / the Front-End Reviewer / the UX Reviewer). There is no Sonnet-tier plan reviewer, and code-reviewer is not one — it is the Sonnet diff reviewer (its own scope is "weak tests, dead code, unclear naming, correctness/security issues" on a frozen diff). Reaching for code-reviewer because "the Staff Engineer feels heavy for this plan" is the failure mode this row prevents. The correct fork is: plan merits review → named persona; plan does not merit review → skip review, implement, let code-reviewer catch issues on the diff at /workstream-complete or /handoff. Sonnet-on-plan-body is not on the menu.

The full plan-writing pipeline is: (1) substrate verification (Branch B above), (2) body composition with the four PM doctrinal lenses (Branch C above), (3) docs-checker / prior-art-checker / plan-coverage-checker pre-flights via coordinator:review, (4) named reviewer (Opus persona), (5) review-integrator. Skipping coordinator:plan skips the pipeline; "I'll just write the plan and skip review", "let me ask first before invoking review", and "I'll send this to code-reviewer instead of the Staff Engineer" are the three failure modes this skill exists to prevent.

Branch D — Executor BLOCKED on substrate drift

Condition: a dispatched executor returns BLOCKED citing substrate that differs from what the plan asserted (path moved, helper renamed, framework changed, contract field absent, schema column missing).

Default action: amend the plan or write a successor plan; do NOT silently expand executor scope to absorb the drift. → Substrate drift is plan-substrate failure, not executor failure. Re-invoke coordinator:plan to amend (small drift, same workstream) or compose a successor (larger drift or shape change). Re-run the prior-art-checker → the Staff Engineer → review-integrator chain on the amended body — the pipeline runs again from substrate verification, not from "we already reviewed the parent." Silently expanding the executor's scope to make the BLOCKED finding go away is a doctrine violation: it bypasses the doctrinal lenses, the prior-art check, and the reviewer pass that the original plan went through.
Product-risk findings during BLOCKED inspection? → Even under /autonomous, surface product-risk findings via AskUserQuestion before amending. The autonomous mode suppresses handoff nudges, not product judgment. A BLOCKED that reveals (e.g.) a privacy implication, a permission default change, or an external contract shift is exactly the case the "Ask the PM" doctrine covers — autonomous mode does not waive it.

Branch E — Mid-plan friction

Condition: drafting is in progress and something is going sideways.

Repeating actions / oscillating between approaches / stalling? → See docs/wiki/stuck-detection.md for the pattern catalog and recovery protocol.
Bug suspected mid-execution requiring root-cause investigation? → See docs/wiki/systematic-debugging.md for the four-phase root-cause process.

name	plan
description	Invoke on any planning trigger from the PM — "plan", "let's plan", "write a plan", "draft a plan", "break this down", "plan the implementation" — for decision-weight work (multi-file, abstraction, cross-system, agent scaffold, reversed prior). Triage lives inside the skill, not in EM pre-skill judgment; writing a plan to disk without invoking this skill is a doctrine violation.
version	1.0.0
description-budget	400
spec_backlink	archive/specs/2026-05/2026-05-06-plan-super-skill.md
prerequisite	["agent:prior-art-checker","skill:coordinator:review","wiki:plugins/coordinator/docs/wiki/writing-plans.md"]

coordinator:plan

Branch A — Triage: should I plan, and at what altitude?

Condition: EM has just received a planning trigger; first decision is whether a plan doc is the right artifact.

