Spawn quest-planner agent to analyze the goal:
```
Task tool with subagent_type: quest-planner
```
The planner returns:
- Quest name (short slug, e.g., "cost-tracking")
- QUEST.md content (goal, repos, context)
- PHASES.md content (ordered phases with goals)
Create quest directory: .planning/YYYY-MM-DD-<quest-name>/
- Date prefix uses today's date for chronological sorting
- Quest name slug from planner output (lowercase, hyphenated)
Write quest files:
- QUEST.md — Goal, linked repos, status (active), created date
- PHASES.md — Ordered phases, all status pending
- STATE.md — Current phase, activity log
- config.json — {"maxRetries": 3, "commitFormat": "conventional"}
- phases/ — Empty directory for phase plans
Add .planning/ to .gitignore if not already present
Display quest summary and next steps

Output Files

QUEST.md

# Quest: Quest Name

**Goal:** Goal description here.

**Status:** active

**Repos:**
- /path/to/repo (primary)

**Created:** YYYY-MM-DD

---

## Context

Detailed context from planner analysis.

## Key Dependencies

Phase dependency notes if any.

PHASES.md

# Phases

## Phase 1: Name
Goal: What this phase achieves
Status: `pending`

## Phase 2: Name
Goal: What this phase achieves
Status: `pending`

Phase states: pending → completed (or checkpoint if stuck after maxRetries).

STATE.md

# Quest State

Current Phase: 1
Quest Status: active

## Activity Log

- YYYY-MM-DD: Quest created with N phases

config.json

{
  "maxRetries": 3,
  "commitFormat": "conventional"
}

Directory Structure

.planning/
├── 2026-02-16-cost-tracking/
│   ├── QUEST.md
│   ├── PHASES.md
│   ├── STATE.md
│   ├── config.json
│   └── phases/
└── archive/
    ├── 2026-02-14-auth-system/
    └── 2026-02-10-loop-hardening/

Prerequisites

Goal description provided by user

Next Steps

After creating a quest, use:

/quest-run to run the automated phase loop
/quest-status to check progress

quest-create

Quest Create Skill

Usage

Behavior