Planning Phase Skill

ROOT AGENT ONLY - Spawns project-manager agent, runs only from root Claude Code agent.

Purpose: Convert enriched user stories into execution plan with parallel waves Trigger: After architect annotations complete (design-phase) Input: storiesFolder (string), storyFiles (string[]), complexity (int) Output: executionPlan with waves, tasks, dependencies, and agent assignments

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Workflow

1. Load enriched stories

• Read all story files from storiesFolder
• Extract: story ID, title, dependencies (Depends On field), parallelizable_with annotations
• Build dependency graph

2. Spawn project-manager agent

• Read all enriched story files with architecture notes
• Analyze dependencies between stories:
  • If story A depends on story B, A cannot start until B completes
  • If stories have no dependency relationship, they can run in parallel
• Group independent stories into execution waves:
  • Wave 1: Stories with no dependencies
  • Wave 2+: Stories whose dependencies all completed in prior wave
• For each wave, identify parallel pairs (tester + implementation agent per story)
• Assign domain agents based on story content:
  • Database schema → prisma-database-agent
  • API endpoints → backend-dev or data-service-agent
  • Components → react-component-agent
  • Testing → unit-test, integration-test, e2e-test-agent
• Output to execution-plan.md in project folder
• Standard analysis mode

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Dependency Analysis Logic

Build dependency graph from all story files:
  for each story:
    if story has "Depends On" field:
      add edge: story → dependency
    if story has "parallelizable_with" field:
      mark as parallel-safe with those stories

Topological sort to determine waves:
  Wave 1 = stories with in-degree 0 (no dependencies)
  Wave N = stories whose dependencies all have in-degree 0 in Wave N-1

Limit waves to ≤10 concurrent agents per wave

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Wave Structure

Wave	Stories	Tester-Implementation Pairs	Dependencies
1	prj-epc-001	T-001 → I-001	None
2	prj-epc-002, prj-epc-003	T-002 → I-002, T-003 → I-003 (parallel)	prj-epc-001
3	prj-epc-004	T-004 → I-004	prj-epc-002, prj-epc-003

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Output Format

Execution Plan (execution-plan.md):

{
  "totalStories": 5,
  "totalWaves": 3,
  "waves": [
    {
      "waveNumber": 1,
      "storyIds": ["msm-auth-001"],
      "tasks": [
        {
          "id": "task-1",
          "storyId": "msm-auth-001",
          "description": "User authentication schema",
          "testerAgent": "unit-test",
          "implAgent": "prisma-database-agent",
          "dependencies": []
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "waveNumber": 2,
      "storyIds": ["msm-auth-002", "msm-auth-003"],
      "tasks": [
        {
          "id": "task-2",
          "storyId": "msm-auth-002",
          "description": "User service contracts",
          "testerAgent": "unit-test",
          "implAgent": "data-service-agent",
          "dependencies": ["task-1"]
        },
        {
          "id": "task-3",
          "storyId": "msm-auth-003",
          "description": "Token service implementation",
          "testerAgent": "unit-test",
          "implAgent": "backend-dev",
          "dependencies": ["task-1"]
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "parallelPairs": [
    {
      "waveNumber": 2,
      "pairNumber": 1,
      "testerTaskId": "task-2",
      "implTaskId": "task-2"
    },
    {
      "waveNumber": 2,
      "pairNumber": 2,
      "testerTaskId": "task-3",
      "implTaskId": "task-3"
    }
  ]
}

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Agent Assignment Rules

Story Content Pattern	Recommended Agent
Database schema, models	prisma-database-agent
Data service, repositories	data-service-agent
API routes, controllers	backend-dev
React components	react-component-agent
Configuration files	Specific config agent
Unit tests	unit-test
Integration tests	integration-test
E2E tests	e2e-test

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Story Granularity Validation

WARN if:

• Single story >20 minutes of work (suggest further breakdown)
• Story has no dependencies AND no parallelizable pairs (isolated stories waste wave slots)
• More than 10 tasks per wave (recommend splitting)

PASS if:

• Stories average 15-20 min each
• Dependency graph creates 2+ distinct waves
• Parallelizable stories grouped in same wave

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Integration

Called by:

• /audit command (after design-phase)
• /build command (after design-phase)
• /architect command (for complexity ≥30)

Calls:

• project-manager agent (orchestrates planning)

Next step: execution-phase (agents spawn and execute tasks wave-by-wave)

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Example

Input: 5 enriched user stories with architecture notes

Design Phase Output:
  storiesFolder: docs/epics/in-progress/msm-feature/user-stories/
  storyFiles: [msm-feat-001-schema.md, msm-feat-002-contracts.md, msm-feat-003-parser.md, msm-feat-004-parser.md, msm-feat-005-api.md]

Planning Phase:
  1. Analyze dependencies:
     - msm-feat-001: No dependencies (Wave 1)
     - msm-feat-002, msm-feat-003, msm-feat-004: Depend on msm-feat-001 (Wave 2, parallelizable)
     - msm-feat-005: Depends on msm-feat-002, msm-feat-003, msm-feat-004 (Wave 3)

  2. Assign agents:
     - msm-feat-001: prisma-database-agent (schema)
     - msm-feat-002: data-service-agent (contracts)
     - msm-feat-003, msm-feat-004: backend-dev (parsers - parallel)
     - msm-feat-005: backend-dev (API routes)

  3. Build waves:
     Wave 1: [T-001 → I-001] (sequential pair)
     Wave 2: [T-002 → I-002] | [T-003 → I-003] | [T-004 → I-004] (parallel pairs)
     Wave 3: [T-005 → I-005] (sequential pair)

Output: execution-plan.md with 3 waves, 5 TDD pairs, dependency graph