create-plans_skill

Overview

This skill creates hierarchical, Claude-executable project plans optimized for a single human (you) and a single implementer (Claude). Plans are compact prompts (PLAN.md) that contain objective, context, atomic tasks, verification criteria, and explicit outputs. The goal is fast, verifiable deliveries with repeatable handoffs and minimal coordination overhead.

How this skill works

On invocation it scans the repo for planning artifacts and git state, then offers context-aware options (start brief, create roadmap, plan phase, resume handoff). When planning a phase it generates PLAN.md as the actual execution prompt: objective, 2–3 atomic tasks, checkpoints, verification steps, success criteria, and SUMMARY.md output spec. It can load relevant domain expertise selectively to keep context use low and enforces checkpoint and deviation rules during execution.

When to use it

• Planning a new project or converting a brief into an executable roadmap
• Breaking a roadmap into atomic, Claude-runnable phase plans
• Preparing a phase handoff for later execution or resumption
• Creating verifiable tasks with automated CLI/API steps and human checkpoints
• Splitting large work into many small, high-quality plans to avoid context degradation

Best practices

• Keep each PLAN.md to 2–3 tasks and scope a phase to complete within ~50% context usage
• Prefer automation: if Claude can run a CLI/API, include it in tasks (avoid human-action requests)
• Include measurable verification criteria and a SUMMARY.md output spec for each phase
• Use checkpoint:human-verify and checkpoint:decision sparingly and only for true human gates
• Commit only meaningful milestones and phase completions; maintain git history for artifacts

Example use cases

• Convert a product brief into a compact roadmap and domain-aware phase list
• Create a phase plan to implement database schema, client, or API routes as separate PLAN.md files
• Produce a handoff PLAN.md when pausing work so a subagent can resume later
• Generate verifiable tasks that run CLI commands to deploy, test, or seed infrastructure
• Load domain expertise (e.g., nextjs, macOS) selectively before creating domain-specific phases