msd-core/docs/how-to/batch-quick-tasks.md

How to batch quick tasks

/msd-quick-batch runs several /msd-quick-shaped tasks together as ONE coordinated run: one coordinator parses the task list, plans and dispatches each item (planner, and optionally researcher/plan-checker/verifier leaves), merges them in a deterministic order, and owns every shared write (BATCH.json, STATE.md, worktree create/merge/cleanup) so the leaves never race each other (ADR-1239 "Quick-batch binding").

Use it instead of running /msd-quick N separate times when you have several independent (or lightly interdependent) small tasks you want planned and executed together, with parallelism where the tasks allow it.

For the single-task case, see Handle quick and fast tasks.

---

Basic use

Pass an inline task list — a bulleted or numbered list, at least 2 items, one per line:

/msd-quick-batch
- Fix the login timeout on mobile Safari
- Add a retry banner when the API call fails
- Update the README's setup instructions

Or point at a file containing the list:

/msd-quick-batch --file .planning/my-tasks.md

Each item gets its own quick id, its own directory under .planning/quick/, and (when isolation is available) its own worktree — the same artifact shape a standalone /msd-quick task produces, just planned and dispatched together.

---

Flags

Flag	What it does
--jobs auto|N	auto (default) uses the negotiated dispatch capacity as-is. N caps effective concurrency at min(task count, N, capacity) — never more than the number of tasks, never more than what the runtime negotiated. A non-numeric or non-positive N is rejected before any dispatch.
--validate	Enables the per-item plan-checker loop (max 2 iterations, same cap as /msd-quick --validate) and post-merge verification.
--research	Dispatches a focused researcher per item before planning.
--resume <batch-id>	Skips task-list parsing and batch creation entirely — loads the existing batch and dispatches only its still-eligible items.

Not supported in v1: --discuss and --full are rejected with a usage error before any dispatch. If a task genuinely needs a discussion phase, run it through /msd-quick --discuss on its own instead of including it in a batch.

/msd-quick-batch --jobs 2 --validate --research   # research, up to 2 concurrent, plan-checked + verified
/msd-quick-batch --resume 260101-abc               # resume an interrupted batch

---

How capacity and isolation interact

Effective concurrency is computed from three things: --jobs, the negotiated dispatch capacity (how many subagents your runtime can run at once), and — for the mutating stage (worktree create → execute → merge) — the isolation mode:

Isolation	Effect on the mutating (executor/worktree) stage
harness-worktree / orchestrator-worktree	Runs up to the effective concurrency computed above.
none (no worktree isolation available, or workflow.use_worktrees=false)	Forced to concurrency 1, regardless of --jobs or capacity — everything executes sequentially on the primary checkout.

This cap applies only to the mutating stage. Planning and research are never worktree-isolated, so they run at full effective concurrency even when isolation is none.

Worktree creation, merging, and cleanup are always serialized one at a time (git worktree add/git merge/git worktree remove never overlap) — concurrency is about how many already-created worktrees' agents run at once, not about the git operations themselves. Merges apply in the same deterministic order the batch's dependency/file-overlap waves were computed in, never in whichever order an executor happens to finish first.

---

Dependencies and file overlap

Before planning, /msd-quick-batch has no signal about which items depend on each other or touch the same files — every item starts in the same wave. Each item's planner is shown the full batch's task catalog (every item's id and description) and is required to declare, in its plan's frontmatter, which sibling items (if any) it depends on and which files it will touch. After each planning round, the coordinator recomputes execution waves from those declarations — independent items with disjoint files run in parallel; a dependent item's wave always comes strictly after its dependency's.

---

Resuming and failure recovery

A batch's BATCH.json (.planning/quick-batches/<batch-id>/) tracks every item's status. Re-run with --resume <batch-id> at any point — including after a crash — and the coordinator re-derives which items are still runnable:

Outcome	What happens	Recoverable via --resume?
Item completes normally	Marked complete; a Quick Tasks Completed STATE.md row is appended.	N/A
Verifier reports human_needed (--validate only)	Terminal for that item — no STATE row is appended. Review it yourself, then fix and re-run if needed.	Yes, once resolved
Verifier reports gaps_found (--validate only)	The item is marked failed. Its already-merged commit is not rolled back, and there is no automatic gap-fix retry.	Yes — resume re-evaluates it
A merge conflicts, or a committed diff includes an undeclared file deletion	The item is marked failed with a reason; its worktree is preserved (never deleted) so you can inspect what happened.	Yes, after you resolve the worktree by hand
An item this item depends on failed	The dependent item is automatically marked blocked on the next --resume.	Yes, once the blocking item is resolved

Items unrelated to a failure continue normally in the same or a later batch run — one item's problem never blocks the rest of the batch.

Diagnosing a preserved worktree

When a merge conflicts or a committed diff includes an undeclared file deletion, the coordinator preserves that item's worktree instead of deleting it, so you can inspect exactly what the executor did:

1. Find it. The preserved directory is <repo-root>/../<quick_id>-<slug>-wt/ (or wherever your runtime's worktree layout places it) — the item's own quick directory, .planning/quick/<quick_id>-<slug>/, still has the PLAN.md the executor was given, which tells you what it was trying to do.
2. See what actually changed. From the preserved worktree: git log <base>..HEAD shows the executor's real commit(s); git diff <base>...HEAD --stat shows exactly which files it touched (compare that against PLAN.md's declared files_modified if you want to confirm whether the failure was a genuine conflict or an out-of-scope change).
3. Read the item's own SUMMARY.md in its quick directory — the executor wrote it before the merge was attempted, so it still describes what the executor believed it accomplished, independent of whether the merge itself succeeded.
4. Decide how to resolve it:
   • If the work is good and only the automated merge failed (a real conflict, or a deletion that should have been declared): merge the worktree's branch by hand (git merge <branch> --no-ff), resolve any conflicts, then remove the worktree yourself (git worktree remove <path> --force) and its branch (git branch -D <branch>).
   • If the work should be discarded: remove the worktree and branch the same way, without merging.
   • If a coordinator crash left the item's SUMMARY.md written but its BATCH.json status still pending (the executor finished before the coordinator process crashed, before the merge step ran) — this is NOT a preserved-worktree failure and needs no manual merge. --resume recognizes the on-disk SUMMARY.md and routes the item straight to the merge step on its own; it will not re-dispatch a second executor for it.
5. Re-run /msd-quick-batch --resume <batch-id> once you're done. A failed/merge_failed/scope_violation item you resolved manually (merged and cleaned up yourself) is picked up as already-merged on the next resume; an item you decided to abandon stays failed and is skipped.

---

Related

• Handle quick and fast tasks
• Commands
• Docs index