Trivial? (single-file change, no new abstraction, scope obvious from the ask) → Just do it. No plan doc. See CLAUDE.md § Plan-First Workflow.
Implementation-only ambiguity? (multi-line edit where the EM is choosing between two equally valid shapes mid-typing) → Use the harness Plan tool inline. No plan doc.
PM has set a session axiom? (PM said "we are going to do X" / "the next thing is Y" / "build Z this session" — an explicit directive that names the work, not a question about the work) → Disposition default flips to plan, not brainstorm. The brainstorm-vs-plan triage is bypassed: the PM has already chosen scope; the EM's job is to plan the named work, not to re-litigate whether to scope it differently. Continue to Branch B. The architectural-tier check (final bullet) still fires — a PM axiom does not override an architectural surface-to-PM. See CLAUDE.md § Challenging the PM ¶ EM owns implementation discretion; PM owns product authority.
The planning trigger arrived via a PM-handed pickup whose handoff prescribes a plan? (the PM ran /pickup <file> or named a handoff, and that handoff's body says "plan-shaped, not straight-to-executor", "invoke /plan", "decompose before executing", or equivalent) → The plan is already authorized — do NOT ask "want me to plan?". A handoff is a PM-authored artifact (only the PM creates one), so a plan trigger embedded in a PM-handed pickup satisfies the /plan keyword-gate transitively. Proceed into this skill directly. A T3 spinoff fork of the workstream stays separately PM-gated (it creates a new continuity artifact — surface it as a one-line candidate per skills/spinoff Step 0) but must NOT block or be conflated with the plan. See CLAUDE.md § Challenging the PM ¶ /plan exemption; also skills/pickup Notes "T3 detection". Continue to Branch B.
PM in exploration mode, OR problem-shape not yet converged, OR the EM detects it is guessing at the problem? (open-ended framing — "what do you think?", "I'm not sure about X", a problem named without a deliverable; or the EM cannot confidently restate the problem the PM is solving) → Propose coordinator:shape before committing to plan — converge on the problem (the PRD half) first; its exit gate chains back here. This is the seam where premature convergence happens, and the EM-side complement to the global First Officer Engagement-Modes doctrine (which is personal and does not ship). Precedence: a PM session axiom and the architectural-tier check both take precedence — /shape is the exploration/unconverged-problem branch, NOT an override of a PM directive to plan named work. Discriminating test vs. brainstorming: if the PM HAS a problem and wants confirmation you understood it (vs. not knowing what to build at all) → coordinator:shape, not coordinator:brainstorming.
Cross-repo work, even when a handoff says "ready to execute" / "investigation complete, straight execution" / "XS"? (the work touches ≥2 sibling repos, OR it ships a cross-repo contract / hookspec / shared fixture, OR it requires sibling-EM coordination via memo) → Invoke coordinator:plan anyway — do NOT execute directly off the handoff's t-shirt. Handoff t-shirt sizing from inside an investigation is systematically too low for cross-repo plans: investigation reveals the structural problem ("here's what's wrong, here's the fix shape"), but planning reveals the implementation blast radius (N repos, M reviewers, contract fixtures, framing-inversion checks). The two scopes are different. The 2026-05-21 unreal-toml-concern handoff is the empirical case — tagged tshirt: XS ("investigation complete, straight execution"), actual scope was 3 repos / 4-reviewer pipeline / Decision-#0 framing inversion caught at review / a real bug discovered in peer-repo reference impl / ~2000 LOC. The handoff scope is "decide what to build"; the plan scope is "decide how it ships across N repos with M reviewers." T-shirt promotes from inside the plan body, not from inside the handoff. Continue to Branch B.
Non-trivial (default for everything else)? (multi-file, new abstraction, cross-system, scaffolds an agent/skill, reverses prior teardown, touches shared schema) → Continue to Branch B. Note on scope sizing: once in Branch C, scope the task list to the COMPLETE problem set, not the slice that fits one session — see Branch C's full-coverage row and docs/wiki/writing-plans.md § Full-Coverage Scoping.
Architectural-tier? (cross-system irreversible, multi-stakeholder, security/privacy boundary, naming-collision-with-product-policy) → Surface to PM: "this looks architectural — propose /staff-session, want me to draft the staff-session brief?" Wait for PM. See CLAUDE.md § Challenging the PM and § Plan-First Workflow.
- Non-criteria (these do NOT by themselves make work architectural-tier): "novel", "new surface", "new skill/agent scaffold", "be careful", "this is unfamiliar" are conservative-bias tells, not architectural triggers. Scaffolding a new skill or agent is non-trivial (Branch B), not architectural-tier — the skill-scaffold checklist (Branch C) is where its risk is handled, not a staff-session. Architectural-tier requires one of the four positive criteria above (cross-system irreversible / multi-stakeholder / security-privacy boundary / naming-collision-with-product-policy). If you cannot name which of the four fires, it is not architectural — continue to Branch B. Empirical: new-skill scaffolds were repeatedly over-escalated to /staff-session on "novel"/"be careful" framing alone (2026-05-18). See the top-of-body When-NOT-to-use block (the canonical anti-trigger home per super-skill-architecture.md:58 Rule 7); this bullet reinforces it in-tree.

