ijfw-plan-check

name	ijfw-plan-check
description	Donahoe Loop audit gate before execution. Trigger: 'audit plan', 'check plan', 'review plan', 'plan audit', 'plan check', 'before we build', 'before execution', 'validate the plan', 'is this plan solid', 'plan review'. Owns pre-execution audit intent -- fires before any foreign plan-checker.

Pre-execution audit gate. Runs before EXECUTE. Verdict is decisive.

Step 1 -- Locate the plan

Check in order: user-specified path, .ijfw/memory/plan.md, .planning/**/PLAN.md. If none found: No plan doc located. Paste the plan or give the path. Do not proceed.

Step 2 -- Goal-backward analysis

Read success criteria from .ijfw/memory/brief.md if present. For every task: does it trace to a criterion? Tasks with no traceable criterion are scope drift -- flag them.

Step 3 -- Scope leak check

Anything in the plan not in the brief is a scope leak. List each with task name + reason. If no brief exists, flag the absence as a risk.

Step 4 -- Risk surface

Flag tasks that are under-specified (no verify step, no file path), half-baked (depends on an undecided decision), or destructive (no rollback note).

Step 5 -- Dependency ordering

If task B needs task A's output but B is listed before A, flag the inversion with names.

Step 6 -- Verdict

Plan audit: <N> tasks reviewed
Goal alignment:   <N> trace to criteria / <N> need attention
Scope:            clean | <N> leak(s)
Risk surface:     <N> need sharpening
Dependency order: correct | <N> inversion(s)

Verdict: PASS | FLAG | BLOCK

Must-fix before execution (FLAG):
  1. <task> -- <file>:<line> -- <fix>

Rework needed (BLOCK):
  1. <issue> -- <reason>

• PASS: proceed to EXECUTE.
• FLAG: fix numbered items, then proceed.
• BLOCK: rework required. Do not execute until re-audited.

Step 6.5 -- Metrics block (machine-readable)

After the verdict text, emit this HTML comment block exactly:

<!-- plan-check-metrics
tasks_total: <int>
goal_alignment_pass: <int>
goal_alignment_fail: <int>
scope_leaks: <int>
budget_overrun: <bool>
dep_inversions: <int>
under_specified_pct: <int>
verdict: <PASS|FLAG|BLOCK>
-->

under_specified_pct: percentage of tasks that are missing ANY of:

• Verb-noun description (e.g., "Write failing test for X", not "fix stuff")
• Target file path(s)
• Verifiable success criterion

Populate each field from the counts gathered in Steps 2-6. budget_overrun is true if the plan exceeds the task ceiling for the time_budget bucket recorded in .ijfw/memory/plan.md frontmatter (HOUR_1=3, HOUR_2_3=7, HOUR_4_5=12, HOUR_6_PLUS=unlimited); false if no budget was set or ceiling not exceeded.

Step 7 -- Plan review modes (Deep only)

Fires ONLY for verdict FLAG or PASS. If verdict is BLOCK, skip Step 7 -- rework is needed, not a review mode.

Default mode selection (reads Step 6.5 metrics block deterministically)

if metrics.budget_overrun == true:
  default = REDUCTION
elif metrics.dep_inversions > 0 or metrics.under_specified_pct > 30:
  default = HOLD
elif metrics.goal_alignment_fail > 0 and metrics.scope_leaks == 0:
  default = SCOPE_EXPANSION
else:
  default = SELECTIVE

Tag the default with (Recommended) and a one-line basis citing the triggering metric:

• (Recommended) -- budget overrun: <N> tasks vs <BUCKET> ceiling <M>
• (Recommended) -- dep inversions: <N>; under-specified <P>%
• (Recommended) -- <N> goal-alignment gaps, no scope leaks
• (Recommended) -- plan passes audit; pick highest-value subset

Mode definitions (kind, not degree -- NO scores per gstack rule)

Mode	When it fits	Action
SCOPE EXPANSION	Brief has acceptance criteria with no matching tasks (>20%)	Surface gaps; user adds to brief; re-plan
SELECTIVE	Plan is right but too big for session	Pick top N tasks; rest go to backlog
HOLD	Plan has too many unknowns (under_specified_pct > 30, or dep_inversions > 0)	Return to Discovery/Research; re-surface later
REDUCTION	budget_overrun: true	Cut to smallest viable slice; defer rest

