Plan

flow:plan — Authoring plan.md and tasks.md

A flow plan is a short, visual one-pager that explains the approach, not the code. The reader should finish in about a minute and know what is going to be built and how — mostly from a diagram.

Operating philosophy — lightweight, visual, fast iteration

The point of planning is to start implementing sooner with a clear direction, not to specify everything up front. Heavy plans (the GSD/over-planning failure mode) make everyone lose the goal, over-invest in detail, and burn out before any real output appears.

• Bias to brevity. Write the least plan that conveys goal, direction, and scope. If a section is not earning its length, cut it.
• Diagram over prose. A Mermaid diagram of the flow/shape communicates direction faster than paragraphs. Reach for one before writing long prose (see ../../references/mermaid.md).
• Iterate fast. plan → implement → review → fix, repeated, beats one big plan. Get something reviewable in front of the user quickly; refine on the next loop.
• The size ceilings below are ceilings, not targets — most plans should land well under them.

Lock the goal, spec, and user flow before you plan

Brevity does not mean skipping the goal. The single most expensive failure mode is a plan that starts from an ambiguous goal: scope corrections then arrive piecemeal after implementation has begun ("actually mobile is out", "it must match prod pixel-for-pixel", "that field shouldn't exist"). Lock these three before drafting the approach — this is where clarity is cheap:

1. Goal must be unambiguous. If any part of what "done" means is unclear, ask with AskUserQuestion — offer concrete options so the user picks the direction, don't guess. Confirm the goal at the level of the big direction, not every detail.
2. Write the spec + user flow explicitly. State the behavioral contract (what the system does, for whom, in what order) and the user flow as a Mermaid journey/sequenceDiagram. A plan the user can't trace as a flow isn't specified yet.
3. Decide the shape/schema with the user. Any non-trivial data schema, API contract, or interface decision goes through AskUserQuestion before it's baked into the plan — a wrong schema is the most expensive thing to unwind later.
4. Enumerate out-of-scope up front, not just in-scope. The ## Non-goals section is mandatory (not "near the end if you get to it") — list what you are deliberately not doing so it can't creep in during develop.

This is a few minutes at plan time that saves the piecemeal-correction spiral during develop. Keep it tight — options and a diagram, not prose.

Prep precondition check (run first, every invocation)

Before writing anything, verify the worktree + branch + task directory exist. If not, the user has skipped flow:kickoff setup and plan.md would land in the wrong place.

# 1. Are we in a flow worktree? (heuristic: parent dir name ends in .worktrees)
WT_PATH="$(git rev-parse --show-toplevel 2>/dev/null)" || { echo "not a git repo"; exit 1; }
WT_PARENT="$(basename "$(dirname "$WT_PATH")")"
case "$WT_PARENT" in *.worktrees) IN_WORKTREE=1;; *) IN_WORKTREE=0;; esac

# 2. Are we on a typed branch (feature/* | fix/* | chore/* | refactor/* | docs/*)?
BRANCH="$(git branch --show-current)"
case "$BRANCH" in feature/*|fix/*|chore/*|refactor/*|docs/*) ON_TASK_BRANCH=1;; *) ON_TASK_BRANCH=0;; esac

# 3. Is there a .flow/tasks/<date>-<task>/prepare.md to write into?
PREPARE="$(ls -1 .flow/tasks/*/prepare.md 2>/dev/null | head -n1)"
[[ -n "$PREPARE" ]] && HAS_TASK_DIR=1 || HAS_TASK_DIR=0

Decision matrix:

In worktree	On task branch	Has .flow/tasks/.../prepare.md	Action
yes	yes	yes	Proceed. This is the normal post-prep state.
no	no	no	Stop. Tell the user setup was skipped and ask: (a) run flow:kickoff setup now (recommended), (b) proceed in-place on the current branch (only sensible for size S, and you must still create .flow/tasks/<date>-<task>/prepare.md manually before writing the plan), (c) abort.
any	yes	no	Branch exists but the task dir is missing. Ask the user whether the prior task dir was cleaned up (rare) or this is a new task on a reused branch (more common). Create .flow/tasks/<date>-<task>/prepare.md before writing the plan either way.
any	any	yes	Task dir exists. Proceed and write into the existing dir — do not create a second one for the same date+task.

Do not silently fix the situation. The decision affects which branch commits land on and where artifacts get audited; the user should make it.

If the user picks "proceed in-place" without prep, write the size into the manually-created prepare.md so downstream skills (especially flow:develop) see consistent metadata.

Output files

All written under <worktree>/.flow/tasks/<date>-<task>/:

• plan.md — approach, scope, architecture decisions, rollout. ~500 lines max for the whole thing (including any phase sub-plans). If it grows beyond that, split into plan-phase-1.md, plan-phase-2.md and let plan.md become a short index.
• tasks.md — concise behavior checkbox list (one-line behavior + pseudo-code test or Mermaid), the single source of truth for progress during develop.
• brainstorm.md — conditional. Multi-LLM brainstorming synthesis, written before plan.md when scope warrants (see "Multi-LLM brainstorming" below). Raw per-model outputs go under artifacts/ (filenames prefixed brainstorm-).

