bmad-phase-orchestration

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:

1. Artifact existence: The required files must exist
2. Content quality: Files must contain substantive content (not just placeholders)
3. 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:

1. The completing agent summarizes its work and key decisions
2. The phase transition is logged to .bmad/phase-log.json
3. .bmad/config.json is updated with new phase status
4. The next agent reads all prior artifacts as input context
5. 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