create-implementation-plan

name	create-implementation-plan
description	Generate a structured implementation plan from project requirements with decomposed tasks, milestones, dependencies, and acceptance criteria. Use when starting a new project or planning a new development wave that should produce docs/tasks/task-package.yaml and issue-ready task files.

Create Implementation Plan Skill

Purpose

Generate a structured planning package from project requirements. The package must include shared project context plus a deterministic task manifest that can be reviewed by humans, converted to Linear, and executed by implementation agents without hidden chat history.

When To Use

Use this skill when a team is ready to turn a product idea, PRD, design note, research brief, or follow-on development request into implementation tasks.

For iterative projects, create a new planning wave instead of rewriting the identity of an already-published wave. A planning wave is a named round of planning and decomposition such as bootstrap-mvp, hosted-alpha, or rich-client-hosted-mode.

Required Inputs

Before generating files, gather or infer:

• Project or planning-wave name.
• Project description and success criteria.
• Key requirements and features.
• Technical constraints and preferences.
• Existing PRDs, architecture notes, source files, external links, and research.
• Existing task and Linear context when this is a follow-on planning wave.

Process

Step 1: Gather Context

Collect relevant source material and synthesize it before creating tasks:

• Existing design documents and PRDs.
• Stakeholder requirements and success criteria.
• Technical research findings.
• Reference implementations or public API documentation.
• Existing repo conventions, architecture, and task history.

Add targeted supplemental research only where it improves the task plan.

Step 2: Generate Shared Context And Architecture Documentation

Create or update these files when the project needs them:

AGENTS.md - Persistent implementation context for coding agents:

• Project mission and scope.
• Non-negotiable constraints and architectural invariants.
• Cross-cutting definitions and repository conventions.
• Commands, environment expectations, and references to deeper docs.

If AGENTS.md already exists, refine it while preserving useful project-specific guidance.

README.md - Human-facing project overview:

• Problem statement and goals.
• Setup and primary workflows.
• High-level architecture summary.
• Links to detailed docs and task plans.

docs/architecture.md - System architecture:

• Component breakdown.
• Data flow.
• Integration points.
• Technology choices and rationale.

docs/decisions/ - Architecture Decision Records when decisions need a durable record.

Step 3: Create The Task Package Manifest

Create docs/tasks/task-package.yaml. This file is the canonical machine-readable input for convert-tasks-to-linear.

Use this shape:

planningWave: rich-client-hosted-mode
tasksDir: docs/tasks
milestones:
  - "M1: Gateway And Stream Contract"
  - "M2: Shared Client And Desktop Alpha"
tasks:
  - id: TASK-001
    file: docs/tasks/001-current-gateway-inventory.md
  - id: TASK-002
    file: docs/tasks/002-gateway-schemas.md

Rules:

• planningWave is a stable string identifier for this planning round.
• tasksDir is the directory containing task files.
• milestones contains exact Linear milestone names.
• tasks is the complete list of task files for this wave.
• Task discovery reads the manifest task list.

Step 4: Generate Implementation Tasks

Create one Markdown file per task. File names may follow a readable convention such as 001-brief-description.md, but the manifest is the source of truth.

Each task file must include this frontmatter:

---
id: TASK-001
title: Human-readable task title
milestone: "M1: Gateway And Stream Contract"
priority: 3
estimate: 3
blockedBy: []
blocks: []
parent: null
---

Field rules:

• id must be unique within task-package.yaml.
• milestone must exactly match one entry in task-package.yaml.
• priority uses Linear-compatible numeric priority: 1=Urgent, 2=High, 3=Normal, 4=Low.
• estimate is a numeric story-point estimate.
• blockedBy and blocks contain task IDs from the same manifest.
• parent is null for top-level issues or a task ID for a Linear sub-issue.

Use this body structure:

## Summary

One or two sentences describing what this task accomplishes.

## Scope

### In scope

- Specific item 1
- Specific item 2

### Out of scope

- Explicitly excluded item 1

## Deliverables

- File or artifact 1
- File or artifact 2

## Acceptance Criteria

- [ ] Criterion 1: measurable outcome
- [ ] Criterion 2: measurable outcome

## Test Plan

- Test command or verification step 1
- Test command or verification step 2

## Context

- Relevant repo paths to inspect or modify.
- Docs, specs, or external sources to read first.
- Parent task, blockers, or sibling work that matter.

## Definition of Ready

- [ ] Hidden assumptions from prior discussion are written down.
- [ ] Required files, docs, and dependencies are explicitly referenced.
- [ ] A coding agent could begin execution without additional planning context.

## Notes

Any additional context, references, or gotchas.

Step 5: Generate The Human Milestone Index

Create docs/tasks/milestones.md as the human-readable overview. It should use the same milestone names as task-package.yaml.

# Project Milestones

## M1: Gateway And Stream Contract

Goal: Establish the versioned gateway and stream contract.

Tasks:

- TASK-001 Current Gateway Inventory
- TASK-002 Gateway Schemas

milestones.md can include goals and explanatory prose. Conversion relies on task-package.yaml.

Step 6: Validate Completeness

Before finishing, check that:

• Every manifest task file exists.
• Every task has required frontmatter and body sections.
• Every task ID is unique.
• Every dependency and parent reference points to a manifest task.
• blockedBy, blocks, and parent references point to manifest tasks.
• The dependency graph has no cycles.
• Each task is independently implementable.
• Acceptance criteria and test plans are measurable.

Expected Output

After completing this skill, the repository should contain:

AGENTS.md
README.md
docs/
├── architecture.md
├── decisions/
└── tasks/
    ├── task-package.yaml
    ├── milestones.md
    ├── 001-bootstrap.md
    ├── 002-setup-testing.md
    └── ...

Next Steps

After generating the package:

1. Ask the user to review docs/tasks/task-package.yaml, docs/tasks/milestones.md, and the task files.
2. Use convert-tasks-to-linear to validate, dry-run, and publish the planning wave.
3. Verify hierarchy, blockers, and project placement in Linear.
4. Begin execution with opensymphony run.