SCOPE = the whole project. Use for a FULL-PROJECT health review — runs a zero-question deterministic core with optional adversarial wings. Creates AUD and CHL artifacts. Triggers when the user says "audit the project," "health check," "how healthy is the project," "review the whole project," "review overall spec quality," or asks for a comprehensive project-wide assessment. NOT for: single-artifact review (use specflow-artifact-review), reviewing blast radius of recent changes (use specflow-change-impact-review), or quick spot-checks of one file.
Use to start the SpecFlow requirements discovery workflow — the entry point for any new feature, enhancement, or specification task. Triggers when the user wants to start something NEW — "add a feature," "build a NEW [X]," "I want to create [Z]," "we need [capability]," "capture requirements for," or "what should the system do?" Use this FIRST when the idea is new and no REQ exists yet (if REQs are already approved and stories are queued for coding, use specflow-execute). Also triggers for reverse lifecycle: "rethink the requirements," "revise the requirements," "go back to requirements," or when the user wants to revisit specs after planning or executing. This is step 1 of the core lifecycle — use it FIRST for any new feature or change that needs specification, BEFORE specflow-plan and specflow-execute. NOT for: data exploration, data cleaning, researching technologies, prototyping, running experiments, or technical prep work unrelated to requirements authoring.
Use when setting up SpecFlow in a new or existing project for the FIRST TIME. Triggers when the user says "set up SpecFlow," "initialize the project," or "get started with SpecFlow." Conversational bootstrap that scaffolds directories, installs hooks, generates CI workflows, and recommends next steps. NOT for: re-initializing an already-configured project, adding packs to an existing setup (use specflow-adapter), or routine configuration changes.
REQUIRED after discover when REQs are approved. Breaks approved requirements into architecture (ARCH), detailed design (DDD), and stories (STORY). Triggers when the user says "design the architecture," "plan the implementation," "break this down," or when REQs are approved and the user is ready to move forward. Also triggers for reverse lifecycle: "rethink the architecture," "revise the plan," "go back to planning," or when the user wants to revisit architecture after executing. This is step 2 of the core lifecycle — use it BEFORE any implementation begins. NOT for: quick bug fixes (use specflow-execute with lean path), research tasks, or infrastructure setup.
REQUIRED to release a version. Produces a baseline, generates change records (DEC), runs a quick audit, and presents a release summary. Triggers when the user says "release," "ship," "publish v," or asks to tag a version. This is the final step of the core lifecycle — use it when implementation is complete and verified. NOT for: mid-development checkpoints (use specflow-audit or specflow-artifact-review).
Use when unsure which SpecFlow step to run next, or for a quick "where am I / what's next" orientation. Runs `specflow brief --next` for a deterministic next-step recommendation, asks ONE disambiguating question only if intent is ambiguous, and points at the right /specflow-* skill. Triggers on "what should I do," "what's next," "what now," "where do I start," "where are we," "what's the status," "continue," "resume," "remind me where we are," "help me get started," "I'm stuck," "point me in the right direction," or any request that doesn't clearly match a specific lifecycle or review skill. This is the safe default when no other skill clearly fits — prefer routing over guessing. NOT a replacement for the lifecycle skills (discover/plan/execute/ship) or the review skills — it only routes you to the correct one. Prefer this over guessing when the user's intent is vague.
Use when the user wants to run autonomous research loops, set up competitions, review experiment findings, explore competitions, run experiments overnight, set up a benchmark, or promote a deployable finding / productionize a winning experiment back into core requirements. Activates the autoresearch pack's competition-scoped experimentation with knowledge condensation.
Live-operations workflow for the ops pack (RUN + MONITOR). Use when the user deploys or runs something live, monitors a live system's health/metrics, captures ephemeral/live data that won't be reproducible, or investigates drift. Creates a RUN (deployment frozen at deploy-time) and appends MONITOR observations (timestamped metric/signal journal). Triggers on "deploy", "go live", "monitor this run", "capture live odds/data", "is it drifting", "check LIVE health / is the deployed run drifting". NOT for offline experiments (use /specflow-autoresearch EXPT), writing app code (use /specflow-execute STORY), requirements authoring (use /specflow-discover), or a project-wide spec/health audit (use /specflow-audit — "health check" means project health there, not live-system health here).