Branch B — Pre-write substrate verification

Condition: a plan doc is the right artifact; substrate must be verified BEFORE the plan body is drafted.

B.0 — Problem-shape confirmation (the doubt-check)

A ratified problem-set exists (a prior /shape ran, or docs/problems/<slug>.md is cited in plan frontmatter via problem_set:) → cite it; the doubt-check is satisfied; proceed to substrate verification.
No ratified problem-set, and scope_mode is feature / architecture / spike → produce the forced-articulation block before drafting tasks (and surface its material items to the PM): (1) restate the problem(s) in the PM's vocabulary, falsifiably; (2) name your single biggest uncertainty per the un-gaming clauses below; (3) flag any intent you inferred that the PM did not state.
No ratified problem-set, but scope_mode is production-patch / audit (obvious one-line problem) → the doubt-check is a single restating sentence, not the full triad. Proportional to scope — matches the coverage nudge's silence for these scope_modes, and honours P5 (AC7: no gate fires heavily on trivial work).

Un-gaming clauses for step (2) — a yes/no "I have the shape ✓" is a banned response (EM confidence is coupled with helpfulness and self-reports green every time):

The least-certain item must be the scope boundary whose wrong guess would cost the most rework ("name the boundary that, if guessed wrong, invalidates the most of the plan") — NOT "name something you're unsure about."
State the probability-weighted consequence ("if I'm wrong about X, chunks C2–C4 are rework") — a trivial selection self-evidently fails this test.
The surfaced uncertainty must be a PM-altitude question (product intent, scope boundary, success criteria). Tactical/EM-decided uncertainties (naming, test framework, commit shape, file structure) are disqualified as off-altitude — not merely low-stakes — regardless of how unsure you are, per global ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md § PM Altitude. Resolving them is your job; surfacing them is noise.

