msd-core/get-shit-done/workflows/plan-phase.md

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).

<required_reading> Read all files referenced by the invoking prompt's execution_context before starting.

@~/.claude/get-shit-done/references/ui-brand.md </required_reading>

1. Validate Environment and Resolve Model Profile

PLANNING_EXISTS=$(node ~/.claude/get-shit-done/bin/gsd-tools.js verify-path-exists .planning --raw)
echo "$PLANNING_EXISTS"

If not found: Error — run /gsd:new-project first.

Resolve models:

RESEARCHER_MODEL=$(node ~/.claude/get-shit-done/bin/gsd-tools.js resolve-model gsd-phase-researcher --raw)
PLANNER_MODEL=$(node ~/.claude/get-shit-done/bin/gsd-tools.js resolve-model gsd-planner --raw)
CHECKER_MODEL=$(node ~/.claude/get-shit-done/bin/gsd-tools.js resolve-model gsd-plan-checker --raw)

2. Parse and Normalize Arguments

Extract from $ARGUMENTS: phase number (integer or decimal like 2.1), flags (--research, --skip-research, --gaps, --skip-verify).

If no phase number: Detect next unplanned phase from roadmap.

Find phase directory:

PHASE_INFO=$(node ~/.claude/get-shit-done/bin/gsd-tools.js find-phase "$PHASE")
PHASE_DIR=$(echo "$PHASE_INFO" | grep -o '"directory":"[^"]*"' | cut -d'"' -f4)

If found is false, validate phase exists in ROADMAP.md. If valid, create the directory:

PHASE_NAME=$(grep "Phase ${PHASE}:" .planning/ROADMAP.md | sed 's/.*Phase [0-9]*: //')
PHASE_SLUG=$(node ~/.claude/get-shit-done/bin/gsd-tools.js generate-slug "$PHASE_NAME" --raw)
PADDED=$(node ~/.claude/get-shit-done/bin/gsd-tools.js find-phase "$PHASE" --raw | grep -o '^[0-9]*' || printf "%02d" "$PHASE")
mkdir -p ".planning/phases/${PADDED}-${PHASE_SLUG}"
PHASE_DIR=".planning/phases/${PADDED}-${PHASE_SLUG}"

Check for existing research and plans:

ls ${PHASE_DIR}/*-RESEARCH.md 2>/dev/null
ls ${PHASE_DIR}/*-PLAN.md 2>/dev/null

3. Validate Phase

grep -A5 "Phase ${PHASE}:" .planning/ROADMAP.md 2>/dev/null

If not found: Error with available phases. If found: Extract phase number, name, description.

4. Load CONTEXT.md

CONTEXT_CONTENT=$(cat "${PHASE_DIR}"/*-CONTEXT.md 2>/dev/null)

CRITICAL: Store CONTEXT_CONTENT now — pass to researcher, planner, checker, and revision agents.

If CONTEXT.md exists, display: Using phase context from: ${PHASE_DIR}/*-CONTEXT.md

5. Handle Research

Skip if: --gaps flag, --skip-research flag, or config workflow.research=false (without --research override).

WORKFLOW_RESEARCH=$(node ~/.claude/get-shit-done/bin/gsd-tools.js state load --raw | grep '^research=' | cut -d= -f2)

If RESEARCH.md exists 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

PHASE_DESC=$(grep -A3 "Phase ${PHASE}:" .planning/ROADMAP.md)
REQUIREMENTS=$(cat .planning/REQUIREMENTS.md 2>/dev/null | grep -A100 "## Requirements" | head -50)
DECISIONS=$(grep -A20 "### Decisions Made" .planning/STATE.md 2>/dev/null)

Research prompt:

<objective>
Research how to implement Phase {phase_number}: {phase_name}
Answer: "What do I need to know to PLAN this phase well?"
</objective>

<phase_context>
IMPORTANT: If CONTEXT.md exists below, it contains user decisions from /gsd:discuss-phase.
- **Decisions** = Locked — research THESE deeply, no alternatives
- **Claude's Discretion** = Freedom areas — research options, recommend
- **Deferred Ideas** = Out of scope — ignore

