strategy

name	strategy
description	Create or maintain the repository root STRATEGY.md — the durable direction anchor (target problem, approach, who it's for, key metrics, tracks). Interview-driven and rerunnable. Triggers on "write our strategy", "update the direction", "what are we working on", "set up the strategy doc", and when /ideate, /brainstorm, or /plan need upstream grounding and no STRATEGY.md exists yet.
argument-hint	[optional: section to revisit, e.g. 'metrics' or 'approach']

Strategy

Migration evidence contract

The strategy records the operator's chosen direction, considered alternatives, constraints, and revisit conditions. Rejected alternatives remain visible. The strategy is a decision artifact, not delivery approval or implementation authority.

Ported from Compound-Engineering ce-strategy; CE downstream ce-ideate / ce-brainstorm / ce-plan map to infiquetra /ideate / /brainstorm / /plan.

/strategy produces and maintains the repository root STRATEGY.md — a short, durable anchor that captures what the product is, who it serves, how it succeeds, and where the team is investing. It lives at the repo root as a canonical well-known file (a peer of README.md). A handful of sharp questions, answered well, produce a better strategy than any amount of prose; this skill asks them, pushes back on weak answers, and writes the doc.

Position in the lifecycle

/strategy is the durable direction anchor — top-of-funnel, off-chain, and advisory. It sits upstream of execution: it never enters the work thread and never writes the saga. Its only durable output is the root STRATEGY.md, which downstream skills read as grounding. It is the records member of a record-vs-challenge-vs-readiness trio that can all touch direction:

• /strategy RECORDS direction — captures the chosen direction in STRATEGY.md.
• /founder-review CHALLENGES it — is the direction ambitious, coherent, and worth doing?
• /doc-review checks STRATEGY.md READINESS — can the doc safely drive implementation? (its path tie-breaker maps STRATEGY.md -> strategy/scope.)

The inbound edge: /office-hours is the frame-finding front door, and once a direction-ask settles into a real "where are we pointed" question, it routes that onward to /strategy to record it.

Core principles

1. Anchor, not plan. Strategy is what the product is and why. Features belong in /brainstorm; schedules belong in the issue tracker. Do not let either creep into the doc.
2. Rigor in the questions, not the headings. The headers are plain English; the interview questions in references/interview.md are what enforce strategy discipline.
3. Short is a feature. The template is constrained. Adding sections costs more than it looks like — push back on expansion.
4. Durable across runs. This skill is rerunnable: it updates in place, preserves what is working, and only challenges stale or weak sections. On a material direction shift, suggest a docs/engineering-journal/DECISIONS.md ADR to record why direction changed — offer it, do not auto-write it.

Interaction method

Ask one blocking question through the current session for routing decisions only — which section to revisit. Use free-form responses for the substantive sections (problem, approach, persona, metrics, tracks): they are inherently narrative and menu options would nudge the answer. Ask one question at a time, stop until the operator answers, and never silently skip it.

In a channel session (redis-channel active), the capability receipt does not prove structured interaction — inline the choices in your reply text instead, following the canonical channel-inline convention in saga/skills/brainstorm/SKILL.md (do not duplicate its wording here).

Use repo-relative paths in everything you write — absolute paths break portability across worktrees.

Focus hint

Interpret any argument as an optional focus: a section name to revisit (metrics, approach, tracks) or a scope hint. With no argument, proceed open-ended and let the file state decide the path.

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Phase 0 — Route by file state

Read the root STRATEGY.md using the native file-read tool, then route:

• File does not exist -> first run. Go to Phase 1. Announce: "Strategy doc not found — let's write it."
• File exists AND the argument names a specific section -> targeted update. Go to Phase 2.
• File exists, no argument -> ask which section(s) to revisit (a structured blocking interaction), then Phase 2.

Announce the path in one line: "Found existing strategy — let's review and update."

Phase 1 — First-run interview

Load references/interview.md. This load is non-optional — the pushback rules, anti-pattern examples, and per-section quality bar live there. Improvising from memory produces a passive transcription instead of a strategy doc.

Run the interview in the section order of the final document, with the opening question, the pushback rules, and two rounds of pushback per section maximum (capture what the user gave after that and note the section is worth revisiting next run):

1. Target problem
2. Our approach
3. Who it's for — agent-as-customer adaptation: for an agent-facing product the primary persona MAY be an AI-agent consumer (jobs-to-be-done framed, same rigor). This is a light prompt, not forced for human-facing products.
4. Key metrics
5. Tracks — investment areas only, no actor-naming (a track is a domain of work, not the agent that does it).
6. Milestones (optional)
7. Not working on (optional)
8. Marketing (optional)

When the 5 required sections (1-5) are captured, read references/strategy-template.md, fill it in, present the full draft in chat, offer one round of edits, then write the root STRATEGY.md.

Phase 2 — Update run

Read the existing root STRATEGY.md thoroughly and summarize current state in 3-5 lines. If the argument named a section, jump to it in references/interview.md; otherwise ask which section to revisit via a structured blocking interaction (channel -> inline). For each revisited section, re-interview with full pushback as if this were a first run — do not rubber-stamp existing weak content. Preserve all other sections exactly, bump last_updated in the frontmatter to today's ISO date, then write back to the root STRATEGY.md.

On a material direction shift (target problem, approach, or persona meaningfully changes — not a wording tweak), suggest a docs/engineering-journal/DECISIONS.md ADR capturing why direction changed. Offer it; do not auto-write it.

Phase 3 — Downstream handoff

After writing, note in one line that the file lives at the repo root as STRATEGY.md and that /ideate, /brainstorm, and /plan will pick it up as grounding on their next run.

If the strategy implies concrete implementation work, route it onward — to /plan (settle the HOW) or /loop (route it through the lifecycle). Resolve any cross-command route through the lifecycle routing reference at saga/skills/loop/references/dispatch-table.md (referenced by path; do not copy the routing table here). If no downstream skill has run yet on this repo, suggest /ideate or /brainstorm as the next step.

Hard boundary

/strategy RECORDS direction. It does NOT implement or make code changes; does NOT write product requirements or implementation plans (/brainstorm and /plan do); does NOT prioritize the backlog; does NOT compute metric values (it records which metrics matter and where they live, not what they read today); does NOT file SDLC issues (mission-control does); does NOT challenge ambition or scope (/founder-review does); does NOT check readiness (/doc-review does); and does NOT commit, push, open PRs, merge, or deploy. It runs upstream of the work thread, so it does NOT write the saga — no saga.py invocation, no --review-paths. Record the direction in STRATEGY.md, name the next command, then stop.

Reference files

• references/interview.md — the per-section pushback rulebook: Overall Rules; the 8 sections with opening question + quality bar + named anti-patterns + sharper correction questions + capture rule; the two-round pushback rule; and the Infiquetra agent-as-customer / tracks-are-not-actors deltas.
• references/strategy-template.md — the locked STRATEGY.md template: YAML frontmatter + the 8 sections in locked order, the 3-5 metrics / 2-4 tracks constraints, delete-optional-if-unused, and the post-write checklist.
• saga/references/formatting-style.md — the shared formatting contract the written STRATEGY.md follows (short blank-separated sections leading with the point, comparative data as bullets/tables).

Learn more

The "Target problem / Our approach / Tracks" structure is informed by Richard Rumelt's Good Strategy Bad Strategy — his kernel of diagnosis, guiding policy, and coherent action. The interview questions push past what he calls "bad strategy": fluff, goals dressed up as strategy, and feature lists in place of a guiding choice.