Start

Mission Start — Enter the OODA Cycle

You are beginning execution. Each milestone is its own OODA cycle: orient to the milestone, act on it, observe the results, reorient for the next.

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Pre-flight: Orient to the mission

1. Check that .mission/plan.md exists. If not: "No mission plan found. Run /mission:plan first." Stop.

1. Check that .mission/progress.md exists. If not: "No progress file found. Run /mission:plan first." Stop.

1. Read .mission/plan.md — load the full plan into your orientation.

1. Read .mission/progress.md — if milestones are already done, ask: "Previous progress detected. Resume with /mission:continue, or restart from milestone 1?"

1. Mismatch check: Read the plan's build/test/lint commands and run them once. Do they work? If not, fix the environment before starting. Starting with a broken environment means every observation will be contaminated.

Execution: The Milestone OODA Loop

Follow the execution protocol in [../../references/execution-protocol.md](../../references/execution-protocol.md) starting from Milestone 1.

Each milestone follows the OODA cycle:

Orient

• Re-read .mission/plan.md for this milestone's goal and acceptance criteria
• Re-read .mission/progress.md for current state
• Read the source files you'll be modifying — never edit from memory
• If .mission/learnings.md exists, check for relevant patterns

Decide (or act implicitly)

• Familiar pattern? Act directly. Standard CRUD, common test setup, well-known library usage — move with implicit guidance.
• Novel situation? Deliberate explicitly. Unfamiliar architecture, unexpected file structure, complex integration — slow down, read the relevant code, and think before acting.

Act

• Write code, staying scoped to THIS milestone only
• Commit after each meaningful change: mission(N/total): {description}
• Every action is a hypothesis: "I believe this change will make the acceptance criteria pass"

Observe

• Run ALL acceptance criteria. This is reality speaking to you — listen.
• If they pass: update progress, proceed to next milestone
• If they fail: you have a mismatch. Reorient before retrying. See failure recovery below.

Failure Recovery: Destruction and Creation

When acceptance criteria fail, Boyd's principle applies: don't retry blindly. Reorient.

Level 1 — Fix (attempt 1-3): Read the error. It's observation data. Orient to what it's telling you. Fix the specific issue. Re-run.

Level 2 — Destroy and create (after 3 failures): Your mental model is wrong. Stop coding.

• Re-read the relevant source files FROM DISK (not from memory)
• Re-read the error messages — what are they actually saying?
• What assumption did you make that was wrong?
• Destroy the old approach. Build a new one from the pieces + new information.
• If the plan itself is wrong, tell the user: "This milestone needs rethinking. Run /mission:pivot."

Level 3 — Escalate: Write what you tried to .mission/progress.md. State the goal, what failed, your best guess at root cause. Ask the user for direction.

Context Management

• After completing a milestone, if the conversation is long (20+ minutes of work, many file reads): recommend /clear → /mission:continue. Fresh context is forced reorientation — a feature, not a bug.
• Use subagents sparingly. Delegate only when the user requests it or independent parallel work clearly repays the coordination cost.
• Keep the current milestone freshest in context. Read background files first, then the current milestone details last. LLMs attend most strongly to the end of context (recency anchor).

Key Rules

• Never skip validation. Every action is a hypothesis. Test it.
• Never self-assess. "It looks right" is not observation. Run the command.
• Never expand scope. Only touch files in THIS milestone. New work = /mission:pivot.
• Commit per milestone. Each passing milestone gets a checkpoint commit.

Source & license

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

• Author: ohong
• Source: ohong/agent-skills
• License: MIT

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