| name | BMAD Phase Orchestration |
| description | This skill activates when the user discusses BMAD methodology, project phases, agent coordination, phase gates, workflow routing, or asks about "which BMAD agent", "what phase am I in", "BMAD workflow", "phase transition", "agent handoff". Provides knowledge about BMAD's 4-phase methodology and 9 specialized agents. |
| version | 1.0.0 |
BMAD Phase Orchestration
The 4 BMAD Phases
BMAD projects follow a strict four-phase lifecycle. Each phase has a primary agent, required artifacts, and a gate that must be satisfied before the next phase begins.
Phase 1: Analysis
- Agent: mary-analyst
- Purpose: Understand the problem space, target users, market landscape, and project constraints
- Artifacts:
docs/brief.md
- Activities: Stakeholder interviews, competitive analysis, user research synthesis, problem framing
- Gate:
docs/brief.md must contain a substantive project brief with problem statement, target audience, and key features
Phase 2: Planning
- Agent: john-pm (with sally-ux for UX-heavy projects)
- Purpose: Translate analysis into a structured product plan with epics, stories, and priorities
- Artifacts:
docs/prd.md
- Activities: Feature prioritization, epic decomposition, MVP scoping, requirement specification
- Gate:
docs/prd.md must contain at least one epic with defined stories
Phase 3: Solutioning
- Agent: winston-architect
- Purpose: Design the technical architecture that satisfies the PRD requirements
- Artifacts:
docs/architecture/index.md and supporting docs
- Activities: Tech stack selection, system design, API design, data modeling, security planning
- Gate:
docs/architecture/index.md must exist with architecture overview and tech decisions
Phase 4: Implementation
- Agents: bob-sm (coordination), james-dev (coding), quinn-qa (testing)
- Purpose: Build the product story-by-story with continuous QA
- Artifacts:
docs/stories/*.md and source code
- Activities: Story creation, development, code review, QA validation, bug fixing
- Gate: All stories reach "QA Pass" status
The 9 BMAD Agents
| Agent | Role | Primary Phase | Responsibilities |
|---|
| mary-analyst | Business Analyst | Analysis | Research, brief creation, problem framing |
| john-pm | Product Manager | Planning | PRD, epics, prioritization, MVP scope |
| sally-ux | UX Designer | Planning | User flows, wireframes, interaction design |
| winston-architect | Architect | Solutioning | System design, tech stack, API design |
| bob-sm | Scrum Master | Implementation | Story creation, sprint coordination, context extraction |
| james-dev | Developer | Implementation | Code implementation, debugging, dev records |
| quinn-qa | QA Engineer | Implementation | Testing, validation, bug reports |
| barry-quick | Quick Flow | Any | Rapid prototyping, quick tasks, bypasses full BMAD |
| paige-writer | Technical Writer | Any | Documentation, user guides, API docs |
Phase Gates
Phase gates prevent premature advancement. A phase gate checks:
- Artifact existence: The required files must exist
- Content quality: Files must contain substantive content (not just placeholders)
- Completeness: Key sections must be populated (e.g., PRD must have at least one epic)
Gates are enforced in /bmad-sprint and should be checked manually when working phase-by-phase.
Agent Handoff Patterns
When one phase completes and the next begins:
- The completing agent summarizes its work and key decisions
- The phase transition is logged to
.bmad/phase-log.json
.bmad/config.json is updated with new phase status- The next agent reads all prior artifacts as input context
- The next agent begins its phase-specific work
Key handoff data flows:
- Analysis → Planning: Brief informs epic structure and feature priorities
- Planning → Solutioning: PRD requirements drive architecture decisions
- Solutioning → Implementation: Architecture docs are extracted into story Dev Notes
- Within Implementation: Story results feed into subsequent story context
Quick Flow vs Full BMAD
Use barry-quick (Quick Flow) when:
- The task is small and well-defined (< 1 day of work)
- No cross-cutting architecture decisions are needed
- The user wants a rapid prototype or proof-of-concept
- The change is isolated to a single component
Use full BMAD when:
- The project is greenfield or involves significant new architecture
- Multiple stakeholders need alignment
- Quality gates and QA validation are important
- The work spans multiple epics or stories
Cowork Team Coordination
BMAD leverages the Cowork framework for multi-agent coordination:
- SendMessage: Agents communicate context, handoffs, and blockers
- TaskCreate / TaskUpdate: Work items are tracked as tasks with ownership
- Agent tool: Spawns specialized agents for phase execution
- Agents share the project filesystem as the source of truth — artifacts in
docs/ are the coordination mechanism
