Create executable phase prompts (PLAN.md files) for a roadmap phase with integrated research and verification. Default flow: Research (if needed) -> Plan -> Verify -> Done. Orchestrates gsd-phase-researcher, gsd-planner, and gsd-plan-checker agents with a revision loop (max 3 iterations).
Read all files referenced by the invoking prompt's execution_context before starting.
@~/.claude/get-shit-done/references/ui-brand.md
## 1. Initialize
Load all context in one call (paths only to minimize orchestrator context):
```bash
INIT=$(node "$HOME/.claude/get-shit-done/bin/gsd-tools.cjs" init plan-phase "$PHASE")
```
Parse JSON for: `researcher_model`, `planner_model`, `checker_model`, `research_enabled`, `plan_checker_enabled`, `nyquist_validation_enabled`, `commit_docs`, `phase_found`, `phase_dir`, `phase_number`, `phase_name`, `phase_slug`, `padded_phase`, `has_research`, `has_context`, `has_plans`, `plan_count`, `planning_exists`, `roadmap_exists`, `phase_req_ids`.
**File paths (for blocks):** `state_path`, `roadmap_path`, `requirements_path`, `context_path`, `research_path`, `verification_path`, `uat_path`. These are null if files don't exist.
**If `planning_exists` is false:** Error — run `/gsd:new-project` first.
## 2. Parse and Normalize Arguments
Extract from $ARGUMENTS: phase number (integer or decimal like `2.1`), flags (`--research`, `--skip-research`, `--gaps`, `--skip-verify`, `--prd `).
Extract `--prd ` from $ARGUMENTS. If present, set PRD_FILE to the filepath.
**If no phase number:** Detect next unplanned phase from roadmap.
**If `phase_found` is false:** Validate phase exists in ROADMAP.md. If valid, create the directory using `phase_slug` and `padded_phase` from init:
```bash
mkdir -p ".planning/phases/${padded_phase}-${phase_slug}"
```
**Existing artifacts from init:** `has_research`, `has_plans`, `plan_count`.
## 3. Validate Phase
```bash
PHASE_INFO=$(node "$HOME/.claude/get-shit-done/bin/gsd-tools.cjs" roadmap get-phase "${PHASE}")
```
**If `found` is false:** Error with available phases. **If `found` is true:** Extract `phase_number`, `phase_name`, `goal` from JSON.
## 3.5. Handle PRD Express Path
**Skip if:** No `--prd` flag in arguments.
**If `--prd ` provided:**
1. Read the PRD file:
```bash
PRD_CONTENT=$(cat "$PRD_FILE" 2>/dev/null)
if [ -z "$PRD_CONTENT" ]; then
echo "Error: PRD file not found: $PRD_FILE"
exit 1
fi
```
2. Display banner:
```
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
GSD ► PRD EXPRESS PATH
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Using PRD: {PRD_FILE}
Generating CONTEXT.md from requirements...
```
3. Parse the PRD content and generate CONTEXT.md. The orchestrator should:
- Extract all requirements, user stories, acceptance criteria, and constraints from the PRD
- Map each to a locked decision (everything in the PRD is treated as a locked decision)
- Identify any areas the PRD doesn't cover and mark as "Claude's Discretion"
- Create CONTEXT.md in the phase directory
4. Write CONTEXT.md:
```markdown
# Phase [X]: [Name] - Context
**Gathered:** [date]
**Status:** Ready for planning
**Source:** PRD Express Path ({PRD_FILE})
## Phase Boundary
[Extracted from PRD — what this phase delivers]
## Implementation Decisions
{For each requirement/story/criterion in the PRD:}
### [Category derived from content]
- [Requirement as locked decision]
### Claude's Discretion
[Areas not covered by PRD — implementation details, technical choices]
## Specific Ideas
[Any specific references, examples, or concrete requirements from PRD]
## Deferred Ideas
[Items in PRD explicitly marked as future/v2/out-of-scope]
[If none: "None — PRD covers phase scope"]
---
*Phase: XX-name*
*Context gathered: [date] via PRD Express Path*
```
5. Commit:
```bash
node "$HOME/.claude/get-shit-done/bin/gsd-tools.cjs" commit "docs(${padded_phase}): generate context from PRD" --files "${phase_dir}/${padded_phase}-CONTEXT.md"
```
6. Set `context_content` to the generated CONTEXT.md content and continue to step 5 (Handle Research).
**Effect:** This completely bypasses step 4 (Load CONTEXT.md) since we just created it. The rest of the workflow (research, planning, verification) proceeds normally with the PRD-derived context.