All authored docs are English (any coding agent picks them up). Korean translations are dispatched as a separate step after drafting (see "Korean translation dispatch" below).

Multi-LLM brainstorming (run when scope warrants)

Before drafting plan.md, run a brainstorming round when the change is large enough or cross-cutting enough that diverse perspectives meaningfully sharpen the approach. The point is to surface architecture options, hidden risks, and security/correctness angles before committing to a shape. (There is no separate plan-review step — keep planning light and let review concentrate on the result.)

When to run

• Size L — always run. Large changes benefit most from multi-angle exploration.
• Size M — run when any of:
  • The change touches multiple modules (cross-module impact flagged in prepare.md or surfaced from research.md).
  • Security-sensitive surface: auth, payments, PII, cryptography, file uploads, anything user-controlled landing in a privileged context.
  • Public surface area (a new external API endpoint, a published SDK, a webhook contract).
  • The user explicitly asks for "options" / "alternatives" / "다각도로 보자" before planning.
• Size S — skip. One perspective is fine for an atomic edit.

If unsure for an M task, ask the user one short question. Default-no for plain M, default-yes for L.

Lenses

Generate options through focused lenses so they are differentiated, not duplicated:

• Architecture & alternatives — 2–3 distinct shapes; load-bearing tradeoffs (cost / blast radius / reversibility); ecosystem analogues.
• Risk & failure modes — race conditions, partial states, rollback paths, observability gaps, regressions in adjacent modules.
• Security & correctness (size L, or M with security-sensitive surface) — auth/authz, injection, data exposure, dependency surface, secrets.

Idempotency precondition

Before dispatching anything, check whether the brainstorm has already run:

BRAINSTORM=.flow/tasks/<date>-<task>/brainstorm.md
if [[ -f "$BRAINSTORM" ]] && grep -q '^status: active' "$BRAINSTORM"; then
  echo "brainstorm.md already exists (status: active)"
fi

If it does, do not silently re-dispatch. Ask the user: (a) keep the existing synthesis and skip the sub-phase, (b) regenerate (the existing brainstorm.md and its artifacts/brainstorm-* contributor files are moved aside to artifacts/brainstorm.v<N>.md and artifacts/brainstorm-<lens>-<model>.v<N>.md, mirroring the artifacts/plan.v<N>.md versioning convention), or (c) abort. The most common path after an interrupted session is (a) — re-running the brainstorm doubles cost and clobbers the audit trail.

How it works

The flow agent generates the options itself — it is the frontier model; it does not dispatch external CLIs. Work each lens above in turn and capture the options directly into brainstorm.md.

If the user wants external diversity, write a short brainstorm brief (the lenses + context, pointing at prepare.md/research.md) to artifacts/brainstorm-brief.md, let the user run their chosen agent(s) against it, save each return as artifacts/brainstorm-<agent>.md, and fold them into the synthesis. This is the same brief → user-run-agents model as code-review (see ../../references/multi-llm.md). Default is Claude-only; reach for external agents only when the stakes justify the round-trip.

Idempotency: if brainstorm.md already exists with status: active, don't silently redo it — ask the user to keep it, regenerate (move the old to artifacts/brainstorm.v<N>.md), or skip.

Synthesis — brainstorm.md

Write a single English brainstorm.md at .flow/tasks/<date>-<task>/brainstorm.md — the options from your own lenses, plus any external-agent returns (read each once, extract load-bearing ideas). This is what the planner consults while drafting plan.md.

---
title: "Brainstorm — <task name>"
type: brainstorm
task: <kebab task name>
task_date: <YYYY-MM-DD>
created: <today>
last_updated: <today>
status: active
size: <M|L>
parent: ./prepare.md
related:
  - ./research.md (if exists)
contributors:
  - flow-agent              # plus any external agent the user ran, e.g. antigravity, codex
---

# Brainstorm — <task>

## Architecture options
- 2–3 shapes the planner should weigh. One-line tradeoff each.

## Risks worth designing against
- Concrete failure modes raised by the brainstorm. Short and actionable.

## Security / correctness angles
- Threat-model bullets that should shape the plan or land as explicit non-goals.
  (Omit this section entirely when no security lens was run.)

## Convergence
- Where models agreed. These are usually safe assumptions for the plan.

## Divergence (most valuable section)
- Where models disagreed. Each entry: which model said what, and the planner's
  current lean — or "open question — needs user" when unresolved.

## Open questions for the user
- Anything the brainstorm could not resolve. Surface these before drafting the plan.

What NOT to do

• Don't brainstorm for size S. It's noise.
• Don't let the brainstorm become the plan. Brainstorm is option-generation; the plan is the decision.