AskUserQuestion shape

{
  "question": "Plan is ready. How do you want to move forward?",
  "header": "Plan review",
  "options": [
    { "label": "Selective -- execute top N tasks", "description": "Pick highest-value items; rest go to backlog" },
    { "label": "Reduction -- cut to smallest viable slice", "description": "Trim to what fits the time budget" },
    { "label": "Scope expansion -- surface missing pieces", "description": "Add tasks for uncovered acceptance criteria" },
    { "label": "Hold -- return to discovery", "description": "Too many unknowns; research more before execute" }
  ]
}

Routing (each mode terminates with a specific next step)

• SELECTIVE: Follow-up AskUserQuestion (multiSelect) to pick which tasks; plan.md marks non-selected as backlog: true; execute runs only the selected subset.
• REDUCTION: Re-invoke planner with "cut to top tasks preserving highest-value deliverable"; re-audit; re-review.
• SCOPE_EXPANSION: Surface missing criteria in chat; ask user which to add; re-plan; re-audit. If user cannot answer a criterion, emit a plan-review ISSUE (see ISSUE vocabulary below).
• HOLD: Write .ijfw/state/plan-hold.md with timestamp, reason (which metrics trigger HOLD), and list of unresolved gaps. Tell user: "Plan on hold. Resume with /ijfw-plan resume when ready."

ISSUE vocabulary (unified ledger)

If any routing action produces a new unresolved gap, emit a structured ISSUE with kind: plan-review and persist to .ijfw/state/execute-issues.json (unified ledger shared with Phase 4; discriminated by kind field).

Example entry:

{
  "id": "iss_<N>",
  "kind": "plan-review",
  "mode": "SCOPE_EXPANSION",
  "gap": "User cannot specify success criterion for task 'X'",
  "status": "unresolved",
  "resolution": null,
  "created_at": "<ISO-8601>",
  "resolved_at": null
}

Day-1 protection: Every consumer treats a missing .ijfw/state/execute-issues.json as { "issues": [] }. Canonical JS read stub:

const path = ".ijfw/state/execute-issues.json";
const ledger = fs.existsSync(path) ? JSON.parse(fs.readFileSync(path, 'utf8')) : { issues: [] };

Do NOT reference plan-issues.json -- the unified ledger path is always execute-issues.json.

Closer: You have a <PASS|FLAG|BLOCK> -- <next action>.

Pre-dispatch gate (C14, mechanical)

Before the human-judgment review above, a deterministic rule pass runs via the validatePlan(planText, { strict }) library in mcp-server/src/orchestrator/plan-checker.js. It's already wired into the post-done runner that the orchestrator-LLM calls per S02 -- no new MCP tool (the cap is at 12/12). Callers can also invoke it directly when they want a fast pre-flight before paying the cost of full review.

The mechanical gate checks:

1. No placeholder tokens -- TBD, FIXME, XXX, [fill me in], <placeholder>, ??? (WARN; promoted to BLOCK in strict: true).
2. Completeness -- plan must declare at least one ## Task / ### Task / task_id: block (BLOCK if zero).
3. Acceptance criteria -- each task block mentions acceptance / done when / criteria / expected (WARN if missing).
4. No empty steps -- list items under 20 chars of substantive content (e.g. "implement the thing") get WARN.
5. Dependency sanity -- a task referencing depends: / blocked-by: must point at a task_id: declared in the same plan (BLOCK on dangling).
6. No test-skip contradiction -- a task that says "add tests" and "skip the tests" in the same block is a BLOCK.

On any BLOCK finding the dispatch is aborted and the orchestrator surfaces the findings to the user. WARN findings flow through to the human-judgment review (Steps 2-7 above) so the planner can decide whether they matter for this run.

This gate is intentionally syntactic / structural -- it catches the fast-and-obvious failure modes before spending tokens on the slower goal-alignment + scope-leak + risk-surface review that follows.

Output contract

Emit a gate-result block as the LAST content of your output. Nothing after it. Use gate="plan-check". Statuses: PASS | CONDITIONAL | WARN | FLAG | FAIL.

Format:

{
  "schema_version": "1.0",
  "gate": "plan-check",
  "status": "<STATUS>",
  "project_type": "<from project-type-detector>",
  "lenses": [],
  "affected_artifacts": [],
  "accounting": {"duration_ms": 0, "lenses_invoked": 0, "cost_usd": null},
  "remediation": [],
  "receipts_ref": null,
  "supersedes": null,
  "gate_id": "<gate-with-colons-replaced-by-dashes>-<ts>-<rand4>",
  "emitted_at": "<ISO-8601>"
}