Concurrent-session pre-flight done? (run BEFORE scouts or reviewer dispatch — not at Branch C) → ls docs/plans/<today's-date>* AND git log --since=today --oneline -- docs/plans/. If another session has already authored a plan for the same scope today, surface the collision to the PM before proceeding. Two concurrent EMs independently planning the same work is the failure mode; the concurrent-session check fires here, before any scout or reviewer has spent tokens, not at the cross-plan conflict scan in Branch C (which runs after drafting). See also docs/wiki/writing-plans.md § pre-plan substrate check must include today-dated plans and recent git log. → source_memo: collision check (when this plan actions a cross-repo memo). If the plan was triggered by a memo accept — i.e. it carries (or will carry) a source_memo: frontmatter pointer — additionally grep every plan for a sibling already citing the same memo: grep -l "source_memo:.*<memo-basename>" docs/plans/*.md plus a body-mention fallback: grep -l "<memo-basename>" docs/plans/*.md. A hit means another session already routed a plan from this memo (the 2026-06-23 example-game-repo B3 collision: two sessions realized the same accepted memo because nothing cross-checked source_memo at plan-write time). Surface the collision to the PM before drafting — same as the today-dated filename case. Residual (not assumed-covered): this catches the plan-routed collision only; a commit-only or inline realization leaves no plan carrying source_memo:, so those collisions are caught instead by the M2.5 memo claim-lock (while in_progress) and the archived realized_by claim-of-record (after actioned), not by this grep. See docs/wiki/writing-plans.md § pre-plan substrate check; skills/pickup/SKILL.md M3 (realized_by).
Seven-dimension confidence checklist green? (no-duplicate / no-fabrication / architecture-compatible / official-docs-read / reference-impl-seen / root-cause-known / fix-locus discrimination) → All seven green → continue to Branch C. Any red → loop back to investigation Tier 1–3 or escalate to PM. See CLAUDE.md § Pre-Dispatch Verification ¶ seven-dimension confidence checklist.
Fix-locus discrimination — is this the right layer to fix the bug? → Green: planner has identified the upper-layer registry/dispatch/extension site by file:line (one level above each proposed edit site) AND can name a concrete reason patching the upper layer is wrong (registry already gates this case; upper layer is closed contract; upper layer is hot-path with unrelated callers). → Red: planner cannot articulate why the upper layer is the wrong locus, OR the upper layer is a registry/dispatch/extension site that already has the gate type the patch would re-implement at the call site. → Action on red: loop back to investigation Tier 1–3 on the upper-layer mechanism (Tier 2 / project-RAG preferred when indexed; Tier 3 grep works on unindexed repos). If an upper-layer gate exists, reframe the plan around extending it, not patching the call site. See docs/wiki/writing-plans.md for the planning-time discipline (Fix-locus discrimination). CLAUDE.md § Pre-Dispatch Verification carries the analogous review-time discipline (¶ Reviewer rationale must discriminate).
File paths / framework names / helper APIs / test harness / cited counts verified against disk? → Run the disk check inline (ls, grep -c, head_limit:0 for enumerations). Any drift → fix the plan substrate before drafting body. See CLAUDE.md § Pre-Dispatch Verification ¶ verify file paths and ¶ paginated grep.
Plan changes existing code (replaces/edits/removes a symbol that the plan assumes is present)? → Grep the symbol-to-replace at plan-write time to confirm the fix-locus is still un-shipped. A green docs-checker verifies the external API claim is correct — it does NOT verify that the in-repo symbol you plan to change still exists in the shape you assume (a concurrent session or a prior commit may already have shipped the fix, renamed the symbol, or removed it). For every change-existing-code chunk, grep the literal symbol/string the plan proposes to replace; confirm it is present, at the cited path, in the assumed form. Absent or already-changed → the fix-locus has shipped or moved: re-investigate (Tier 1–3) and amend the plan substrate before drafting the chunk. This is orthogonal to fix-locus discrimination (which layer to patch) above — this is fix-locus liveness (is the patch target still there). It is also distinct from the path-verification row immediately above: that row confirms the FILE exists at the cited path; this row confirms the SYMBOL inside it still has the shape you plan to replace — a file can be present at the right path while the symbol within it has already been renamed, removed, or shipped. See CLAUDE.md § Pre-Dispatch Verification ¶ "Spec is not authoritative on call-site count or constant identity" and ¶ "Survey plan-substrate state before dispatching."
Plan reverses a prior teardown / re-introduces a removed pattern? → Run the negative-search procedure (grep state/lessons.md and wiki for the central nouns + prohibition vocabulary). See docs/wiki/writing-plans.md § Negative-Search Before Drafting.
Native-code (C++/UE/Rust/etc.) plan? → Add 2–3 in-tree file:line citations to the dispatch brief. See CLAUDE.md § Pre-Dispatch Verification ¶ native-code plans.
Plan renumbers or rekeys a published API (constants, error codes, route numbers, step indices)? → Reverse-reference scan must grep ≥3 pattern shapes for each renumbered value: bare number, quoted string ('N' / "N"), fmt-string form ({n} / %d), and comment form (# step N, // route N). Bare-number grep misses string-form citations; string-form grep misses comment-form. Internal cross-references rot silently when only the canonical declaration site is found.
Plan adds a new dispatch / handler / op / job to a surface that already has registered entries? → Check whether a table/registry pattern exists (e.g. UE_REGISTER_*, register_action, plugin-style auto-registration). If yes, the plan MUST use the registered surface; adding a parallel else if / switch / hand-rolled lookup is a recurring footgun that re-introduces dispatch-fragility bugs. Project-level wikis carry the concrete instances (see docs/wiki/writing-plans.md for project-specific examples).
Plan ports / mirrors / adapts a feature from a peer repo (cross-repo port, plugin addon, downstream re-implementation)? → Before authoring a parallel addon surface that mirrors the peer's shape, check whether the host has its own registration seam / hookspec / extension point that the ported feature could attach to. Default to host-registration over parallel-surface — a parallel addon front-end duplicates routing, splits maintenance, and turns every host upgrade into a re-port. Grep the host's plugin/extension/hookspec/registry directory for an existing seam; if one exists, the plan MUST attach via that seam. Authoring a parallel surface requires a documented reason (host seam is closed, fundamentally wrong shape for the port, etc.). See docs/wiki/writing-plans.md for the cross-repo port checklist.

