Project planning

Project Planning Skill

Orchestrate a comprehensive project planning workflow that generates GitHub issues, architecture diagrams, dependency graphs, and timeline charts from a natural language project description.

Prerequisites: Requires the issue-decomposition, architecture-diagramming, dependency-mapping, and timeline-planning skills (installed individually or via the project-foundations bundle). If a sub-skill is unavailable, perform that step inline.

When to Use

Activate this skill when user says:

• "Let's build a project plan for..."
• "Help me plan [project name]"
• "Create a project plan"
• "Break down this project"
• "Help me scope out..."
• "Plan the implementation of..."

Sub-Skills

This skill coordinates four specialized sub-skills:

Skill	Purpose
issue-decomposition	Break down into GitHub issues
architecture-diagramming	Generate architecture diagrams
dependency-mapping	Map issue dependencies
timeline-planning	Create Gantt charts

Planning Workflow

Step 1: Understand the Project

Ask key questions to scope the work:

1. Project Overview

   • What is this project/feature?
   • Who are the primary users?
   • What problem does it solve?

2. Technical Context

   • What technologies will be used?
   • Are there existing patterns to follow?
   • What external integrations are needed?

3. Constraints

   • Any technical requirements or limitations?
   • Dependencies on other work?

Step 2: Analyze Existing Codebase

If working in an existing project:

• Analyze the project structure
• Review existing code patterns
• Explore the project organization

Step 3: Decompose into Issues

Use the issue-decomposition skill to generate 5-15 well-structured issues with:

• User stories
• Acceptance criteria
• Dependencies
• Estimates
• Labels

Step 4: Generate Architecture Diagram

Use the architecture-diagramming skill to create a Mermaid diagram showing:

• Major components
• Data flow
• External integrations
• Boundaries and layers

Step 5: Map Dependencies

Use the dependency-mapping skill to generate a dependency graph showing:

• Blocking relationships
• Parallel opportunities
• Critical path

Step 6: Create Timeline

Use the timeline-planning skill to create a Gantt chart with:

• Phases and milestones
• Task durations
• Dependencies

Step 7: Preview and Confirm

Before creating anything:

## Project Plan Preview

### Issues to Create (X total)
| # | Title | Estimate | Dependencies |
|---|-------|----------|--------------|
| 1 | Setup | Small | None |
| 2 | Core feature | Medium | #1 |
...

### Architecture
[Mermaid diagram]

### Dependencies
[Mermaid diagram]

### Timeline
[Mermaid Gantt]

---
Create these issues and save the plan? (y/n)

Step 8: Create and Save

On confirmation:

1. Create all issues using gh issue create (requires the gh CLI) or an available GitHub MCP tool; if neither is available, output the issue bodies for manual creation
2. Save planning document to docs/plans/<slug>-plan.md
3. Save the plan summary to a markdown file in the repo (e.g. docs/plans/)

Planning Document Format

Save to docs/plans/<project-slug>-plan.md:

# Project Plan: [Project Name]

**Generated:** [Date]
**Status:** Draft
**Owner:** @[username]

## Overview
[2-3 sentence summary of the project]

## Goals
- [Goal 1]
- [Goal 2]
- [Goal 3]

## System Architecture

[Mermaid flowchart from architecture-diagramming skill]

## Issue Dependency Graph

[Mermaid flowchart from dependency-mapping skill]

## Timeline

[Mermaid Gantt from timeline-planning skill]

## Risks & Assumptions
- [Risk or assumption 1]
- [Risk or assumption 2]

## Issues Created
| Issue | Title | Status | Estimate |
|-------|-------|--------|----------|
| #201 | [Title] | Open | Small |
| #202 | [Title] | Open | Medium |
...

Best Practices

1. Start with understanding - Don't jump to decomposition
2. Preview before creating - Show user the full plan first
3. Keep issues focused - One concern per issue
4. Link everything - Cross-reference issues, diagrams, notes
5. Save outputs - Store plan documents in the repo for future reference
6. Iterate if needed - User can adjust before finalizing

After Planning

Suggest next steps:

• Assign issues to team members
• Set up project board with columns
• Schedule kickoff meeting
• Review plan with stakeholders

Related skills:

• stakeholder-tracking - Track stakeholder goals
• requirement-elicitation - Deeper requirements discovery