| name | plan-milestone |
| description | Decompose an active milestone into PR-sized tasks via multi-agent discussion (PM proposes, Tech Lead challenges, CAIO conditional). Use at the start of every milestone in Phase 2 — it's the bridge between the high-level roadmap and per-PR execution. Produces task files with lane/epic/depends_on/acceptance frontmatter and (in GitHub mode) mirrored Issues. |
Plan Milestone
You are the Conductor orchestrating the decomposition of an active milestone into PR-sized tasks. This is the bridge between Phase 1's high-level roadmap and Phase 2's per-PR execution loop. Without this step, milestones stay too coarse to assign and tasks get created ad-hoc mid-milestone.
This skill is multi-agent — mirrors the cross-agent challenge pattern used at Phase 1 STEP 2/3/4 and at issue-triage. PM is proposer, not solo authority.
When This Runs
- Default trigger: at the start of every milestone in Phase 2. Either auto-fired by Project Manager when the previous milestone closes via
/atelier:milestone-checkpoint, or invoked on-demand by the user.
- On-demand: user invokes
/atelier:plan-milestone <m-id> to (re)decompose a milestone — useful when scope shifts mid-milestone or when a milestone's existing tasks turn out to be wrongly sized.
- Not for hotfixes: emergency fixes use
/atelier:hotfix which creates its own task without going through plan-milestone.
Inputs
docs/roadmap/milestones/m<NN>-*.md — the milestone charter (goal, scope, success-criteria mapping). Must exist before plan-milestone runs; if missing, escalate to Project Manager to draft it first.docs/requirements/* — to verify acceptance criteria coverage.docs/design/* — to verify architectural fit.docs/agents/team-composition.md — to map task domains to implementation agents.docs/agents/capability-log.md — to detect capability gaps requiring CAIO.docs/roadmap/lessons-learned.md — to honor prior milestones' "Try" experiments and avoid repeated mistakes.- Forge state (GitHub mode): existing untriaged Issues with
kind:request / kind:bug / status:accepted (per docs/process/issue-management.md).
Workflow — Multi-Agent Decomposition
1. PM (proposer) drafts the task breakdown
Project Manager produces an initial task list. Each task:
- Sized to one PR — half-day to two-day, ~100–500 LOC; PM compresses anything bigger into multiple tasks or promotes to a sub-milestone. See
docs/process/agent-team-sizing.md for the sizing rule.
- Grouped under epics when warranted —
epic: <slug> field on the task md frontmatter; an epic is "a coherent thread of 3–6 tasks that ship together as a feature". Standalone tasks have no epic.
- Acceptance criteria as checkboxes —
acceptance: list with [ ] items. Each AC is independently verifiable.
- Dependencies explicit —
depends_on: list of task IDs that must complete before this task starts.
- Initial lane —
lane: backlog (or lane: todo for the next 1–2 to be picked up).
PM also pulls accepted issues from the forge (status:accepted Issues that were triaged into this milestone per docs/process/issue-management.md) and either folds them into existing tasks or promotes them to new tasks.
PM posts the proposed breakdown in chat as a single message (not by writing files yet). Format:
## Proposed task decomposition for m<NN>
| Task | Title | Epic | Size | Depends-on | Acceptance count |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| t01 | ... | epic-auth | M | — | 3 |
| t02 | ... | epic-auth | S | t01 | 2 |
| ...
### Full task content (per task)
\`\`\`yaml
# t01-<slug>.md
---
id: t01
title: ...
status: assigned
lane: backlog
epic: epic-auth
size: M
depends_on: []
acceptance:
- [ ] ...
---
\`\`\`
(repeat per task)
2. Tech Lead — mandatory challenger
Tech Lead reviews the proposal in the same chat. Required questions answered with concrete reservations:
- Architectural fit: do these tasks respect
docs/design/architecture.md? Any task assumes a service / module that doesn't exist?
- Module boundary: does each task fall within one implementation agent's declared boundary per
docs/agents/team-composition.md? Cross-boundary tasks must be split.
- Sizing audit: any task that smells like > 2-day work? List specifically.
- Current code state: any task assumes code that doesn't exist yet but isn't gated by
depends_on?
- ADR triggers: does any task fire an ADR-mandatory trigger per
docs/README.md#ssot-schema? If yes, an ADR task must precede.
Tech Lead's verdict format:
[Architecture] Verdict: <APPROVE | REQUEST_CHANGES>
Concerns:
- (concrete reservation 1)
- (concrete reservation 2)
If APPROVE with no reservations, say so explicitly — LGTM alone is rejected per docs/process/coding-principles.md.
3. Chief AI Officer — conditional challenger
CAIO is engaged only if PM or Tech Lead surfaces a capability or team-composition concern, e.g.:
- "These tasks recurring in security-sensitive code suggest we need a Security Engineer."
- "Three tasks reference a Slack notification — we don't have a Slack MCP yet."
- "Frontend tasks but project type was classified API; reconsider service-with-UI?"
When engaged, CAIO uses /atelier:add-agent / add-skill / add-mcp chain in parallel — these run separately with their own approval chain (proposer → Tech Lead → CAIO → user). plan-milestone does not block on them; it captures the dependency in the task md (depends_on: [capability:add-agent-X] or similar) and continues.
