playbook-architect

L1 Improvement

• Introduced Skill Forge sectioning with explicit guardrails, validation, and completion gates for playbook design.
• Added prompt-architect constraint extraction, ceiling discipline, and structured IO contracts for repeatable playbooks.

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LIBRARY-FIRST PROTOCOL (MANDATORY)

Before writing ANY code, you MUST check:

Step 1: Library Catalog

• Location: .claude/library/catalog.json
• If match >70%: REUSE or ADAPT

Step 2: Patterns Guide

• Location: .claude/docs/inventories/LIBRARY-PATTERNS-GUIDE.md
• If pattern exists: FOLLOW documented approach

Step 3: Existing Projects

• Location: D:\Projects\*
• If found: EXTRACT and adapt

Decision Matrix

Match	Action
Library >90%	REUSE directly
Library 70-90%	ADAPT minimally
Pattern exists	FOLLOW pattern
In project	EXTRACT
No match	BUILD (add to library after)

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STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE

Purpose

Create actionable playbooks with phased steps, triggers, roles, evidence requirements, and completion criteria that teams can execute consistently.

Trigger Conditions

• Positive: need a new playbook, refactoring an existing one, aligning multiple teams to a standard procedure.
• Negative/reroute: single prompt rewrites (prompt-architect) or agent creation (agent-creator/agent-creation).

Guardrails

• Define start/stop triggers and success metrics for each phase.
• Keep outputs English-only with explicit confidence ceilings.
• Include evidence checkpoints and rollback/abort conditions to avoid unsafe execution.
• Make playbooks tool-agnostic unless a tool requirement is explicit.

Execution Phases

1. Intake & Constraints: Capture objective, scope, actors, tools, and risks; classify HARD/SOFT/INFERRED constraints.
2. Structure: Lay out phases with entry/exit criteria, roles, and artifacts.
3. Detailing: Add step-by-step actions, decision points, and communication cadences.
4. Validation: Dry-run or table-top the playbook; record findings, gaps, and ceilings.
5. Delivery: Provide the finalized playbook, change log, and adoption guidance.

Pattern Recognition

• Incident response → emphasize triage, containment, comms, and postmortem steps.
• Release management → focus on pre-flight checks, gates, rollback plans.
• Research/analysis → define evidence collection, synthesis, and decision checkpoints.

Advanced Techniques

• Embed checklists and timeboxes for high-stress scenarios.
• Provide branching paths for common forks (e.g., severity levels).
• Include "stop the line" rules with authority levels.

Common Anti-Patterns

• Ambiguous ownership or missing role definitions.
• No rollback/abort conditions.
• Lack of evidence checkpoints or confidence ceilings.

Practical Guidelines

• Keep steps concise; prefer numbered lists and clear handoffs.
• Provide templates for logs/updates to ensure consistent communication.
• Note prerequisites and environmental assumptions explicitly.

Cross-Skill Coordination

• Upstream: prompt-architect for clarity; cognitive-lensing for alternative playbook framings.
• Parallel: meta-tools for tool alignment; base-template-generator for any supporting scripts.
• Downstream: agent-selector/agent-creator when playbooks require agent execution; recursive-improvement for continuous tuning.

MCP Requirements

• Optional memory MCP to store runbooks and lessons learned; tag WHO=playbook-architect-{session}, WHY=skill-execution.

Input/Output Contracts

inputs:
  objective: string  # required goal
  scope: string  # required boundaries
  actors: list[string]  # required roles/owners
  constraints: list[string]  # optional constraints and tools
outputs:
  playbook: file  # phased steps with triggers and checkpoints
  validation_notes: file  # dry-run findings and gaps
  adoption_plan: summary  # rollout steps and responsibilities

Recursive Improvement

• After first execution, run recursive-improvement on feedback to refine phases and guardrails.

Examples

• Draft an incident response playbook for P1 outages with severity-based branches and comms templates.
• Refine a release playbook to add feature flag rollouts and rollback checkpoints.

Troubleshooting

• Steps unclear → rewrite with subject-verb-object and explicit owners.
• Playbook too long → modularize by phase and severity.
• Missing safety nets → add abort conditions and rollback steps.

Completion Verification

• Phases include entry/exit criteria, roles, and success metrics.
• Evidence checkpoints and rollback/abort conditions documented.
• Confidence ceiling stated; validation notes captured.
• Adoption guidance provided (who uses it, when, and how).

Confidence: 0.70 (ceiling: inference 0.70) - Playbook Architect SOP rewritten with Skill Forge cadence and prompt-architect ceilings.