Execute small, ad-hoc tasks with GSD guarantees (atomic commits, STATE.md tracking). Quick mode spawns gsd-planner (quick mode) + gsd-executor(s), tracks tasks in `.planning/quick/`, and updates STATE.md's "Quick Tasks Completed" table.
With `--full` flag: enables plan-checking (max 2 iterations) and post-execution verification for quality guarantees without full milestone ceremony.
Read all files referenced by the invoking prompt's execution_context before starting.
**Step 1: Parse arguments and get task description**
Parse `$ARGUMENTS` for:
- `--full` flag → store as `$FULL_MODE` (true/false)
- Remaining text → use as `$DESCRIPTION` if non-empty
If `$DESCRIPTION` is empty after parsing, prompt user interactively:
```
AskUserQuestion(
header: "Quick Task",
question: "What do you want to do?",
followUp: null
)
```
Store response as `$DESCRIPTION`.
If still empty, re-prompt: "Please provide a task description."
If `$FULL_MODE`:
```
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
GSD ► QUICK TASK (FULL MODE)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
◆ Plan checking + verification enabled
```
---
**Step 2: Initialize**
```bash
INIT=$(node ~/.claude/get-shit-done/bin/gsd-tools.cjs init quick "$DESCRIPTION")
```
Parse JSON for: `planner_model`, `executor_model`, `checker_model`, `verifier_model`, `commit_docs`, `next_num`, `slug`, `date`, `timestamp`, `quick_dir`, `task_dir`, `roadmap_exists`, `planning_exists`.
**If `roadmap_exists` is false:** Error — Quick mode requires an active project with ROADMAP.md. Run `/gsd:new-project` first.
Quick tasks can run mid-phase - validation only checks ROADMAP.md exists, not phase status.
---
**Step 3: Create task directory**
```bash
mkdir -p "${task_dir}"
```
---
**Step 4: Create quick task directory**
Create the directory for this quick task:
```bash
QUICK_DIR=".planning/quick/${next_num}-${slug}"
mkdir -p "$QUICK_DIR"
```
Report to user:
```
Creating quick task ${next_num}: ${DESCRIPTION}
Directory: ${QUICK_DIR}
```
Store `$QUICK_DIR` for use in orchestration.
---
**Step 5: Spawn planner (quick mode)**
**If `$FULL_MODE`:** Use `quick-full` mode with stricter constraints.
**If NOT `$FULL_MODE`:** Use standard `quick` mode.
```
Task(
prompt="
**Mode:** ${FULL_MODE ? 'quick-full' : 'quick'}
**Directory:** ${QUICK_DIR}
**Description:** ${DESCRIPTION}
- .planning/STATE.md (Project State)
- ./CLAUDE.md (if exists — follow project-specific guidelines)
**Project skills:** Check .agents/skills/ directory (if exists) — read SKILL.md files, plans should account for project skill rules
- Create a SINGLE plan with 1-3 focused tasks
- Quick tasks should be atomic and self-contained
- No research phase
${FULL_MODE ? '- Target ~40% context usage (structured for verification)' : '- Target ~30% context usage (simple, focused)'}
${FULL_MODE ? '- MUST generate `must_haves` in plan frontmatter (truths, artifacts, key_links)' : ''}
${FULL_MODE ? '- Each task MUST have `files`, `action`, `verify`, `done` fields' : ''}
",
subagent_type="gsd-planner",
model="{planner_model}",
description="Quick plan: ${DESCRIPTION}"
)
```
After planner returns:
1. Verify plan exists at `${QUICK_DIR}/${next_num}-PLAN.md`
2. Extract plan count (typically 1 for quick tasks)
3. Report: "Plan created: ${QUICK_DIR}/${next_num}-PLAN.md"
If plan not found, error: "Planner failed to create ${next_num}-PLAN.md"
---
**Step 5.5: Plan-checker loop (only when `$FULL_MODE`)**
Skip this step entirely if NOT `$FULL_MODE`.
Display banner:
```
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
GSD ► CHECKING PLAN
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
◆ Spawning plan checker...
