ralplan

name	ralplan
description	Produce an implementation-ready plan with risks, acceptance criteria, and test shape, reviewed by architect and critic subagents until consensus. Use with /ralplan when edits need planning first.

Ralplan

Use /ralplan when the task needs planning before edits.

By default, ralplan is a consensus workflow: the draft plan is reviewed by the architect subagent and then the critic subagent, and the plan is revised until the critic approves it. Only skip the review loop when the user explicitly asks for a quick, unreviewed plan.

When to use

• The change touches multiple files or components
• There are unclear trade-offs or risks
• You need alignment before implementation

Steps

1. Summarise the target result and constraints in 2–3 sentences

2. List implementation slices in execution order — each slice should be independently verifiable

3. Define acceptance criteria — what must be true when done

4. Define test shape — which tests to write or run, what they cover

5. Call out risks — what could go wrong, tradeoffs chosen, alternatives rejected. For any auth, security, or data-handling feature, the plan must name the security specifics even if the request didn't: secret/token expiry, single-use / replay protection, and enumeration / rate-limiting. Leaving these implicit is how the plan ships a hole.

6. Architect review (default): the architect and critic agents must be installed (omp setup / omp update copies them to ~/.copilot/agents — if --agent critic fails, tell the user to re-run setup rather than skipping the gate). Run the architect agent headlessly, passing the full task statement and draft plan inline via a quoted heredoc. Nested copilot -p runs must set OMP_MEMORY_MODE=off (otherwise each run triggers memory-review) and must NOT pass --allow-all-tools (both agents are read-only by contract):

   OMP_MEMORY_MODE=off copilot -p "$(cat <<'EOF'
   # Task
   <full task statement>
   
   # Draft plan
   <the draft plan>
   
   Review the plan above as the architect. Return your findings.
   EOF
   )" --agent architect
   

   It must return a steelman antithesis, at least one real tradeoff tension, and a soundness check of anything load-bearing. Wait for this run to finish before step 7.

7. Critic review (default): run the critic agent the same way, feeding it the task statement, the draft plan, and the architect output from step 6:

   OMP_MEMORY_MODE=off copilot -p "$(cat <<'EOF'
   # Task
   <full task statement>
   
   # Draft plan
   <the draft plan>
   
   # Architect review
   <the architect findings from step 6>
   
   Decide whether this plan is actionable. Return OKAY or REJECT with concrete fixes.
   EOF
   )" --agent critic
   

   It must verify every referenced existing file (paths the plan marks as files to create are allowed), check that acceptance criteria are testable, and return OKAY or REJECT with concrete fixes.

8. Re-review loop (max 3 iterations): on any non-OKAY critic verdict, you (the main session) revise the plan using the architect and critic feedback, then repeat steps 6–7. If 3 iterations pass without OKAY, the consensus gate has failed — stop: present the best version and the unresolved objections, and do NOT proceed to implementation from a rejected plan. The user decides whether to abandon, re-plan, or explicitly override.

9. Stop at the plan unless the user explicitly asked to implement

If a nested copilot run fails, hangs, or returns empty output, that is a gate blocker, not a pass: retry once, then stop and report — never treat a missing review as approval.

Important: Steps 6 and 7 are two separate copilot --agent runs, in order — architect first, then critic with the architect's output in hand. Never merge them into one run or ask a single agent to play both roles; only a completed critic OKAY satisfies the consensus gate. (If the copilot binary isn't on PATH, the agents can't run — tell the user rather than skipping the gate.)

Output

• Plan — ordered implementation slices with file-level specificity
• Tests — acceptance criteria and test shape for each slice
• Risks — tradeoffs, concerns, and what was deliberately not done
• Review — the architect's findings and the critic's verdict (default loop only)
• Ready for — recommended next skill: /team, /ralph, /ultrawork, or direct edit