Design Dialogue Skill

Standard workflow only. If task_complexity is simple and workflow mode is Express, do not activate this skill. Simple tasks use the Express workflow, which does not activate design-dialogue. Return to the Express Workflow section.

Activate this skill when beginning Phase 1 of Maestro orchestration. Immediately call enter_plan_mode to enter Plan Mode for the design phase. If the tool call fails or is unavailable, inform the user that Plan Mode is not enabled and provide activation instructions: "Plan Mode gives you a dedicated review surface for designs and plans. To enable it, run: gemini --settings and set experimental.plan to true, then restart this session." Ask the user if they want to pause and enable it, or continue without Plan Mode. If continuing without Plan Mode, use ask_user with type: 'yesno' for design approvals and type: 'choice' for approach selection. This skill provides the structured methodology for conducting design conversations that converge on approved architectural designs.

User confirmation sequence: Phase 1 entry triggers two user-facing confirmations — first the activate_skill consent dialog (required for non-builtin skills), then the enter_plan_mode transition. Both are expected; do not treat the second confirmation as redundant or skip it.

Design Depth Gate

Before asking any design questions, present the user with a depth selector to control the level of reasoning rigour applied throughout the design phase. Use ask_user with type: 'choice' to offer three modes. Lead with Standard as the recommended default.

Modes:

• Quick — Current reasoning behavior. One question per topic, pros/cons on approaches, standard design sections. No enrichment steps, no decision matrix, no reasoning annotations. Choose this when you already have clarity and want to move fast. (The depth selector prompt itself is the only new conversational step — once Quick is selected, all subsequent behavior matches pre-change behavior exactly.)
• Standard (Recommended) — Adds assumption surfacing after each answer and a decision matrix during approach evaluation. Design sections gain rationale annotations tying decisions to project context. The default for most work.
• Deep — Full treatment. Follow-up probing into implications, assumption surfacing with confirmation, trade-off narration on each choice, decision matrix with scoring, rationale annotations, per-decision alternatives, and full requirement traceability. Choose this for high-stakes or ambiguous tasks.

Depth propagation: Remember the user's chosen depth mode and apply it consistently to all subsequent steps in this skill. The depth mode is not re-prompted — it is set once and carried forward. If the user's answer to the depth prompt is ambiguous, default to Standard.