```
Checker prompt:
```markdown
**Mode:** quick-full
**Task Description:** ${DESCRIPTION}
- ${QUICK_DIR}/${next_num}-PLAN.md (Plan to verify)
**Scope:** This is a quick task, not a full phase. Skip checks that require a ROADMAP phase goal.
- Requirement coverage: Does the plan address the task description?
- Task completeness: Do tasks have files, action, verify, done fields?
- Key links: Are referenced files real?
- Scope sanity: Is this appropriately sized for a quick task (1-3 tasks)?
- must_haves derivation: Are must_haves traceable to the task description?
Skip: context compliance (no CONTEXT.md), cross-plan deps (single plan), ROADMAP alignment
- ## VERIFICATION PASSED — all checks pass
- ## ISSUES FOUND — structured issue list
```
```
Task(
prompt=checker_prompt,
subagent_type="gsd-plan-checker",
model="{checker_model}",
description="Check quick plan: ${DESCRIPTION}"
)
```
**Handle checker return:**
- **`## VERIFICATION PASSED`:** Display confirmation, proceed to step 6.
- **`## ISSUES FOUND`:** Display issues, check iteration count, enter revision loop.
**Revision loop (max 2 iterations):**
Track `iteration_count` (starts at 1 after initial plan + check).
**If iteration_count < 2:**
Display: `Sending back to planner for revision... (iteration ${N}/2)`
Revision prompt:
```markdown
**Mode:** quick-full (revision)
- ${QUICK_DIR}/${next_num}-PLAN.md (Existing plan)
**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 quick plan: ${DESCRIPTION}"
)
```
After planner returns → spawn checker again, increment iteration_count.
**If iteration_count >= 2:**
Display: `Max iterations reached. ${N} issues remain:` + issue list
Offer: 1) Force proceed, 2) Abort
---
**Step 6: Spawn executor**
Spawn gsd-executor with plan reference:
```
Task(
prompt="
Execute quick task ${next_num}.
- ${QUICK_DIR}/${next_num}-PLAN.md (Plan)
- .planning/STATE.md (Project state)
- ./CLAUDE.md (Project instructions, if exists)
- .agents/skills/ (Project skills, if exists — list skills, read SKILL.md for each, follow relevant rules during implementation)
- Execute all tasks in the plan
- Commit each task atomically
- Create summary at: ${QUICK_DIR}/${next_num}-SUMMARY.md
- Do NOT update ROADMAP.md (quick tasks are separate from planned phases)
",
subagent_type="gsd-executor",
model="{executor_model}",
description="Execute: ${DESCRIPTION}"
)
```
After executor returns:
1. Verify summary exists at `${QUICK_DIR}/${next_num}-SUMMARY.md`
2. Extract commit hash from executor output
3. Report completion status
**Known Claude Code bug (classifyHandoffIfNeeded):** If executor reports "failed" with error `classifyHandoffIfNeeded is not defined`, this is a Claude Code runtime bug — not a real failure. Check if summary file exists and git log shows commits. If so, treat as successful.
If summary not found, error: "Executor failed to create ${next_num}-SUMMARY.md"
Note: For quick tasks producing multiple plans (rare), spawn executors in parallel waves per execute-phase patterns.
---
**Step 6.5: Verification (only when `$FULL_MODE`)**
Skip this step entirely if NOT `$FULL_MODE`.
Display banner:
```
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
GSD ► VERIFYING RESULTS
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
◆ Spawning verifier...
```
```
Task(
prompt="Verify quick task goal achievement.
Task directory: ${QUICK_DIR}
Task goal: ${DESCRIPTION}
- ${QUICK_DIR}/${next_num}-PLAN.md (Plan)
Check must_haves against actual codebase. Create VERIFICATION.md at ${QUICK_DIR}/${next_num}-VERIFICATION.md.",
subagent_type="gsd-verifier",
model="{verifier_model}",
description="Verify: ${DESCRIPTION}"
)
```
Read verification status:
```bash
grep "^status:" "${QUICK_DIR}/${next_num}-VERIFICATION.md" | cut -d: -f2 | tr -d ' '
```
Store as `$VERIFICATION_STATUS`.
| Status | Action |
|--------|--------|
| `passed` | Store `$VERIFICATION_STATUS = "Verified"`, continue to step 7 |
| `human_needed` | Display items needing manual check, store `$VERIFICATION_STATUS = "Needs Review"`, continue |
| `gaps_found` | Display gap summary, offer: 1) Re-run executor to fix gaps, 2) Accept as-is. Store `$VERIFICATION_STATUS = "Gaps"` |
---
**Step 7: Update STATE.md**
Update STATE.md with quick task completion record.