Branch C — Compose the plan body

Condition: substrate verified; ready to draft body. The four PM doctrinal lenses bind here — this branch is where the wrong shape gets baked in.

Lenses applied in rows 2–5 below: time (agent-scoped only) / refactor>patch / PM-owned YAGNI / soon=now.

Scope mode declared? (prototype | production-patch | feature | architecture | spike) → Pick one before drafting tasks. Mode shapes review depth and the evidence bar. See docs/wiki/writing-plans.md § Scope Mode.
Full-coverage check: does the task list cover the COMPLETE problem set the PM named, or only the slice that fits in this session? → Default scope is the complete problem set — a session boundary is a scheduling constraint on execution, not a scoping input on the plan body. Planning MAY span multiple sessions; /handoff-for-execution mid-plan is normal continuity, not evidence the plan was mis-scoped. Partial-to-fit-one-session is the anti-pattern this row exists to catch — a task list that stops because the session felt long enough, not because the problem is covered. Any item cut from full coverage MUST become a deferred: true spine row with pm_approved: true (never a silent drop) — see the "soon = now" row above for the authoring-time discipline and the plan-coverage-checker's deferral-flag lens for the mechanized enforcement. See docs/wiki/writing-plans.md § Full-Coverage Scoping — Default Is the Complete Problem Set.
Acceptance criteria testable + time framed for agents, not humans? → Each AC is a binary pass/fail check. Time annotations OK when agent-scoped ("this dispatch runs ~90s"); reject human-sprint framing ("two-week effort", "Q3 milestone"). See CLAUDE.md § Plan-First Workflow ¶ don't-import-human-effort-timelines (project-level) and § Operating Assumptions (global ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md).
Plan will go through coordinator:review? (the gate predicate — any plan of non-trivial scope) → AC tables are an OPTIONAL plan artifact in ID | Criterion | Status form (prose checkboxes), serving as the reviewer's design lens. No test-cell grammar, no mechanical gate. Plans are not required to carry one.
Refactor-or-patch decision: which is correct here? → Default to refactor when AI is the implementer and the patch is in a patch-accumulating area. If a reviewer would propose a refactor, propose it now. See CLAUDE.md § Core Principles ('Do the right thing, not the easy thing').
A "we'll add X later" / scope-trim / YAGNI argument is part of the draft? → Always surface to PM — never EM-unilateral. YAGNI is a product call. See CLAUDE.md § Challenging the PM ¶ ask the PM when.
A "soon = now" deferral candidate? (an item the draft would defer because the EM thinks it's lower priority than the headline work) → Either ship it in this plan or get explicit PM disposition. No silent deferrals. See CLAUDE.md § Plan-First Workflow ¶ implement-and-iterate (project-level) and § Operating Assumptions (global ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md).
Each chunk has an identified test surface? → For each chunk, name the test (or explicitly document why no test). Where a chunk's output is exercised by another chunk's test, the plan should name which chunk authors the test file. The implementation chunk does not author its tests unless the brief says so explicitly. See docs/wiki/test-design-discipline.md and docs/wiki/writing-plans.md § Bite-Sized Task Granularity.
Plan will hand off to an executor agent? (sub-conditions are additive — apply baseline always, plus any modifiers that apply)
- Always — every executor-bound stub: Apply the standard hard-constraints block (explicit file scope, no commits, no out-of-scope edits, no fallback escape hatches). See docs/wiki/writing-plans.md § Hard Constraints (a) — Explicit file-scope, (e) — No fallback escape hatches.
- Additionally, plan uses parallel executors with file overlap risk? → Run file-overlap analysis listing each file each executor will touch. See docs/wiki/writing-plans.md § Hard Constraints (g) — File-overlap analysis.
- Additionally, plan stub spawns sub-agents (orchestrator-shaped)? → Mark stub as read-only-planner; sub-task dispatch happens at EM level, not nested. See docs/wiki/writing-plans.md § Hard Constraints (b) — Read-only orchestrators.
- Additionally, plan touches concurrency-shared state (shared file appends across N machines/sessions, shared index, shared lock)? → Prefer per-machine paths over atomic-merge logic. See docs/wiki/writing-plans.md § Hard Constraints (f) — Concurrency-safe file design.
