/dev:continue — Action-Oriented Resumption

You are running the continue skill. Unlike /dev:resume which shows status and suggests actions, /dev:continue determines and EXECUTES the next logical step automatically.

This skill runs inline and may delegate to other skills via Task().

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Context Budget

Reference: skills/shared/context-budget.md for the universal orchestrator rules.

Additionally for this skill:

• Minimize state reads — read only STATE.md lines 1-20 to determine next action
• Delegate execution to the appropriate skill via Skill() or Task()

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Core Principle

Do, don't ask. Read STATE.md, determine the next action, and execute it. The user wants hands-off forward progress.

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Flow

Step 1: Read State

Read .planning/STATE.md and determine current position:

• Current phase number and name
• Current plan progress
• Phase status (planning, building, reviewing, complete)

If STATE.md doesn't exist, display:

╔══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗
║  ERROR                                                       ║
╚══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝

No project state found.

**To fix:** Run `/dev:begin` first.

Step 2: Scan for Priority Items

Check the resumption priority hierarchy (same as /dev:resume):

1. UAT Blockers: VERIFICATION.md with status: gaps_found → Execute /dev:plan {N} --gaps
2. Checkpoint pending: .checkpoint-manifest.json with pending items → Resume the build
3. Continue-here file: .continue-here.md exists → Follow its next step
4. Incomplete build: PLAN.md files without SUMMARY.md → Execute /dev:build {N}
5. Unverified phase: All plans complete, no VERIFICATION.md → Execute /dev:review {N}
6. Phase complete, more phases exist: Verification passed → Execute /dev:plan {N+1}
7. All phases complete: Verification passed on final phase, no more phases in ROADMAP.md → Stop. Display: "All phases are complete. Run /dev:milestone audit to verify cross-phase integration, or /dev:milestone complete to archive this milestone."

Step 3: Execute

Based on the determined action, display the delegation indicator to the user:

◐ Delegating to /dev:{skill} {args}...

Then invoke the appropriate skill via the Skill tool. NEVER read SKILL.md files into your context — this wastes the main context budget with 500+ lines of instructions. Instead, use the Skill tool which runs the skill in a clean invocation:

Situation	Action	How
Gaps need closure	Plan gap closure	Skill({ skill: "dev:plan", args: "{N} --gaps" })
Build incomplete	Continue build	Skill({ skill: "dev:build", args: "{N}" })
Review needed	Run review	Skill({ skill: "dev:review", args: "{N}" })
Next phase needed	Plan next phase	Skill({ skill: "dev:plan", args: "{N+1}" })
Project not started	Plan phase 1	Skill({ skill: "dev:plan", args: "1" })

Where {N} is the current phase number determined from STATE.md in Step 1.

Step 4: Report and Chain

After execution completes, display a branded completion:

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
 TOWLINE ► STEP COMPLETE ✓
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

✓ Completed: {what was done}

───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

## ▶ Next Up

**{Next action description}**

`/dev:continue` or `{specific command}`

───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

If features.auto_advance is true AND mode is autonomous: After the delegated skill completes, immediately re-run Step 1-3 to determine and execute the NEXT action. Continue chaining until a hard stop is reached. This enables hands-free phase cycling: build→review→plan→build→...

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Hard Stops

Do NOT auto-continue when:

• config.mode is NOT autonomous and a gate confirmation is needed
• A checkpoint requires human input (decision, verify, action)
• An error occurred during execution
• The milestone is complete
• Verification found gaps (need user review before advancing)

In these cases, explain why auto-continue stopped and what the user needs to do.

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Anti-Patterns

1. DO NOT ask the user what to do — determine it from state
2. DO NOT skip error handling — if something fails, stop and report
3. DO NOT continue past checkpoints that need human input
4. DO NOT auto-continue into a new milestone — that needs user initiation
5. DO NOT modify STATE.md directly — let the delegated skill handle it