| name | orca-checkpoint |
| description | Pause work at explicit decision points, gather inspection context, and record approve/reject/resume outcomes. |
ORCA Framework Checkpoint
What This Skill Is
A practical workflow for pausing risky or ambiguous work so a human can inspect and decide what happens next.
Trigger
Use for scope expansion, destructive edits, dependency changes, architecture pivots, ambiguous verification, or ship-readiness uncertainty.
Do Not Trigger
Do not force checkpoints for already-approved, low-risk work.
Required Inputs
- Triggering risk or ambiguity
- Current state summary
Optional Inputs
- Shared state artifact
- Trace summary
- Approval context
Exact Workflow
- Pause at a clean boundary.
- Write a checkpoint request with the decision needed.
- Link the artifacts a human should inspect.
- Record the checkpoint decision.
- Resume only under the recorded decision or revision.
Expected Outputs
- Filled
templates/checkpoint-request.md
- Filled
templates/checkpoint-decision.md
Quality Bar
The checkpoint should make the decision easy to inspect and easy to resume from.
Common Failure Modes
- pausing without clarifying the decision needed
- resuming without recording the decision
- creating process overhead where no real risk exists
Relationship To Other ORCA Framework Skills And Commands
Works with orca-approve, orca-state, orca-inspect, and orca-ship.