A single chunk would hand ONE executor multiple independent deliverables? (N new modules, N disjoint files, N separable sub-tasks whose write targets do not overlap — the "one executor authors 7 modules" shape) → Decompose it into N chunks at plan-write time — fan-out-shaped chunking is a plan-author obligation, not an execution-time afterthought. Schema-coupling pointer: this row is the prevention surface; the late-correction surface is skills/execute-plan/SKILL.md "Phase 1.6 Dispatch Ledger" (disjoint-write-target expansion at ledger-write time). Doctrine root: docs/wiki/dispatching-parallel-agents.md "Coupling Rules Out Concurrency". The ledger schema lives only in execute-plan; no duplication here. A chunk is a fan-out candidate, not a single dispatch, whenever its deliverables have disjoint write targets. The ONLY justifications for keeping multiple deliverables in one chunk are (a) genuine write-overlap (two deliverables edit the same path — and even then it's a sequence of small dispatches per the Coupling Rules, not one fat executor) or (b) an unpinnable shared interface. A shared read-only source and a pinned import contract are NOT serialization reasons — reading a common file and importing a pinned interface are reads, not writes, and only WRITE-overlap gates parallelism. A plan that collapses N disjoint-write deliverables into one executor under a "file-overlap" justification has mistaken read-overlap for write-overlap — the exact 2026-05-29 failure (one executor handed 7 modules sharing only a read-only semantic.py + a pinned import) this row exists to prevent. Size each resulting chunk to ~5–10 min on one coherent surface (15 min hard ceiling). See CLAUDE.md § Subagent Dispatch (HARD RULE — small-remit-and-many). Also: docs/wiki/dispatching-parallel-agents.md "Read-Overlap Is NOT Write-Overlap" and "Coupling Rules Out Concurrency, Not Decomposition".
Plan renames or moves any path? (any task contains git mv, a path rename, a file relocation, or a directory restructure — the trigger is path movement, not scope_mode) → Schedule a post-execution doc-link-checker dispatch by default as the plan's closeout chunk — SUBJECT to the worker's substrate precondition below. Renames orphan inbound doc links (wiki cross-refs, README index entries, spec backlinks, @-imports) that the renaming executor does not see. The plan body MUST include a terminal closeout chunk: "post-execution: dispatch doc-link-checker over docs/, *.md, and spec-backlink surfaces for links to the moved paths." This is default-on for any path-moving plan regardless of scope_mode; scope_mode: architecture plans almost always qualify, but a single git mv in a production-patch plan triggers it too. → Dispatch condition (substrate precondition — reviewer-routed-workers.md:79-87): schedule the dispatch ONLY when the moved paths have RELATIVE inbound markdown links NOT already covered by validate-references (in run-all-checks) OR PUBLIC-URL inbound links. Skip (and note why) when inbound links are private-repo absolute self-URLs (the worker returns 401/404 with no auth — no signal) or are already covered by run-all-checks/validate-references (the relative-link leg is redundant). The #anchor-resolution check that doc-link-checker uniquely adds only works post-merge by an authed human — note it for one-click post-merge sanity rather than reflex-dispatching the worker into abstention. See docs/wiki/reviewer-routed-workers.md § doc-link-checker Substrate Precondition (:79-87), docs/wiki/writing-plans.md § Close-Out Chunks, and Reviewer-Routed Workers (doc-link-checker).
Plan mutates a shared symbol (state enum, gameplay tag, public field, exported function signature)? → Add a reverse-reference scan subsection to the plan listing every consumer. See docs/wiki/writing-plans.md § Shared-State Pre-Flight Gate.
Cross-plan conflict scan run? (mandatory before dispatch) → Grep docs/plans/*.md for each chunk-scope file path AND for each new abstraction / registry entry / hookspec / schema field the plan introduces. Fold findings into a ## Cross-plan coordination section: enumerate each sibling plan touched, what assumption it carries, and whether this plan amends / defers to / supersedes it. No conflicts → write the section anyway with scanned — no overlapping file scope or seam citations. Missing section is the failure mode this row exists to prevent. See docs/wiki/writing-plans.md § (c) Cross-plan reconciliation — Cross-plan conflict scan procedure.
