| name | plan-execute |
| description | Plan and execute multi-step changes with dependent steps, cross-layer contracts, parallel slices, or high risk. Lightweight in-session plans and direct implementation do not need this skill. |
Plan & Execute
Plan only when dependencies, contracts, risk, or handoffs justify a durable artifact; otherwise use a lightweight in-session plan:
## Goal
## Assumptions
## Steps
1. [change + focused verification]
## Final validation
Save durable plans to docs/plans/YYYY-MM-DD-<feature>.md. If this plan follows a grill-me handoff, use its Handover Artifact (Settled Decisions, Explicit Assumptions, Non-Goals) as plan inputs instead of re-deriving settled context.
Full plan (parallel / high-risk / cross-session)
First inspect the actual code, tests, task-runner targets (e.g. Makefile), and conventions; record unknowns instead of inventing architecture. Break work into vertical slices — one complete, independently verifiable behavior, never a horizontal "write all handlers" phase.
Plan header: Goal (one sentence), Architecture (fit with existing layers), Validation (task-runner commands, e.g. Makefile), plus a dependency table (Task | Type AFK/HITL | Blocked by | Parallelizable with).
Per task, include only what applies:
### Task N: [slice name]
Type / Blocked by / Areas (layer terms)
Goal: one or two sentences
Acceptance criteria: observable behavior + key error/edge cases
Files: exact Create/Modify paths
Contracts: signatures or schemas downstream tasks need — no implementations
Tests: primary + boundary behavior; E2E only if the harness covers it
Validation: focused test command + project validation target
Risk controls (high-risk only): failure modes, rollout/migration order, rollback trigger and steps, data compatibility
Coverage check before handoff: every requirement mapped, no dependency cycles, parallel tasks share no files, validation commands come from the project's task runner.
Wave execution (parallel slices)
Dispatch subagents only when all hold: per-slice goal/criteria/allowed-files/validation; acyclic dependencies with stable prerequisite contracts; non-overlapping write sets; parallelism saves more than context-transfer costs. Otherwise execute sequentially.
Per wave:
- Resolve blocking user decisions before dispatch.
- Dispatch the fewest useful non-conflicting implementers. Give each the full task text, allowed files, project conventions, and exact contracts from completed prerequisites.
- Inspect actual diffs, not agent reports; run each slice's focused validation plus one integration check per wave.
- Fix integration failures with the narrowest owner; escalate after repeated failures rather than looping.
The coordinator verifies each slice's acceptance criteria against the actual diff — there is no separate slice-level spec reviewer. High-risk or public-contract changesets get exactly one independent code-review-expert pass (via the code-reviewer agent, per AGENTS.md) at the end, never per slice. Never: parallel writers on the same file, silent write-set expansion, or claimed validation that did not run. For dependent work, pass the generated artifact's exact declarations — if they differ from the plan, stop and resolve before dispatching downstream.
Handoff
Confirm acceptance criteria, run integrated validation once (the project's full validation command, e.g. make all, or the risk-appropriate subset), inspect the combined diff, report deviations and residual risk. Changeset review belongs to the invoking workflow; do not duplicate it.