If no capability gap surfaces, CAIO stays silent. This is normal.
4. PM revises based on challenges
PM incorporates the challenges in chat. Revised proposal posted (only the affected rows + diff explanation, not the full table re-pasted). Iterate until Tech Lead's reservations are addressed or explicitly deferred to a future milestone.
5. User intervention window
Per the project's involvement level (operating-preferences-template.md § A):
- Detailed Supervision (level 4): every plan-milestone presents the revised proposal to the user; user must approve or revise before files are written.
- PR-Level Checkpoints (level 3): user is shown the proposal but only intervenes if they object; silent reply = approve.
- Milestone Checkpoints (level 2): user only sees the proposal if scope shifted from the milestone charter (e.g., a new epic was added that wasn't in the charter); otherwise PM proceeds.
- Fully Autonomous (level 1): no user prompt; PM logs the proposal for the next milestone-checkpoint to review.
6. Files written
PM writes to disk only after the discussion settles:
docs/roadmap/tasks/t<NN>-<slug>.md per task — frontmatter + body. Body includes:
- Description (1–3 sentences).
- Linked requirement (which
docs/requirements/* section).
- Linked design (which
docs/design/* section).
- Acceptance criteria (already in frontmatter as checkbox list, repeated in body for human readability).
- Implementation notes (any non-obvious constraints).
- Linked issue (GitHub mode:
linked_issue: <N> if mirrored).
7. Forge mirroring (GitHub mode only)
If H. Forge = GitHub per operating preferences AND H.1 = Yes/Org-level (Projects v2):
- Invoke
bin/atelier-sync-tasks --apply to create one Issue per task md. Issue body templated: synopsis, ACs as - [ ] lines, Depends on #<N> references, Tracking: docs/roadmap/tasks/t<NN>-<slug>.md. Labels: kind:task, lane:backlog, epic:<slug> (if any).
- Project v2 board auto-picks up via repo-level project's auto-add filter.
If GitHub mode but Issue mirror disabled, skip; tasks live only in md.
8. Update lessons-learned
Append a short note to docs/roadmap/lessons-learned.md:
### <date> — m<NN> planned
- N tasks across K epics; sizing distribution: <S:x M:y L:z>.
- Tech Lead concerns surfaced and resolved: <count>.
- CAIO engaged: <yes/no, brief reason if yes>.
- Capability gaps triggering parallel /atelier:add-* chain: <list or none>.
This is process telemetry — not the milestone retro (which runs at close).
Output Summary
After plan-milestone completes:
docs/roadmap/tasks/t<NN>-<slug>.md — N task files (lane=backlog/todo).- (GitHub mode) Forge Issues mirrored 1:1 with task IDs.
- Chat record of the multi-agent discussion (proposer/challenger/revision).
docs/roadmap/lessons-learned.md — short planning-event note.
The milestone is now ready for execution — PM picks the first task (lane → in-progress), Conductor invokes the assigned implementation agent, and the per-PR cycle begins per docs/flows/agent-document-map.md.
Rules
- PM is proposer, not solo author. Skip Tech Lead → invalid plan-milestone; the audit trail must show challenge applied.
- Solo-maintainer carve-out: when only one human maintainer exists (per
CONTRIBUTING.md L2/L3 small-team carve-out), the multi-agent discussion is voiced by the maintainer with explicit [PM] / [Tech Lead] / [CAIO] blocks. Same audit trail, single author.
- Scope-lock is mandatory: the milestone charter (
docs/roadmap/milestones/m<NN>-*.md) is the contract. plan-milestone cannot add tasks outside the charter's stated scope without escalating to /atelier:escalate product-manager for charter amendment first. (m01 lesson: scope creep happens when this gate is absent.)
- Tasks always size to one PR. If PM/Tech Lead can't get there, the work is not yet ready for plan-milestone — escalate to Software Architect for design clarification.
- Don't run plan-milestone for an inactive milestone. A milestone is "active" once the previous milestone is closed (retro approved) and the user has signaled intent to begin. plan-milestone before that is premature.
- Don't decompose more than the next milestone. Future milestones stay at charter level until they become active. This avoids stale task files that drift before they're picked up.
Reference Documents
docs/flows/milestone-flow.md — the full milestone loop (plan → execute → retro → next).skills/milestone-checkpoint/SKILL.md — the sibling skill that closes a milestone.docs/process/agent-team-sizing.md — sizing rule (one PR = ½–2 days, 100–500 LOC).docs/process/issue-management.md — how triaged issues feed into plan-milestone.docs/process/capability-management.md — when CAIO's parallel /atelier:add-* chain fires.docs/process/coding-principles.md — LGTM rejection, mutual challenge obligation.docs/templates/operating-preferences-template.md — involvement level affects user-intervention window.agents/project-manager.md — PM's proposer role (responsibility #2).agents/tech-lead.md — Tech Lead's mandatory challenger role.agents/chief-ai-officer.md — CAIO's conditional challenger role.
Language Policy
The chat discussion (proposer / challenger / revision) follows the user-facing dialogue language (auto-detected from STEP 0.5). Task md files (frontmatter + body) are in English per the artifact rule in docs/process/coding-principles.md § Language Policy. Domain terms preserved in original language.