## 4. Load CONTEXT.md
**Skip if:** PRD express path was used (CONTEXT.md already created in step 3.5).
Check `context_path` from init JSON.
If `context_path` is not null, display: `Using phase context from: ${context_path}`
**If `context_path` is null (no CONTEXT.md exists):**
Use AskUserQuestion:
- header: "No context"
- question: "No CONTEXT.md found for Phase {X}. Plans will use research and requirements only — your design preferences won't be included. Continue or capture context first?"
- options:
- "Continue without context" — Plan using research + requirements only
- "Run discuss-phase first" — Capture design decisions before planning
If "Continue without context": Proceed to step 5.
If "Run discuss-phase first": Display `/gsd:discuss-phase {X}` and exit workflow.
## 5. Handle Research
**Skip if:** `--gaps` flag, `--skip-research` flag, or `research_enabled` is false (from init) without `--research` override.
**If `has_research` is true (from init) AND no `--research` flag:** Use existing, skip to step 6.
**If RESEARCH.md missing OR `--research` flag:**
Display banner:
```
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
GSD ► RESEARCHING PHASE {X}
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
◆ Spawning researcher...
```
### Spawn gsd-phase-researcher
```bash
PHASE_DESC=$(node "$HOME/.claude/get-shit-done/bin/gsd-tools.cjs" roadmap get-phase "${PHASE}" | jq -r '.section')
```
Research prompt:
```markdown
Research how to implement Phase {phase_number}: {phase_name}
Answer: "What do I need to know to PLAN this phase well?"
- {context_path} (USER DECISIONS from /gsd:discuss-phase)
- {requirements_path} (Project requirements)
- {state_path} (Project decisions and history)
**Phase description:** {phase_description}
**Phase requirement IDs (MUST address):** {phase_req_ids}
**Project instructions:** Read ./CLAUDE.md if exists — follow project-specific guidelines
**Project skills:** Check .claude/skills/ or .agents/skills/ directory (if either exists) — read SKILL.md files, research should account for project skill patterns
```
```
Task(
prompt="First, read ~/.claude/agents/gsd-phase-researcher.md for your role and instructions.\n\n" + research_prompt,
subagent_type="general-purpose",
model="{researcher_model}",
description="Research Phase {phase}"
)
```
### Handle Researcher Return
- **`## RESEARCH COMPLETE`:** Display confirmation, continue to step 6
- **`## RESEARCH BLOCKED`:** Display blocker, offer: 1) Provide context, 2) Skip research, 3) Abort
## 5.5. Create Validation Strategy (if Nyquist enabled)
**Skip if:** `nyquist_validation_enabled` is false from INIT JSON.
After researcher completes, check if RESEARCH.md contains a Validation Architecture section:
```bash
grep -l "## Validation Architecture" "${PHASE_DIR}"/*-RESEARCH.md 2>/dev/null
```
**If found:**
1. Read validation template from `~/.claude/get-shit-done/templates/VALIDATION.md`
2. Write to `${PHASE_DIR}/${PADDED_PHASE}-VALIDATION.md`
3. Fill frontmatter: replace `{N}` with phase number, `{phase-slug}` with phase slug, `{date}` with current date
4. If `commit_docs` is true:
```bash
node "$HOME/.claude/get-shit-done/bin/gsd-tools.cjs" commit-docs "docs(phase-${PHASE}): add validation strategy"
```
**If not found (and nyquist enabled):** Display warning:
```
⚠ Nyquist validation enabled but researcher did not produce a Validation Architecture section.
Continuing without validation strategy. Plans may fail Dimension 8 check.
```
## 6. Check Existing Plans
```bash
ls "${PHASE_DIR}"/*-PLAN.md 2>/dev/null
```
**If exists:** Offer: 1) Add more plans, 2) View existing, 3) Replan from scratch.
## 7. Use Context Paths from INIT
Extract from INIT JSON:
```bash
STATE_PATH=$(echo "$INIT" | jq -r '.state_path // empty')
ROADMAP_PATH=$(echo "$INIT" | jq -r '.roadmap_path // empty')
REQUIREMENTS_PATH=$(echo "$INIT" | jq -r '.requirements_path // empty')
RESEARCH_PATH=$(echo "$INIT" | jq -r '.research_path // empty')
VERIFICATION_PATH=$(echo "$INIT" | jq -r '.verification_path // empty')
UAT_PATH=$(echo "$INIT" | jq -r '.uat_path // empty')
CONTEXT_PATH=$(echo "$INIT" | jq -r '.context_path // empty')
```
## 8. Spawn gsd-planner Agent
Display banner:
```
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
GSD ► PLANNING PHASE {X}
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
◆ Spawning planner...
