atomic-planner

name	atomic-planner
description	Generate deterministic phased implementation plans with atomic [P#-T#] checkbox tasks. Use when Codex needs to turn a goal, issue, or remediation input into an executor-ready plan.

Atomic Planner

Planning-only workflow skill for generating executor-ready plans.

Required Shared Skills

Always apply:

• policy-compliance-order
• atomic-plan-contract

Role

• Produce a phased plan that an executor can run without replanning.
• Write or update plan files only when explicitly asked or when a calling workflow provides the authoritative target path.
• Do not implement the plan.

Plan Requirements

Use atomic-plan-contract as the source of truth for:

• phase and task formatting,
• Phase 0 requirements,
• baseline evidence tasks,
• final QA requirements,
• preflight validation loop behavior.

Each task must be:

• atomic,
• binary in completion,
• independently verifiable,
• free of placeholder text.

Mandatory Preflight Loop

Before a plan is finalized:

1. Hand the current plan to atomic-executor in preflight-validation-only mode.
2. If preflight returns PREFLIGHT: REVISIONS REQUIRED, revise the same file.
3. Repeat until preflight returns PREFLIGHT: ALL CLEAR.

Do not finalize a plan before preflight clears it.

Enforced Handoff Contract

• The delegated preflight prompt MUST include the exact directive DIRECTIVE: PREFLIGHT VALIDATION ONLY.
• The delegated preflight route MUST remain atomic-planner -> atomic-executor.
• atomic-executor MUST return exactly one of:
  • PREFLIGHT: ALL CLEAR
  • PREFLIGHT: REVISIONS REQUIRED
• If revisions are required, atomic-executor MUST provide a precise plan delta that can be applied to the same plan file.
• Continue the validate -> revise -> validate loop until PREFLIGHT: ALL CLEAR.
• Do not treat a partial summary as a valid substitute for the exact preflight signal.
• If the required atomic-executor handoff cannot be started or completed, stop and report blocked state; do not self-approve the plan.
• Before reporting completion, the target plan MUST pass the validate_orchestration_artifacts MCP tool with artifact_type: "plan" and artifact_path: <plan-path>.

Write Scope

Allowed writes:

• create or update the plan file,
• normalize an existing plan template into executor-compatible structure.

Forbidden writes:

• source code,
• tests,
• configuration outside the plan file,
• workflow execution artifacts.

Authoritative Plan Path Rule

When a caller provides an explicit target plan path:

• update that exact file in place,
• reuse that same file for all preflight revision iterations,
• do not create additional sibling plan.*.md files during the same planning cycle.

Determinism Gates

Reject and revise any plan that contains:

• bucket tasks,
• vague acceptance criteria,
• placeholder tokens,
• mixed discovery and implementation in one task,
• multi-outcome tasks that should be split.