msd-core/docs/how-to/handle-quick-and-fast-tasks.md

How to handle quick and fast tasks

Not every piece of work fits inside a phase. GSD provides two lightweight commands for work that does not need the full discuss → plan → execute → verify loop.

For context on when the full phase pipeline is worth its overhead, see Context engineering.

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Deciding which command to use

Situation	Command
Fixing a bug, adding a small feature, or any task you cannot summarise as a single trivial edit	/gsd-quick
Fixing a typo, updating a config value, adding a .gitignore entry, or any change that touches ≤ 3 files and takes under a minute	/gsd-fast
The task has unknowns, needs research, or will touch more than a handful of files	/gsd-quick with --research

The rule of thumb: if you hesitate for even a moment about whether the task is trivial, use /gsd-quick. /gsd-fast redirects you to /gsd-quick automatically if the scope looks non-trivial.

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/gsd-quick — ad-hoc tasks with GSD guarantees

/gsd-quick runs a planner and executor with the same atomic-commit and STATE.md tracking guarantees as a full phase, but without the phase overhead (no ROADMAP entry, no discuss-phase, no wave coordination across multiple plans).

Basic use

/gsd-quick

GSD prompts you for a task description, then plans and executes it. Artifacts land in .planning/quick/.

You can also pass the description directly:

/gsd-quick "Fix the login button not responding on mobile Safari"

Flags

Add flags to bring in more of the quality pipeline when the task warrants it.

Flag	What it adds
--discuss	A lightweight pre-planning discussion that surfaces grey areas and captures your decisions in a CONTEXT.md before the planner runs
--research	A focused research agent investigates approaches, libraries, and pitfalls before planning
--validate	Plan-checking (up to 2 iterations) plus post-execution verification
--full	All of the above — equivalent to --discuss --research --validate

Flags compose freely:

/gsd-quick --research --validate   # research + plan-checking + verification, no discuss
/gsd-quick --discuss               # just surface grey areas before planning
/gsd-quick --full                  # the complete quality pipeline

When to add flags

• Add --research when you are unsure how to approach a task or which library to use.
• Add --validate when the task touches critical code paths and you want a verifier agent to confirm the must-haves were met.
• Add --discuss when the task has design choices you want to lock in before the planner runs — for example, when the right error-handling behaviour is not obvious.
• Use --full when a task is genuinely significant and you would normally plan it as a phase but it does not belong in the ROADMAP.

Listing and resuming quick tasks

/gsd-quick list                    # show all quick tasks with status
/gsd-quick status my-task-slug     # show status of a specific task
/gsd-quick resume my-task-slug     # resume an interrupted task

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/gsd-fast — inline trivial edits

/gsd-fast does the work directly in the current context. There are no subagents, no PLAN.md, and no research. It is suitable only for changes you could make yourself in under a minute.

/gsd-fast "fix typo in README"
/gsd-fast "add .env to .gitignore"

If you omit the description, GSD prompts you for it.

/gsd-fast checks whether the task is actually trivial before proceeding. If it judges the scope too large it stops and redirects you:

This looks like it needs planning. Use /gsd-quick instead:
  /gsd-quick "your task description"

After making the change, /gsd-fast commits atomically and, if a Quick Tasks Completed table exists in .planning/STATE.md, appends a row to it.

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What /gsd-quick does that /gsd-fast does not

Capability	/gsd-fast	/gsd-quick
Subagent planner	No	Yes
Subagent executor	No	Yes
Research agent	No	Optional (--research)
Plan-checking	No	Optional (--validate)
Post-execution verification	No	Optional (--validate)
Discussion phase	No	Optional (--discuss)
Worktree isolation	No	Yes (default)
Atomic commits per task	Single commit	One per plan task
STATE.md tracking	Row appended if table exists	Always updated
.planning/quick/ artifacts	No	Yes

The key distinction is subagent isolation. /gsd-quick spawns a fresh planner and executor in separate context windows, which means the work is planned properly, commits are atomic per task, and the orchestrator can verify results. /gsd-fast uses only the current context window and is intentionally limited to changes trivial enough not to need any of that.

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Related

• The phase loop
• Context engineering
• Commands
• Docs index