{context_content}
</phase_context>

<additional_context>
**Phase description:** {phase_description}
**Requirements:** {requirements}
**Prior decisions:** {decisions}
</additional_context>

<output>
Write to: {phase_dir}/{phase}-RESEARCH.md
</output>

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

6. Check Existing Plans

ls "${PHASE_DIR}"/*-PLAN.md 2>/dev/null

If exists: Offer: 1) Add more plans, 2) View existing, 3) Replan from scratch.

7. Read Context Files

Read and store for planner agent (@ syntax doesn't work across Task() boundaries):

STATE_CONTENT=$(cat .planning/STATE.md)
ROADMAP_CONTENT=$(cat .planning/ROADMAP.md)
REQUIREMENTS_CONTENT=$(cat .planning/REQUIREMENTS.md 2>/dev/null)
RESEARCH_CONTENT=$(cat "${PHASE_DIR}"/*-RESEARCH.md 2>/dev/null)
VERIFICATION_CONTENT=$(cat "${PHASE_DIR}"/*-VERIFICATION.md 2>/dev/null)
UAT_CONTENT=$(cat "${PHASE_DIR}"/*-UAT.md 2>/dev/null)

8. Spawn gsd-planner Agent

Display banner:

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
 GSD ► PLANNING PHASE {X}
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

◆ Spawning planner...

Planner prompt:

<planning_context>
**Phase:** {phase_number}
**Mode:** {standard | gap_closure}

**Project State:** {state_content}
**Roadmap:** {roadmap_content}
**Requirements:** {requirements_content}

**Phase Context:**
IMPORTANT: If context exists below, it contains USER DECISIONS from /gsd:discuss-phase.
- **Decisions** = LOCKED — honor exactly, do not revisit
- **Claude's Discretion** = Freedom — make implementation choices
- **Deferred Ideas** = Out of scope — do NOT include

{context_content}

**Research:** {research_content}
**Gap Closure (if --gaps):** {verification_content} {uat_content}
</planning_context>

<downstream_consumer>
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
</downstream_consumer>

<quality_gate>
- [ ] 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
</quality_gate>

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 config workflow.plan_check=false: skip to step 13. Otherwise: step 10.

  WORKFLOW_PLAN_CHECK=$(node ~/.claude/get-shit-done/bin/gsd-tools.js state load --raw | grep '^plan_checker=' | cut -d= -f2)
  

• ## 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...

PLANS_CONTENT=$(cat "${PHASE_DIR}"/*-PLAN.md 2>/dev/null)

Checker prompt:

<verification_context>
**Phase:** {phase_number}
**Phase Goal:** {goal from ROADMAP}

**Plans to verify:** {plans_content}
**Requirements:** {requirements_content}

**Phase Context:**
IMPORTANT: Plans MUST honor user decisions. Flag as issue if plans contradict.
- **Decisions** = LOCKED — plans must implement exactly
- **Claude's Discretion** = Freedom areas — plans can choose approach
- **Deferred Ideas** = Out of scope — plans must NOT include

{context_content}
</verification_context>

<expected_output>
- ## VERIFICATION PASSED — all checks pass
- ## ISSUES FOUND — structured issue list
</expected_output>

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)

PLANS_CONTENT=$(cat "${PHASE_DIR}"/*-PLAN.md 2>/dev/null)

Revision prompt:

<revision_context>
**Phase:** {phase_number}
**Mode:** revision

**Existing plans:** {plans_content}
**Checker issues:** {structured_issues_from_checker}

**Phase Context:**
Revisions MUST still honor user decisions.
{context_content}
</revision_context>

<instructions>
Make targeted updates to address checker issues.
Do NOT replan from scratch unless issues are fundamental.
Return what changed.
</instructions>

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 <offer_next>.

<offer_next> 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

─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── </offer_next>

<success_criteria>

• .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 </success_criteria>