mde-task-lifecycle

name	mde-task-lifecycle
description	Five-phase orchestrator for mdeai.co tasks — plan, research, implement, test, ship. Routes each phase to specialist skills (mde-writing-plans, testing for Vitest/Playwright, `/deploy-check` for pre-ship gates, mdeai-executor) and owns boundaries between them. Use when the user wants to work on a task by ID (work on task 17A, implement 18B, ship this prompt, process the backlog, next P0, go through the lifecycle, close out a task, run a task), or asks to move anything in tasks/prompts/ from spec to shipped. Does NOT write PRDs (use mde-writing-plans), debug arbitrary bugs (use systematic-debugging), or author new skills (use mde-prompting). Replaces overlapping ad-hoc skills create-tasks, spec-tasks, tasks, tasks-generator, prd-taskmaster, task-prd-creator, executing-tasks.
title	mde-task-lifecycle — five-phase orchestrator
impact	HIGH
impactDescription	Routes plan → research → implement → test → ship with gates
tags	mde-task-lifecycle, workflow, tasks, backlog, shipping
paths	["tasks/**",".claude/commands/**"]

mde-task-lifecycle

BLUF: One skill, five phases, one bookkeeping contract. Each phase has its own module file. SKILL.md routes; modules execute.

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When to invoke

Trigger phrase	Action
"Work on task <id>" / "Implement 17A"	Load prompt, route through phases 2-5
"Process backlog" / "Next P0"	Read tasks/prompts/INDEX.md, pick next unstarted P0, run all phases
"Plan a task for <feature>"	Phase 1 only — write the prompt
"Research <topic> before we build"	Phase 2 only — produce audit notes
"Ship <prompt>" / "Close out <id>"	Phase 5 only — bookkeeping + gates
"Run lifecycle on <id>"	All 5 phases in order
Status update on a shipped task	Phase 5 only

Don't invoke for

• New PRD section or planning prose → mde-writing-plans
• Pure debugging without a task ID → systematic-debugging
• Authoring or editing a skill → mde-prompting
• One-off PR creation unrelated to a task → mde-github
• Commit-only requests with no task context → git-commit

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Five phases at a glance

#	Phase	Module	Specialist skill(s)	Output
1	Plan	planning.md	mde-writing-plans	Prompt at tasks/prompts/{core,advanced,production}/<NN><X>-name.md per tasks/tasks-template.md
2	Research	research.md	(none — built-in)	Audit notes, source-cited risks, validated assumptions
3	Implement	implementation.md