lightweight-planning

name	lightweight-planning
description	Fast-lane planning for bug fixes, UI tweaks, and features under 600 LOC. Scope triage, adaptive process, right-sized ceremony. Use for small-to-medium changes that don't need full requirements decomposition.
user-invocable	false

Lightweight Planning

Right-size the process to the work. Not every change needs 8 phases and 18 agents.

Philosophy

The full blueprint-dev pipeline (/bp:lfg) is optimized for complex, brand-new features that need requirements decomposition, design variants, architecture review, and formal code review. But most day-to-day development is smaller:

• Fix a date format bug
• Add a CSV export endpoint
• Update a form validation rule
• Add a new column to an admin table

These tasks deserve a fast lane — enough process to catch mistakes, not so much that the ceremony exceeds the work.

Scope Triage

Every /bp:go invocation starts with an automatic scope triage. No agent needed — the command evaluates the task inline.

Decision Matrix

Signal	Small Tweak	Medium Feature	Escalate to /bp:plan
Files changed	1-5	5-15	15+
New endpoints	0-1	2-4	5+
New DB models	0	1-2	3+
LOC estimate	<200	200-600	>600

Escalation Triggers

/bp:go recommends switching to the heavyweight pipeline when:

• Task needs architecture decisions (new systems, data stores, service boundaries)
• Task involves A/B testing or design variants
• Scope triage estimates >600 LOC
• Security concerns (auth, payments, PII handling)
• Performance concerns (new DB queries on hot paths, caching strategy)
• Data migration (schema changes affecting existing data)

Adaptive Behavior

Aspect	Small Tweak	Medium Feature
Planning	Inline 3-5 bullet points	Lightweight plan doc (.blueprint/plans/{date}-{slug}-lite.md)
Research	Quick codebase grep	Codebase search + docs/solutions/ check
Feature flags	Skip	Only for significant new user-facing behavior
PR size limit	No enforcement	Soft guidance at 600 LOC
Branching	Optional (current branch OK)	Feature branch recommended
Artifacts	None	Lightweight plan doc only
Tests	Proportional to change	Required (unit + integration as needed)

Lightweight Plan Doc Template

For medium features, /bp:go creates a lightweight plan at .blueprint/plans/{date}-{slug}-lite.md:

# {Feature Name} (Lite Plan)

**Date**: {YYYY-MM-DD}
**Scope**: {Small Tweak | Medium Feature}
**Estimated LOC**: {number}

## What
{1-2 sentence description of the change}

## Why
{1 sentence on the motivation}

## How
- {Implementation bullet 1}
- {Implementation bullet 2}
- {Implementation bullet 3}

## Files
- {file1} — {what changes}
- {file2} — {what changes}

## Tests
- {Test 1 description}
- {Test 2 description}

Comparison with Full Planning

Aspect	/bp:plan (Full)	/bp:go (Lightweight)
Agents	3 sequential (requirements-analyst → research-scout → scope-sentinel)	0 (inline triage)
Output	Full plan doc with FR-XXX requirements, research findings, scope assessment	Inline bullets or lite plan doc
Duration	5-15 minutes	30 seconds
Artifacts	.blueprint/plans/{date}-{feature}.md	None or .blueprint/plans/{date}-{slug}-lite.md
Scope guard	scope-sentinel agent	Built-in escalation triggers
Research	research-scout searches docs/solutions/	Quick grep (medium) or skip (small)

See Also

• skills/lightweight-planning/references/triage-examples.md — concrete examples calibrating the triage
• commands/go.md — the /bp:go command that uses this methodology
• agents/lean-implementor.md — the implementor agent used by /bp:go