Plan

/archcore:plan

Plan a feature or initiative through one gated track. Vision types are the primary output. Reads cover all three categories: vision supplies intent and resumption targets, knowledge supplies constraints, experience supplies precedent.

When to use

• "Plan the auth redesign" → sdd track
• "Create a roadmap for the API migration" → sdd track
• "Plan a new feature for CSV export" → sdd track
• "Just a plan, skip the idea and PRD" → sdd track; gates an existing document covers close via skip_when, the rest run question-free
• "I need market research before we plan" → requirements-cascade track, sources mode
• "We're regulated — start the ISO requirements cascade" → requirements-cascade track, iso mode
• "Investigate X before we plan" / "Compare the alternatives for Y" → research track

Not plan:

• Recording a decision → /archcore:document
• Documenting existing code → /archcore:document
• Codifying a team standard → /archcore:document
• Checking documents against code → /archcore:review

Routing table

| Signal | Route | |---|---| | Default — feature, initiative, refactor, roadmap | sdd track — skills/_shared/tracks/sdd.md, entry sdd.frame | | Market research, discovery, competitive or opportunity analysis, stakeholder alignment — when it opens a requirements cascade (mrd → brd → urd); standalone market research as evidence routes to the research row below | requirements-cascade track, sources mode — skills/_shared/tracks/requirements-cascade.md, entry requirements-cascade.mrd | | Regulated system, ISO 29148, audits, formal or traceable requirements | requirements-cascade track, iso mode — skills/_shared/tracks/requirements-cascade.md, entry requirements-cascade.brs | | Technical research: investigate an unknown, compare alternatives, gather evidence before planning or deciding — "investigate X", "research the options for Y". Market and business discovery stays on the sources row above; a request that already proposes a specific target for team acceptance ("should we switch to Y", "let's adopt Y") belongs to /archcore:document's decision track — research is pre-decision evidence gathering with no proposed verdict | research track — skills/_shared/tracks/research.md, entry research.frame | | The user names a track or mode (sdd, sources, iso, research) in the invocation | The named path, with no routing | | "Just a plan" or "only the plan document" | sdd track — gates whose topic an existing document already covers close through skip_when; otherwise upstream gates run question-free when the request text satisfies their entry conditions | | A decision surfaces at a gate | Record the adr through the decision track (skills/_shared/tracks/decision.md), then return to the open gate |

Finer mode selection inside requirements-cascade — document-graph state, a named cascade document type — belongs to that track's Mode selection section.

Execution

1. Ground

Complete this step before asking the user any question.

1. Search .archcore/ with mcp__archcore__search_documents and mcp__archcore__list_documents across all three categories. Pass a planning-moment type filter — for example types=["idea", "prd", "plan", "spec", "rnd", "rfc", "adr", "rule", "task-type", "cpat"] — instead of relying on the global type ranking. Do not exclude a category from reads.
2. WHEN a found document carries implements or related relations, pull the linked documents one hop via mcp__archcore__list_relations and mcp__archcore__get_document.
3. WHEN a found draft on the topic carries an archcore:track state block, resume it per the resume rules in skills/_shared/gate-contract.md instead of opening a new track.
4. Read git state — current branch, recent commits, working tree — and the code areas the topic names. Record the concrete files and modules for Step 5.
5. IF .archcore/ exists but contains no documents, THEN proceed on outer-context grounding (git state and the codebase) and report that zero documents were found.
6. IF .archcore/ does not exist, THEN announce initialization in one line and call mcp__archcore__init_project without asking a question.

Global sources. If a list_documents / search_documents result has global: true / read_only: true / source_kind: "global", load skills/_shared/globals.md. Never modify a global document and never target one with add_relation. Absent any global match, proceed as usual.

2. Route

Apply the routing table to the request text and the grounding results. WHEN the user names a track or mode in the invocation, execute that path with no routing — this is the expert invocation.

3. Budget

Interview mechanics, question form, and ceilings: skills/_shared/elicitation-contract.md. Auto mode draws every question from the shared per-invocation ceiling; an expert invocation raises per-gate budgets to the maxima the track file declares.

4. Execute the track

Run the routed track's gates per skills/_shared/gate-contract.md: evaluate skip_when first at every gate, keep track state only in the archcore:track block inside the draft artifact, persist each gate close in one mcp__archcore__update_document call, and follow the resume rules on re-entry. Gate bodies, per-gate questions, and relation wiring live in the track files — do not restate them.

5. Map tasks to files

WHEN the track has exited and a plan document exists:

1. Annotate each task in the plan's Tasks section with the concrete files or modules that grounding surfaced for it, using @path/to/file notation, in one mcp__archcore__update_document call.
2. WHEN grounding surfaced no file or module for a task, state that no target was found for that task. Do not guess a path.

WHEN the track produced no plan document (sources and iso modes, and the research track), skip to Result — the track's exit gate names its follow-ups.

6. Implement fork

Offer exactly two exits and let the user choose:

• Implement now — start on the mapped task list, first phase first, against the files mapped in Step 5.
• Stop here — the draft documents and relations stay in .archcore/; a later /archcore:plan invocation resumes any draft that still carries a state block.

Result

Report:

• Produced documents grouped by category — vision, knowledge, experience — with each document's path and status.
• Relations created, plus candidate mcp__archcore__add_relation targets among existing documents, or a statement that none match.
• Next actions, naming only v2 commands: /archcore:plan to continue a cascade (for example a prd through the sdd track after sources mode), /archcore:document to record a decision or document code touched during implementation, /archcore:review to check the implementation against the recorded plan.

Source & license

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

• Author: archcore-ai
• Source: archcore-ai/plugin
• License: Apache-2.0
• Homepage: https://archcore.ai/plugin/

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