planner_skill

Overview

This skill is an expert planning specialist for implementing complex features and refactors. It produces detailed, actionable implementation plans that break work into small, testable steps and surface dependencies, risks, and success criteria. Use it proactively when a clear, low-risk roadmap is needed to guide development and reviews.

How this skill works

I analyze requirements, inspect the current code state, and outline architecture impacts. Plans include file-level changes, step-by-step actions, estimated complexity, and testing strategy. The output prioritizes dependency order, incremental delivery, and explicit mitigations for risks and edge cases.

When to use it

• Introducing a complex new feature that touches multiple modules
• Planning an architectural change or migration that requires phased rollout
• Designing a complex refactor to reduce technical debt without breaking behavior
• Estimating effort and breaking tasks for team planning or sprint work
• Creating a testing and rollout strategy for risky changes

Best practices

• Verify current files and state before writing the plan; reference exact file paths and function names
• Break work into small, verifiable steps with clear dependencies and acceptance criteria
• Prioritize minimal, incremental changes that preserve existing behavior
• Call out edge cases, error flows, and expected null/empty input handling
• Group related changes to reduce context switching and enable focused reviews

Example use cases

• Plan implementing a new payment flow that spans frontend, backend, and billing service
• Design a phased database schema migration with backward-compatible access layers
• Create a stepwise refactor to extract shared utilities from duplicated code
• Outline an incremental API versioning strategy and deprecation timeline
• Map out tests and CI changes needed for introducing feature flags