Plan amends an assumption that another live plan also depends on? (the current plan revises a path / contract / constant / sequencing decision that one or more sibling plans in docs/plans/ reference — by **Depends on:** header, shared-symbol citation, or explicit cross-reference) → Edit the body of every affected sibling plan in this same change — do not let sibling plans silently drift. Procedure: (1) grep docs/plans/ for references to the amended assumption (path, constant, contract name); (2) for each hit, open the sibling plan and edit the body inline so the assumption matches the new shape; (3) add a one-line amendment note at the top of each edited sibling: **Amended <YYYY-MM-DD> by <this-plan-slug>:** <one-line change>; (4) commit the amending plan and all edited siblings together. Silent drift is the failure mode this row exists to prevent — a sibling plan that still cites the old shape will be dispatched against stale substrate. See docs/wiki/writing-plans.md § (c) Cross-plan reconciliation is a separate pass.
Plan supersedes another plan or its seam? (the new plan declares supersedes: / predecessor_plan:, or replaces a chunk/AC of a sibling plan wholesale — distinct from amending a shared assumption above) → Append a one-line back-notification to the top of the superseded plan in the same commit: **Superseded <YYYY-MM-DD> by <this-plan-slug>:** <reason>. This rides the sibling-amendment pass above — no new automation. The distinct **Superseded…** token (vs **Amended…**) is deliberate: amend = a sibling's assumption shifted in place; supersede = the plan/seam is replaced wholesale — two lifecycle events the original session must be able to tell apart. The note is a backstop signal the original session sees at next /workstream-start orient; it does NOT prevent same-session HEAD-drift discovery (which arrives sooner in a fast collision). Closes the realization-layer back-notification gap (2026-06-23 example-game-repo B3: Session A learned of the takeover only via HEAD drift). See skills/pickup/SKILL.md § Routed-plan reconcile-and-surface; the source_memo: collision check in B.0 above is the upstream prevention.
Plan scaffolds a new autonomous skill / agent / command? → Apply the skill-scaffold checklist before drafting the body: (1) destructive-action prohibition block (see docs/wiki/coordinator-tripwires.md — Destructive-action prohibition in autonomous-dispatch prompts) for any write-capable autonomous skill; (2) explicit out-of-scope list; (3) spinoff-schema awareness if the skill can author handoffs (kind / predecessor / deployment_state fields per docs/wiki/spinoff-handoffs.md); (4) recheck-marker semantics if the skill has a cadence (recheck-due files per coordinator:learn-lessons mode recheck); (5) discovery-surface integration (where does this skill announce itself — /workstream-start mention, /workday-start surfacing, hook integration?); (6) platform-vocabulary collision check on the invokable name — an invokable skill/command verb can collide with evolving Claude Code platform vocabulary (native command names, harness primitives). Grep the proposed verb against the platform's command/primitive surface before shipping it; a collision forces a confusing skill→methodology demotion later (/fan-out collided with native vocab 3 days post-ship, 2026-05-30). Prefer a name with no native-primitive twin. Empirical: bug-blitz the Staff Engineer R1 caught 5 majors on a skill scaffolded without this pass; the checklist exists because the failure mode is recurring. See CLAUDE.md § Adding a Convention to the Coordinator System for the contact-point enumeration shape.
Plan contains a chunk that authors a handoff, spinoff, or workstream-complete artifact? → Reject the chunk. Handoffs (/handoff), spinoffs (/spinoff), and workstream-complete captures (/workstream-complete) are PM-gated session-continuity artifacts, not plan deliverables. A plan that pre-authorizes "Chunk N: write a spinoff to " launders the PM gate through plan approval — by execution time, the EM treats it as a checklist item and the spinoff's Step 0 gate never fires. Two failure shapes this row prevents: (a) the plan's terminal chunk is "author handoff" used as a wrap-up ceremony when commit-and-stop or /workday-complete is the right artifact; (b) the plan's terminal chunk is "author spinoff to " used as cross-repo messaging when the actual primitive is PM-as-relay (copy-paste in chat, or use cross-repo-memo --to <receiver-em> --topic <slug> for structured briefs). If the plan genuinely needs cross-EM coordination, the chunk is "surface cross-repo brief to PM" with the brief composed inline or sent via cross-repo-memo. See docs/wiki/cross-repo-communication.md.
Plan brief contains code blocks (shell, Python, config) the executor will consume? → Mark every fenced block either TEMPLATE (illustrative — executor adapts paths/values) or VERBATIM (executor copies as-is). Convention: place a fenced comment above the block, e.g.  or . Unmarked pseudocode-shaped bash gets faithfully transcribed into broken shell — the convention is the fix.