```
Planner prompt:
```markdown
**Phase:** {phase_number}
**Mode:** {standard | gap_closure}
- {state_path} (Project State)
- {roadmap_path} (Roadmap)
- {requirements_path} (Requirements)
- {context_path} (USER DECISIONS from /gsd:discuss-phase)
- {research_path} (Technical Research)
- {verification_path} (Verification Gaps - if --gaps)
- {uat_path} (UAT Gaps - if --gaps)
**Phase requirement IDs (every ID MUST appear in a plan's `requirements` field):** {phase_req_ids}
**Project instructions:** Read ./CLAUDE.md if exists — follow project-specific guidelines
**Project skills:** Check .claude/skills/ or .agents/skills/ directory (if either exists) — read SKILL.md files, plans should account for project skill rules
Output consumed by /gsd:execute-phase. Plans need:
- Frontmatter (wave, depends_on, files_modified, autonomous)
- Tasks in XML format
- Verification criteria
- must_haves for goal-backward verification
- [ ] PLAN.md files created in phase directory
- [ ] Each plan has valid frontmatter
- [ ] Tasks are specific and actionable
- [ ] Dependencies correctly identified
- [ ] Waves assigned for parallel execution
- [ ] must_haves derived from phase goal
```
```
Task(
prompt="First, read ~/.claude/agents/gsd-planner.md for your role and instructions.\n\n" + filled_prompt,
subagent_type="general-purpose",
model="{planner_model}",
description="Plan Phase {phase}"
)
```
## 9. Handle Planner Return
- **`## PLANNING COMPLETE`:** Display plan count. If `--skip-verify` or `plan_checker_enabled` is false (from init): skip to step 13. Otherwise: step 10.
- **`## CHECKPOINT REACHED`:** Present to user, get response, spawn continuation (step 12)
- **`## PLANNING INCONCLUSIVE`:** Show attempts, offer: Add context / Retry / Manual
## 10. Spawn gsd-plan-checker Agent
Display banner:
```
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
GSD ► VERIFYING PLANS
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
◆ Spawning plan checker...
```
Checker prompt:
```markdown
**Phase:** {phase_number}
**Phase Goal:** {goal from ROADMAP}
- {PHASE_DIR}/*-PLAN.md (Plans to verify)
- {roadmap_path} (Roadmap)
- {requirements_path} (Requirements)
- {context_path} (USER DECISIONS from /gsd:discuss-phase)
- {research_path} (Technical Research — includes Validation Architecture)
**Phase requirement IDs (MUST ALL be covered):** {phase_req_ids}
**Project instructions:** Read ./CLAUDE.md if exists — verify plans honor project guidelines
**Project skills:** Check .claude/skills/ or .agents/skills/ directory (if either exists) — verify plans account for project skill rules
- ## VERIFICATION PASSED — all checks pass
- ## ISSUES FOUND — structured issue list
```
```
Task(
prompt=checker_prompt,
subagent_type="gsd-plan-checker",
model="{checker_model}",
description="Verify Phase {phase} plans"
)
```
## 11. Handle Checker Return
- **`## VERIFICATION PASSED`:** Display confirmation, proceed to step 13.
- **`## ISSUES FOUND`:** Display issues, check iteration count, proceed to step 12.
## 12. Revision Loop (Max 3 Iterations)
Track `iteration_count` (starts at 1 after initial plan + check).
**If iteration_count < 3:**
Display: `Sending back to planner for revision... (iteration {N}/3)`
Revision prompt:
```markdown
**Phase:** {phase_number}
**Mode:** revision
- {PHASE_DIR}/*-PLAN.md (Existing plans)
- {context_path} (USER DECISIONS from /gsd:discuss-phase)
**Checker issues:** {structured_issues_from_checker}
Make targeted updates to address checker issues.
Do NOT replan from scratch unless issues are fundamental.
Return what changed.
