| name | flow-next-prospect |
| description | Generate ranked candidate ideas grounded in the repo, upstream of /flow-next:plan. Triggers on /flow-next:prospect with an optional focus hint (concept, path, constraint, or volume). |
| user-invocable | false |
| allowed-tools | AskUserQuestion, Read, Bash, Grep, Glob, Write, Edit, Task |
Prospect — upstream-of-plan idea generation
Read workflow.md for full phase-by-phase execution.
Generate many candidate ideas grounded in the repo, critique every one with explicit rejection reasons, and surface only the survivors bucketed by leverage. Output is a ranked artifact under .flow/prospects/<slug>-<date>.md that feeds directly into /flow-next:interview or /flow-next:plan via flowctl prospect promote.
Role: idea-prospecting coordinator (sequential single-chat — generate → critique → rank → write → handoff). Personas are prompt-level scaffolding inside this skill, not parallel subagent dispatch.
Preamble
CRITICAL: flowctl is BUNDLED — NOT installed globally. which flowctl will fail (expected). Define once; subsequent blocks (here and in workflow.md) use $FLOWCTL:
FLOWCTL="${DROID_PLUGIN_ROOT:-${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}}/scripts/flowctl"
[ -x "$FLOWCTL" ] || FLOWCTL=".flow/bin/flowctl"
Inline skill (no context: fork) — keeps AskUserQuestion available throughout. Subagents can't call blocking question tools (Claude Code issues #12890, #34592), and Phases 0 + 6 both require user choice. (sync-codex.sh rewrites this to a plain-text numbered prompt in the Codex mirror.)
Input
Arguments: $ARGUMENTS
Format: [focus hint] — freeform single string. Optional. May be:
- Concept —
DX improvements, review-skill polish, test-suite health
- Path —
plugins/flow-next/skills/ (ideate inside a subtree)
- Constraint —
quick wins under 200 LOC, minor-bump only, no new deps
- Volume hint —
top 3 (exactly 3 survivors), 50 ideas (generate ≥50), raise the bar (60-70% rejection target)
If empty, the skill picks its own coverage targets (15-25 candidates → 5-8 survivors).
Ralph-block (R8)
/flow-next:prospect is exploratory and human-in-the-loop. Autonomous loops have no business deciding what a repo should tackle next — that's a judgement call. Hard-error with exit 2 when running under Ralph.
if [[ -n "${REVIEW_RECEIPT_PATH:-}" || "${FLOW_RALPH:-}" == "1" ]]; then
echo "Error: /flow-next:prospect requires a user at the terminal; not compatible with Ralph mode (REVIEW_RECEIPT_PATH or FLOW_RALPH detected)." >&2
exit 2
fi
No env-var opt-in. Ralph never decides direction.
Workflow
Execute the phases in workflow.md in order:
- Resume check — list active artifacts <30d; ask extend / fresh / open via blocking question. Corrupt artifacts surfaced but never offered for extension.
- Ground — scan repo with graceful degradation: git log (30d), open specs, CHANGELOG top, memory matches, memory audit (if present), strategy snapshot (verbatim
name / target_problem / approach / tracks / last_updated from flowctl strategy read --json when sections_filled >= 1; husk-vs-presence gate uses sections_filled, NOT [[ -f STRATEGY.md ]]). Emit a structured 30-50 line snapshot — titles + tags only, never raw bodies.
- Generate — divergent-convergent + persona seeding (≥2 of
senior-maintainer / first-time-user / adversarial-reviewer, picked by focus hint per personas.md). One divergent prompt; no self-judging.
- Critique — separate prompt pass that does NOT see the focus hint or persona texts; rejection floor ≥40% (≥60% under
raise the bar); fixed taxonomy (duplicates-open-epic | out-of-scope | out-of-scope-vs-strategy | insufficient-signal | too-large | backward-incompat | other); out-of-scope-vs-strategy is advisory only (user can override at promote time via existing --force flag); floor violation surfaces blocking question with frozen options regenerate | loosen-floor | ship-anyway.
- Rank — bucketed: high leverage 1-3, worth-considering 4-7, if-you-have-the-time 8+. Forced-format leverage sentence per survivor (
Small-diff lever because X; impact lands on Y.); no numeric scores.
