| name | st-create-plan |
| description | Use when the user asks to draft, scope, or write up a new Strikethroo plan for a work order, feature, or initiative in this repository — triggers include create plan, new plan, plan this, scope a plan, strikethroo plan. Do not use to decompose an existing plan into tasks, to execute a plan, or for generic brainstorming outside Strikethroo. |
st-create-plan
Drive the end-to-end creation of a new Strikethroo plan for the user's
repository. The skill is assistant-agnostic and self-contained: every script
it invokes lives under this skill's scripts/ directory and is referenced
by relative path.
Inputs
The user's request supplies the work order. Treat it as the only authoritative
source of intent. Do not invent answers to clarifying questions — prompt the
user instead.
Operating Procedure
1. Locate the strikethroo root
Run scripts/find-strikethroo-root.cjs from the user's working directory.
The script walks up looking for .ai/strikethroo/.init-metadata.json and
prints the absolute path of the resolved root on success.
If the script exits non-zero, the working directory is not inside an
initialized strikethroo workspace. Stop and ask the user to run the project
initializer (e.g. npx strikethroo init) before continuing. Do
not attempt to create a plan outside of a valid root.
For every subsequent step, treat the path printed by this script as <root>.
2. Load project context
Read <root>/config/STRIKETHROO.md for the directory structure conventions
this project uses. Read <root>/config/hooks/PRE_PLAN.md and execute the
instructions it contains before proceeding. Read
<root>/config/templates/PLAN_TEMPLATE.md so the plan you emit conforms
to its structure.
Also read <root>/config/shared/clarification-gate.md and
<root>/config/shared/anti-rationalization.md. The steps below require you to
apply them.
3. Analyze the work order
Identify:
- Objective and end goal.
- Scope and explicit boundaries.
- Success criteria.
- Dependencies, prerequisites, blockers.
- Technical requirements and constraints.
4. Clarification loop
If any critical context is missing, ask the user targeted questions. Keep
looping until you have no further questions. Explicitly confirm whether
backwards compatibility is required. Never invent answers; never paper over
a missing answer.
If the user declines to clarify a blocking question, stop and report the
plan as needing clarification. Do not produce a partial plan.
Follow the clarification cadence in <root>/config/shared/clarification-gate.md.
Apply <root>/config/shared/anti-rationalization.md to this rationalization table:
| You catch yourself thinking… | The binding rule |
|---|
| "I can reasonably assume the answer." | An assumption is not an answer. Ask the question; never invent answers. |
| "Asking again is annoying." | A question the user can decline is recoverable; a silent wrong assumption is not. Ask. |
| "The user implied it, so it's settled." | An implication is not a confirmation. Surface it as a question and get an explicit answer. |
5. Allocate the next plan ID
Run scripts/get-next-plan-id.cjs to obtain the next available plan ID.
Pass <root> as the first argument when invoking the script from a working
directory that is not inside the project, otherwise no argument is required.
The script prints a single integer.
Compute the zero-padded form for directory naming ({padded-id}--{slug})
and use the unpadded integer in the plan frontmatter and the final summary.
6. Emit the plan
Write the plan to:
<root>/plans/{padded-id}--{slug}/plan-{padded-id}--{slug}.md
The output must:
- Conform to
<root>/config/templates/PLAN_TEMPLATE.md, including required
YAML frontmatter fields (at minimum id, summary, created).
- Contain the standard sections from the template body.
- Use Markdown, not free-form prose.
- Avoid time estimates, task lists, or code samples — those belong to the
later task-generation step.
The <slug> is derived from the plan summary: lowercase, alphanumeric and
hyphens only, collapsed, trimmed.
7. Run post-plan hook
Execute <root>/config/hooks/POST_PLAN.md after the plan file is written.
8. Emit the structured summary
Conclude with exactly this block as the final output:
---
Plan Summary:
- Plan ID: [numeric-id]
- Plan File: [absolute-path-to-plan-file]
The summary is consumed by downstream automation; keep the format exact.
Failure Modes
- No strikethroo root found. Stop, instruct the user to initialize the
project. Do not write any files.
- User refuses to answer a clarifying question that blocks planning.
Report
needs-clarification and stop. Do not produce a plan.
- Plan ID script fails. Re-check the resolved root and re-run. If it
continues to fail, surface stderr to the user and stop — do not guess an ID.
- Plan directory already exists for the allocated ID. Re-run the
next-plan-id script (a concurrent run may have advanced it) and retry once.
If the conflict persists, stop and report.
