| name | autoplan |
| description | Automatically decomposes an incoming brief or request into a routed work plan. Given a task description, identifies required agents, determines sequencing, creates the first issue, and reports the plan back to the requester. Primary CEO intake tool for complex requests. |
Autoplan
Autoplan is the CEO's intake processor. When a new brief arrives that requires more than one agent, autoplan breaks it down and creates the first action without waiting for human micro-management.
Input
Any task description. Examples:
- "Write an article about OWASP API Top 10 with an interactive demo"
- "Fix the broken image on the Playwright article and syndicate the fix"
- "Add dark mode support to the site"
- "Rotate the Hetzner SSH deploy key"
Process
1. Classify the request
Pure content → route to EIC
Pure engineering → route to CTO
Cross-cutting → route to both with explicit lead
For cross-cutting, identify the lead based on: which domain is the primary deliverable? An article that needs a React component is content-lead (EIC). A new UI feature that requires updated article content is engineering-lead (CTO).
2. Decompose into stages
For each involved agent, define:
- What they produce (the handoff artifact)
- What triggers them (the upstream artifact they depend on)
- What they hand off to (the downstream agent)
3. Identify the critical path
Which sequence of agents determines the overall completion time? That's the critical path. Flag any parallel work that can happen off the critical path.
4. Create the first issue
Create an issue for the first step only. Include in the issue body:
- The full autoplan (so the assigned agent has context)
- The acceptance criteria for this specific step
- A reference to what comes next (so the agent knows what to produce)
5. Report back
Post a summary to the originating issue or root company issue:
## Autoplan — {brief title}
**Type:** Content / Engineering / Cross-cutting (Lead: {agent})
**Critical path:** {Agent A} → {Agent B} → {Agent C} → {human PR approval}
**Parallel work:** {Agent D} works in parallel after step 1
**First issue created:** #{issue-number} assigned to {agent}
**Estimated completion:** {rough estimate based on pipeline history}
Autoplan Templates
Standard article (no interactive component):
EIC → News Researcher (if research needed) OR Writer (if brief complete)
→ Translator (UA→EN)
→ Editor (reviews both)
→ Designer (cover + OG) ← parallel with Writer/Editor
→ Publisher (sets live)
→ QA (post-publish gate) ← parallel
→ Distribution Manager ← after QA gate
Article with interactive React component:
EIC (lead) → Writer (article content)
CTO (parallel) → Frontend Engineer (component)
→ Designer (assets)
Both converge at: Editor (full article + component review)
→ Publisher → QA → Distribution Manager
Infrastructure change:
CTO → DevOps (implementation)
→ Security Auditor (verify no new attack surface) ← parallel
→ QA (post-deploy smoke test)
→ Human PR approval required
When NOT to Autoplan
- Single-agent tasks: just create the issue and assign it directly
- Tasks already in progress: don't re-autoplan work that's underway
- Trivial fixes (typo, missing alt text): create issue, assign Frontend Engineer, done