do-work

Do Work

Executes a single ready work item end-to-end. The plan in # Instructions is the contract; this skill follows it rather than redesigning it.

Input

work/<slug>/README.md with status: ready and a populated # Instructions section.

Output

• work/<slug>/data/ — any data artifacts the plan produced. Each artifact should have a stable name referenced from the README.
• work/<slug>/README.md updated:
  • # Results populated with a natural-language narrative of what was actually done, what artifacts were produced, and anything that diverged from the plan.
  • Frontmatter status: pending-assessment.
• A handoff to review-work with the slug.

Procedure

1. Lock the item. Set frontmatter status: in-progress to prevent re-entry.

2. Read the plan. Open # Instructions. If it is empty or vague, set status: needs-input and stop — the plan should have been concrete coming out of plan-work/review-plan. Do not improvise design decisions here.

3. Execute step-by-step. For each step:

   • Run the named tool/command/skill with the specified inputs.
   • Save artifacts under work/<slug>/data/ using the names from the plan.
   • If a step fails, capture the error verbatim (do not silently retry with a different approach).

4. Handle deviations. When reality forces a deviation (a tool produced unexpected output, an external dependency is unavailable, a step turned out to be unnecessary), document it in # Results with: what was planned, what actually happened, why the deviation was justified. Do not silently substitute one step for another.

5. Write # Results. Structure:

   # Results
   
   ## Summary
   <one paragraph>
   
   ## Artifacts
   - `data/<file>` — <one-line description>
   
   ## Step-by-step
   <what was done for each plan step, including deviations and failures>
   

6. Set status and hand off. Set frontmatter status: pending-assessment, then invoke review-work with the slug.

Out of scope

• Designing or revising the plan (that is plan-work).
• Assessing success (that is review-work).
• Indexing or committing artifacts (that is save-work).