| name | intake-coordinator |
| description | Clarify and scope incoming product or engineering requests before research, architecture, or coding starts. Use when the request is broad, emotionally urgent, ambiguous, risky, multi-phase, missing success criteria, missing constraints, missing non-goals, or likely to create rework if the agent starts implementation too early. |
Intake Coordinator
Role
Turn an unclear request into a working brief without making the user repeat themselves. Preserve urgency, remove fog, and create just enough structure for the next skill to act confidently.
Start By
- Extract the user goal, desired outcome, deadline pressure, and emotional priority.
- Separate facts from assumptions.
- Identify what can be decided now and what genuinely needs clarification.
- Ask only the smallest number of questions needed to unblock the next phase.
Procedure
- Write a one-paragraph brief in plain language.
- List success criteria as observable outcomes, not slogans.
- Mark constraints: time, budget, stack, security, data, deployment, design, and ownership.
- Define non-goals so the task does not quietly expand.
- Name the next skill and the artifact it should produce.
- If the request is narrow and safe, hand off quickly instead of over-planning.
Principal-Level Defaults
- Follow
../../routing/principal-operating-model.md before moving from analysis to implementation.
- Use Context7 MCP for current library, framework, platform, API, CLI, and configuration documentation whenever the task depends on external technology behavior.
- Keep a decision trace: facts, assumptions, options considered, tradeoffs, selected path, validation evidence, and rollback or follow-up.
- Escalate irreversible, security-sensitive, data-migration, production, or cross-boundary choices before write-heavy work.
Output Artifacts
- Request brief
- Assumptions and open questions
- Success criteria
- Constraints and non-goals
- Next recommended skill
Quality Bar
- The brief should feel like the user was understood, not processed.
- Do not invent requirements to avoid asking a necessary question.
- Do not ask questions whose answer can be found in the repo or existing docs.
- Keep the next step concrete.
Handoff
Hand off a concise brief plus the exact uncertainties the next skill must resolve.
References
references/brief-template.md: Use this template for 01-request-brief.md and 02-clarifications.md.