**7a. Check if "Quick Tasks Completed" section exists:**
Read STATE.md and check for `### Quick Tasks Completed` section.
**7b. If section doesn't exist, create it:**
Insert after `### Blockers/Concerns` section:
**If `$FULL_MODE`:**
```markdown
### Quick Tasks Completed
| # | Description | Date | Commit | Status | Directory |
|---|-------------|------|--------|--------|-----------|
```
**If NOT `$FULL_MODE`:**
```markdown
### Quick Tasks Completed
| # | Description | Date | Commit | Directory |
|---|-------------|------|--------|-----------|
```
**Note:** If the table already exists, match its existing column format. If adding `--full` to a project that already has quick tasks without a Status column, add the Status column to the header and separator rows, and leave Status empty for the new row's predecessors.
**7c. Append new row to table:**
Use `date` from init:
**If `$FULL_MODE` (or table has Status column):**
```markdown
| ${next_num} | ${DESCRIPTION} | ${date} | ${commit_hash} | ${VERIFICATION_STATUS} | [${next_num}-${slug}](./quick/${next_num}-${slug}/) |
```
**If NOT `$FULL_MODE` (and table has no Status column):**
```markdown
| ${next_num} | ${DESCRIPTION} | ${date} | ${commit_hash} | [${next_num}-${slug}](./quick/${next_num}-${slug}/) |
```
**7d. Update "Last activity" line:**
Use `date` from init:
```
Last activity: ${date} - Completed quick task ${next_num}: ${DESCRIPTION}
```
Use Edit tool to make these changes atomically
---
**Step 8: Final commit and completion**
Stage and commit quick task artifacts:
Build file list:
- `${QUICK_DIR}/${next_num}-PLAN.md`
- `${QUICK_DIR}/${next_num}-SUMMARY.md`
- `.planning/STATE.md`
- If `$FULL_MODE` and verification file exists: `${QUICK_DIR}/${next_num}-VERIFICATION.md`
```bash
node ~/.claude/get-shit-done/bin/gsd-tools.cjs commit "docs(quick-${next_num}): ${DESCRIPTION}" --files ${file_list}
```
Get final commit hash:
```bash
commit_hash=$(git rev-parse --short HEAD)
```
Display completion output:
**If `$FULL_MODE`:**
```
---
GSD > QUICK TASK COMPLETE (FULL MODE)
Quick Task ${next_num}: ${DESCRIPTION}
Summary: ${QUICK_DIR}/${next_num}-SUMMARY.md
Verification: ${QUICK_DIR}/${next_num}-VERIFICATION.md (${VERIFICATION_STATUS})
Commit: ${commit_hash}
---
Ready for next task: /gsd:quick
```
**If NOT `$FULL_MODE`:**
```
---
GSD > QUICK TASK COMPLETE
Quick Task ${next_num}: ${DESCRIPTION}
Summary: ${QUICK_DIR}/${next_num}-SUMMARY.md
Commit: ${commit_hash}
---
Ready for next task: /gsd:quick
```
- [ ] ROADMAP.md validation passes
- [ ] User provides task description
- [ ] `--full` flag parsed from arguments when present
- [ ] Slug generated (lowercase, hyphens, max 40 chars)
- [ ] Next number calculated (001, 002, 003...)
- [ ] Directory created at `.planning/quick/NNN-slug/`
- [ ] `${next_num}-PLAN.md` created by planner
- [ ] (--full) Plan checker validates plan, revision loop capped at 2
- [ ] `${next_num}-SUMMARY.md` created by executor
- [ ] (--full) `${next_num}-VERIFICATION.md` created by verifier
- [ ] STATE.md updated with quick task row (Status column when --full)
- [ ] Artifacts committed