em:plan

Compatibility: If AskUserQuestion is unavailable, present options as a numbered list and wait for the user's reply. If Task is unavailable, run parallel steps sequentially. The context: fork and agent: frontmatter fields are Claude Code-specific — on OpenCode and VS Code Copilot they are ignored and the skill runs inline using the current model.

Critical Principles

• Value first, descope ruthlessly. — Ship the most value in the shortest time, even at the cost of product requirements. Every descoped item must be surfaced and confirmed, never silently dropped. The ideal plan balances short-term delivery speed with long-term investment in stability and continued engineering velocity.
• Balance product needs and engineering constraints. — Product requirements define desired outcomes; engineering constraints define what is achievable. When they conflict, negotiate scope explicitly rather than hiding technical debt. Flag any product requirement that carries hidden engineering cost.
• Outcomes, not deliverables. — The objective must state what changes for users or the business, not what gets built. "Ship the auth refactor" is a deliverable. "Reduce auth-related support tickets by 30%" is an outcome. If you cannot state the outcome, flag it before planning tasks.
• Capacity is already allocated. — A plan at 100% capacity is a plan that cannot absorb a single interrupt, bug, or scope discovery. Leave 20–30% unplanned. If the user insists on full allocation, flag it explicitly rather than silently accepting it.
• Every dependency is a schedule bet. — Any task blocked on another team, external API, or unresolved design decision is a risk multiplier, not just a sequencing note. Name the dependency, name who owns it, and name what happens if it slips.
• Mermaid for all visual structure. — Use Mermaid diagrams for timelines, milestone maps, and dependency graphs. Never use ASCII art for structured diagrams.

Anti-Patterns

• ❌ Objective stated as a feature list: Writing the objective as a list of things to build ("Add SSO, add MFA, add session management") rather than a goal. → Ask: what user problem or business metric does this change? Restate as outcome before proceeding.
• ❌ Tasks generated before design/SA is resolved: Creating implement-phase tasks when Design/SA status is still open. → Design and SA decisions gate implementation scope. If design is deferred, create a design milestone task first; do not generate develop.md tasks that assume a design that hasn't been made.
• ❌ Full-capacity milestone planning: Filling every sprint or milestone to 100% of estimated capacity. → Apply the 70% rule: plan to 70% of capacity, leave 30% for discovered work. Flag to the user if their scope requires >80% utilization.
• ❌ Acceptance criteria that cannot be verified in under 5 minutes: ACs like "the feature works correctly" or "performance is acceptable." → Each AC must name a specific, observable condition a human can check in under 5 minutes without specialized tooling. Rewrite vague ACs before writing to disk.