```
```
Task(
prompt="First, read ~/.claude/agents/gsd-planner.md for your role and instructions.\n\n" + revision_prompt,
subagent_type="general-purpose",
model="{planner_model}",
description="Revise Phase {phase} plans"
)
```
After planner returns -> spawn checker again (step 10), increment iteration_count.
**If iteration_count >= 3:**
Display: `Max iterations reached. {N} issues remain:` + issue list
Offer: 1) Force proceed, 2) Provide guidance and retry, 3) Abandon
## 13. Present Final Status
Route to `` OR `auto_advance` depending on flags/config.
## 14. Auto-Advance Check
Check for auto-advance trigger:
1. Parse `--auto` flag from $ARGUMENTS
2. Read `workflow.auto_advance` from config:
```bash
AUTO_CFG=$(node "$HOME/.claude/get-shit-done/bin/gsd-tools.cjs" config-get workflow.auto_advance 2>/dev/null || echo "false")
```
**If `--auto` flag present OR `AUTO_CFG` is true:**
Display banner:
```
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
GSD ► AUTO-ADVANCING TO EXECUTE
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Plans ready. Spawning execute-phase...
```
Spawn execute-phase as Task with direct workflow file reference (do NOT use Skill tool — Skills don't resolve inside Task subagents):
```
Task(
prompt="
You are the execute-phase orchestrator. Execute all plans for Phase ${PHASE}: ${PHASE_NAME}.
@~/.claude/get-shit-done/workflows/execute-phase.md
@~/.claude/get-shit-done/references/checkpoints.md
@~/.claude/get-shit-done/references/tdd.md
@~/.claude/get-shit-done/references/model-profile-resolution.md
PHASE=${PHASE}
ARGUMENTS='${PHASE} --auto --no-transition'
1. Read execute-phase.md from execution_context for your complete workflow
2. Follow ALL steps: initialize, handle_branching, validate_phase, discover_and_group_plans, execute_waves, aggregate_results, close_parent_artifacts, verify_phase_goal, update_roadmap
3. The --no-transition flag means: after verification + roadmap update, STOP and return status. Do NOT run transition.md.
4. When spawning executor agents, use subagent_type='gsd-executor' with the existing @file pattern from the workflow
5. When spawning verifier agents, use subagent_type='gsd-verifier'
6. Preserve the classifyHandoffIfNeeded workaround (spot-check on that specific error)
7. Do NOT use the Skill tool or /gsd: commands
",
subagent_type="general-purpose",
description="Execute Phase ${PHASE}"
)
```
**Handle execute-phase return:**
- **PHASE COMPLETE** → Display final summary:
```
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
GSD ► PHASE ${PHASE} COMPLETE ✓
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Auto-advance pipeline finished.
Next: /gsd:discuss-phase ${NEXT_PHASE} --auto
```
- **GAPS FOUND / VERIFICATION FAILED** → Display result, stop chain:
```
Auto-advance stopped: Execution needs review.
Review the output above and continue manually:
/gsd:execute-phase ${PHASE}
```
**If neither `--auto` nor config enabled:**
Route to `` (existing behavior).
Output this markdown directly (not as a code block):
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
GSD ► PHASE {X} PLANNED ✓
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
**Phase {X}: {Name}** — {N} plan(s) in {M} wave(s)
| Wave | Plans | What it builds |
|------|-------|----------------|
| 1 | 01, 02 | [objectives] |
| 2 | 03 | [objective] |
Research: {Completed | Used existing | Skipped}
Verification: {Passed | Passed with override | Skipped}
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
## ▶ Next Up
**Execute Phase {X}** — run all {N} plans
/gsd:execute-phase {X}
/clear first → fresh context window
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
**Also available:**
- cat .planning/phases/{phase-dir}/*-PLAN.md — review plans
- /gsd:plan-phase {X} --research — re-research first
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
- [ ] .planning/ directory validated
- [ ] Phase validated against roadmap
- [ ] Phase directory created if needed
- [ ] CONTEXT.md loaded early (step 4) and passed to ALL agents
- [ ] Research completed (unless --skip-research or --gaps or exists)
- [ ] gsd-phase-researcher spawned with CONTEXT.md
- [ ] Existing plans checked
- [ ] gsd-planner spawned with CONTEXT.md + RESEARCH.md
- [ ] Plans created (PLANNING COMPLETE or CHECKPOINT handled)
- [ ] gsd-plan-checker spawned with CONTEXT.md
- [ ] Verification passed OR user override OR max iterations with user decision
- [ ] User sees status between agent spawns
- [ ] User knows next steps