Exit — Auto-Invoke `coordinator:review`

Condition: plan body drafted, saved to docs/plans/YYYY-MM-DD-<slug>.md, ready for review.

coordinator-doc-new --type plan --title "<title>" --out docs/plans/YYYY-MM-DD-<slug>.md

Branch D — Executor BLOCKED on substrate drift

Default action: amend the plan or write a successor plan; do NOT silently expand executor scope to absorb the drift. → Substrate drift is plan-substrate failure, not executor failure. Re-invoke coordinator:plan to amend (small drift, same workstream) or compose a successor (larger drift or shape change). Re-run the prior-art-checker → the Staff Engineer → review-integrator chain on the amended body — the pipeline runs again from substrate verification, not from "we already reviewed the parent." Silently expanding the executor's scope to make the BLOCKED finding go away is a doctrine violation: it bypasses the doctrinal lenses, the prior-art check, and the reviewer pass that the original plan went through.
Product-risk findings during BLOCKED inspection? → Even under /autonomous, surface product-risk findings via AskUserQuestion before amending. The autonomous mode suppresses handoff nudges, not product judgment. A BLOCKED that reveals (e.g.) a privacy implication, a permission default change, or an external contract shift is exactly the case the "Ask the PM" doctrine covers — autonomous mode does not waive it.

Branch E — Mid-plan friction

Condition: drafting is in progress and something is going sideways.

Repeating actions / oscillating between approaches / stalling? → See docs/wiki/stuck-detection.md for the pattern catalog and recovery protocol.
Bug suspected mid-execution requiring root-cause investigation? → See docs/wiki/systematic-debugging.md for the four-phase root-cause process.

plan

More from this repository

More from this repository

coordinator:plan

Branch A — Triage: should I plan, and at what altitude?

Branch B — Pre-write substrate verification

B.0 — Problem-shape confirmation (the doubt-check)

Branch C — Compose the plan body

Exit — Auto-Invoke coordinator:review

Branch D — Executor BLOCKED on substrate drift

Branch E — Mid-plan friction

coordinator:plan

Branch A — Triage: should I plan, and at what altitude?

Branch B — Pre-write substrate verification

B.0 — Problem-shape confirmation (the doubt-check)

Branch C — Compose the plan body

Exit — Auto-Invoke coordinator:review

Branch D — Executor BLOCKED on substrate drift

Branch E — Mid-plan friction

Exit — Auto-Invoke `coordinator:review`

Exit — Auto-Invoke `coordinator:review`