Truestack Orchestrate

truestack-orchestrate

One coding request often needs planning, building, an external call, and a quality gate — in a specific order, with the right contracts applied at each step. This skill is the router: it doesn't do the work itself, it routes to the skill that does and makes sure the chain runs in sequence. Front door of the set — classify the request, dispatch, check the handoff, repeat.

Don't duplicate a skill's content here. Orchestrate decides which skill and in what order; each skill owns its own method — the sibling's own description is the source of truth for what it covers.

Step 0 — ground before routing (always)

1. Read project memory — CLAUDE.md is auto-loaded (Principles + Boundaries); read

.ai/memory/ on demand. If no memory exists, route to truestack-project-memory to build it before any substantial work.

1. Carry the always-on contracts into whatever runs next: honesty (ground / verify / abstain,

truth over agreement), auto-research (consequential current-fact decisions are grounded in authoritative sources before committing, not recalled), clarify-then-proceed on real ambiguity, and the Ask-first / Never boundaries. They travel with every route; the destination skill enforces it.

1. Right-size (below) so heavy process never lands on a one-liner.

Right-size first

• Trivial & unambiguous (rename, copy tweak, one-liner): skip orchestration — the one obvious skill, then truestack-quality-control.
• Small (contained, clear intent): the single relevant skill → truestack-quality-control.
• Substantial (feature / service, several moving parts): run the full chain.
• High-risk (irreversible · data · money · security · schema / migration · first prod deploy · auth/credential or privacy-policy design): full chain plus the truestack-architecture-planning approval gate before any code is written; route risky DDL/backfill through truestack-database-migrations (it also trips the PreToolUse gate in hooks/).

Route by intent

Match the request to its skill — one or more. When several apply, run the chain in order.

| The request is about… | Route to | |---|---| | First task in a repo · no memory yet · "remember" / "onboard" · stale facts | truestack-project-memory | | Designing / scoping / "how should I structure this" / starting something new | truestack-architecture-planning | | Implementing backend — server, API, data layer, choosing a stack | truestack-backend-development | | Building or restyling React UI — component, page, design, accessibility | truestack-react-frontend | | A bug, error, crash, failing test, regression, "not working", slowness that's a defect | truestack-root-cause-debugging | | Checking work after a change — "QC", "verify", "make sure it's solid" | truestack-quality-control | | Live data or a real external action via a connected MCP server · .mcp.json | truestack-mcp-integration | | Schema or data migration — DDL (add/drop/rename column, constraint, index), backfill, expand/contract, "migration locked the table" | truestack-database-migrations (high-risk: via truestack-architecture-planning's gate first) | | Packaging & running on a VPS — Docker, nginx, TLS, systemd, SIGTERM drain, blue-green cutover, "my deploy causes downtime" | truestack-deploy-and-runtime | | CI/CD pipeline — GitHub Actions, checks gating PRs, SHA-pinning, release/semver, health-gated deploy step | truestack-ci-and-delivery | | Making a service observable — structured logs, metrics, OTel tracing, SLOs/burn-rate, "no telemetry yet" | truestack-observability | | Securing an app — auth flows, RBAC/access control, OWASP/injection, secrets, threat model, "is this secure" | truestack-application-security (high-risk auth/credential design: via truestack-architecture-planning's gate first) | | Designing the API interface contract — REST/GraphQL/gRPC, error model, versioning, pagination, idempotency, OpenAPI | truestack-api-design (high-risk public/versioned contract: via truestack-architecture-planning's gate first) | | Dependency lifecycle — add/pin/bump a package, Renovate/Dependabot cooldown, CVE/SBOM/license, "is this package safe" | truestack-dependency-management (high-risk ingestion: via truestack-architecture-planning's gate first) | | Privacy/compliance policy — GDPR/CCPA/HIPAA, PII inventory, retention/erasure, consent, audit of personal data, breach readiness | truestack-data-privacy (high-risk: via truestack-architecture-planning's gate first) | | Splitting work across parallel agents · research fan-out · resuming another session's ledger | truestack-agent-coordination | | "Research / compare / what's best / latest / find out / is it still true" | truestack-deep-research | | A shared reference/artifact — "how does this work", "reverse engineer this", "adopt/port this pattern", upgrading from a reference | truestack-reverse-engineering | | "Every day / weekly / remind me / run at / recurring" | truestack-task-scheduling | | "Score / rate / audit / evaluate / improve" a skill or skill set | truestack-skill-evaluation |

If nothing fits cleanly, say so and ask one short clarifying question — don't force a route.

When a request straddles two skills (deploy vs CI vs migration, security vs QC vs privacy, API vs build vs system design…) or needs a multi-step chain beyond the common ones below, open references/routing.md — it holds the boundary-case splits and the full canonical chain catalog. Don't guess a seam from memory when the reference defines it.

Canonical chains (most common; full catalog in references/routing.md)

• Backend feature → truestack-architecture-planning → truestack-backend-development → truestack-quality-control
• Frontend feature → truestack-architecture-planning → truestack-react-frontend → truestack-quality-control
• Bug fix → truestack-root-cause-debugging → truestack-quality-control
• Research → decision → truestack-deep-research → truestack-architecture-planning
• Recurring anything → wrap the chain with truestack-task-scheduling
• Always: every chain reads truestack-project-memory first; truestack-quality-control is the gate before "done"; and code and project memory must reconcile — the tally balances — before anything is called done.

Route beyond this set — pick the best skill, ours or not

This set is the general, governed spine, not the deepest skill for every domain. When a task needs single-domain depth a specialist set installed in this environment covers better, let the specialist do the domain work — discover, don't assume it's installed — and keep truestack's wrapper around the result: the PreToolUse gate still gates destructive/money/outbound calls, truestack-quality-control still gates "done", and the honesty contract + code↔memory tally still hold. Honesty over territory: use the better tool (details in references/routing.md).

Single agent or parallel?

Default single-agent — coordination overhead and human review are the real costs, and most work is sequential or tightly coupled. Hand to truestack-agent-coordination only when the plan has genuinely independent tasks, the work is big enough to pay the overhead, and shared contracts (schema / interfaces / API shapes) are defined first. Start at 2–3 agents.

Handoff discipline

• Route, then let the destination skill own its method — don't re-explain or re-run its steps here.
• Pass forward what it needs: the goal, the acceptance criteria, relevant memory, prior results.
• After each step, check the result against its acceptance criteria before moving to the next. If

a step fails, loop within that skill (build loop / verify-or-loop) — don't restart the chain.

• Nothing is "done" until truestack-quality-control passes, every acceptance criterion maps to evidence, and the code↔memory tally reconciles (memory updated to match the change).

Explain it simply

Open with the route in one plain line — what you'll do and in what order ("Plan the schema, build the endpoint, then QC it"). Get a yes before any high-risk or parallel dispatch. Report each step's result in one line. If you abstained or couldn't route cleanly, say so plainly.

Honest exit

Report against the goal, not the effort. If the chain stalls — a blocked dependency, a conflicting constraint, a claim you can't verify — stop and give an honest completion score (criteria met / total + what blocks each unmet one) rather than declaring a done you can't prove (honesty contract). An accurate 7/10 the user can act on beats a false 10/10.

Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: adtn0810
• Source: adtn0810/truestack
• License: MIT

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.