- Write artifact — atomic write-then-rename to
.flow/prospects/<slug>-<date>.md via flowctl.write_prospect_artifact. Same-day collisions suffix with -2, -3. Optional floor_violation / generation_under_volume flags round-trip when upstream phases set them.
- Handoff — blocking prompt for promote / interview / skip via the platform's question tool; frozen numbered-options fallback when no blocking tool is available.
Phases 0-6 are implemented. Promote command + list/read/archive land in tasks 4-5.
Pre-check: Local setup version
Compare .flow/meta.json setup_version to the plugin version; on mismatch, escalate once per plugin version. Fail-open throughout: a missing jq, .flow/meta.json, or plugin manifest silently continues.
SETUP_MODE=$(jq -r '.setup_mode // empty' .flow/meta.json 2>/dev/null)
SETUP_VER=$(jq -r '.setup_version // empty' .flow/meta.json 2>/dev/null)
PLUGIN_JSON="${DROID_PLUGIN_ROOT:-${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}}/.claude-plugin/plugin.json"
PLUGIN_VER=$(jq -r '.version' "$PLUGIN_JSON" 2>/dev/null || echo "unknown")
VERSION_ACK=$(jq -r '.version_ack // empty' .flow/meta.json 2>/dev/null)
if [[ "$SETUP_MODE" == "plugin" ]]; then
SNIP_ACK=$(jq -r '.snippet_ack // empty' .flow/meta.json 2>/dev/null)
SNIP_VER=$(grep -m1 -o 'flow-next:snippet:v[0-9]*' CLAUDE.md 2>/dev/null | grep -o '[0-9]*$')
if [[ "${SNIP_VER:-missing}" != "1" ]]; then
if [[ "${FLOW_RALPH:-}" == "1" || -n "${REVIEW_RECEIPT_PATH:-}" || "${FLOW_AUTONOMOUS:-}" == "1" || "${ARGUMENTS:-}" == *mode:autonomous* \
|| "$SNIP_ACK" == "1" ]]; then
echo "CLAUDE.md flow-next snippet contract v${SNIP_VER:-missing} != plugin v1. Refresh via /flow-next:setup or the interactive ask." >&2
else
echo "FLOW_SNIPPET_ASK ${SNIP_VER:-missing} 1"
fi
fi
elif [[ -n "$SETUP_VER" && "$PLUGIN_VER" != "unknown" && "$SETUP_VER" != "$PLUGIN_VER" ]]; then
if [[ "${FLOW_RALPH:-}" == "1" || -n "${REVIEW_RECEIPT_PATH:-}" \
|| "${FLOW_AUTONOMOUS:-}" == "1" || "${ARGUMENTS:-}" == *mode:autonomous* \
|| "$VERSION_ACK" == "$PLUGIN_VER" ]]; then
echo "Local setup v${SETUP_VER} differs from plugin v${PLUGIN_VER}. Run /flow-next:setup to refresh local scripts." >&2
else
echo "FLOW_SETUP_ASK ${SETUP_VER} ${PLUGIN_VER}"
fi
fi
If the block printed a FLOW_SNIPPET_ASK line (plugin mode only; suppressed to the stderr note under the autonomy markers above), before proceeding ask the user with AskUserQuestion (the CLAUDE.md flow-next snippet block is on an older contract than this plugin version; refresh the marker block?), offering exactly the options Refresh now, Remind me next version, Skip this run, then continue the skill whichever is chosen:
If the block printed a FLOW_SETUP_ASK line, before proceeding ask the user with AskUserQuestion (local setup differs from the plugin; refresh now?), offering exactly the options Refresh now, Remind me next version, Skip this run, then continue the skill whichever is chosen:
Any other output (the one-line differs notice, or nothing) is non-blocking: continue.
Forbidden
- Running under Ralph — hard-block via the guard above.
- Setting
context: fork — blocking question tools must stay reachable.
- Network calls — grounding is local-filesystem only (git, flowctl, memory, CHANGELOG).
- Writing to
.flow/specs/ directly — only flowctl prospect promote may do that.
- Auto-archiving artifacts — only the explicit
prospect archive subcommand moves files.
- Dumping raw file bodies into the grounding snapshot — titles + tags only; structured 30-50 lines max.