Frontmatter (every generated document)

Both plan.md and tasks.md open with a YAML frontmatter block. The schema and per-type fields are in ../../references/frontmatter.md; mirror task and size from prepare.md, and task_date from the directory name's date prefix. Do not skip this — frontmatter.md exists so future agents can locate documents by type: plan / task: <name> without reading bodies.

plan.md:

---
title: "Plan — <task name>"
type: plan
task: <kebab task name>
task_date: <YYYY-MM-DD>
created: <today>
last_updated: <today>
status: draft         # bump to "active" once the user signs off, "done" after deploy
size: <S|M|L>
parent: ./prepare.md
related:
  - ./tasks.md (behavior checklist)
  - ./research.md (if exists — pre-plan investigation)
version: 1
---

tasks.md:

---
title: "Tasks — <task name>"
type: tasks
task: <kebab task name>
task_date: <YYYY-MM-DD>
created: <today>
last_updated: <today>
status: draft         # bump to "active" once develop starts, "done" after all boxes checked
size: <S|M|L>
parent: ./plan.md
related:
  - ./prepare.md
version: 1
total_tasks: <count at authoring time>
---

For size-L plans broken into phase files (plan-phase-1.md, …): each phase file uses type: plan-phase with a phase: <N> field and parent: ./plan.md (the index). See frontmatter.md for the full per-type spec.

plan.md structure

# Plan — <task name>

## Goal
One paragraph. What does success look like for the user? Avoid mentioning files.
Must be unambiguous — if it wasn't, you resolved it with the user (AskUser) before writing this.

## Spec & user flow
- The behavioral contract: what the system does, for whom, and in what order. Include any
  data schema / API shape that was decided (with the user) — enough that develop can build to it.
- A **user flow** as a Mermaid `journey` or `sequenceDiagram` — the path the user takes end to end.

## Scope
- **In:** the outcomes this task delivers.
- **Out:** what is deliberately excluded (also restated in `## Non-goals`). Fill this now, not later.

## Decision context
- Problem framing: who is affected, what outcome matters, and what constraints
  are already known.
- Premises: the assumptions this plan relies on. Mark any that are still
  unverified and explain how the plan avoids depending on them too heavily.
- Existing leverage: code, docs, tests, or workflows the plan will reuse rather
  than rebuild.

## Approach
The shape of the solution in 3-7 bullets. Talk about *what changes* and *why this
shape and not another*. Stay at the level of *direction* — the file-by-file detail
goes in `## Change map` below; per-task implementation lives in `tasks.md`.

**Lead with a Mermaid diagram.** A picture of the direction is the fastest read and
the most valuable part of the plan. Pick the type by what the change is (full
skeletons + GitHub gotchas in `../../references/mermaid.md`):

- Control / logic flow → `flowchart`
- API / message / async flow → `sequenceDiagram`
- Data model / schema change → `erDiagram`
- User-facing multi-step flow → `journey`

Render as a fenced ` ```mermaid ` block so GitHub / PR tools / docs sites pick it up.
Multiple diagrams are fine when distinct flows do not fit one — size L plans with
per-phase flows typically need more than one. The only time to skip the diagram is
the truly trivial "edit a function, add a test" shape, where a diagram is noise —
say so explicitly rather than defaulting to prose.

You may name concrete file paths and key type signatures inline when they sharpen
the shape (e.g., "extend `BridgeRouter` to a `Record<RequestType, Handler>`
dispatch table"). Resist pasting full implementations — if a snippet grows past
~5 lines, it belongs in `tasks.md` as a test signature or in the actual
implementation, not here.

## Change map
The file-level surface of the change. This section is what lets a reader (or
another agent) decide "do I need to touch this code?" without reading the rest of
the plan. Use lists, group by area when the change spans multiple modules. **One
bullet per file is the target — keep each file to a single list item, using
continuation lines under that bullet when needed.** When a file's change is
non-obvious, refer the reader to the relevant `## Approach` bullet rather than
inventing a sub-section.

### New
- `path/to/new-file.ts` — one-line purpose. Key exports / signatures when load-bearing.

### Modified
- `path/to/existing.ts` — was *<current behavior>* → becomes *<new behavior>*.
  Mention the specific function/symbol when the file is large.

### Deleted
- `path/to/dead-file.ts` — why it's dead, what (if anything) replaces it.

For size S where the change touches 1-3 files with obvious edits, the Change map
can collapse into a short paragraph or be omitted — the file paths are already in
`tasks.md`. For size M/L it is mandatory: this is the section the user reads to
decide whether the plan is ready for `flow:develop`.

## Alternatives considered
- Minimal viable: the smallest approach that could satisfy the goal.
- Local architecture fit: the approach that best matches current project patterns.
- Ideal / lateral: include only when meaningfully different.
- End with the chosen approach and the decision rationale. Mention effort, risk,
  reversibility, blast radius, and why rejected options were rejected.

## Phases (only if size = L)
- Phase 1: <one line>
- Phase 2: <one line>
Each phase gets its own `plan-phase-N.md` if it has more than ~10 tasks.

## Risks & open questions
Things that could derail the plan. Each entry: the risk, the mitigation, who
decides.

## Failure modes
- Concrete ways the change can fail in production or during agent execution.
- For each: expected handling, user/operator impact, and whether a test or
  verification step covers it.

## Test strategy
- Unit/integration/e2e/eval coverage that maps to the behavior in `tasks.md`.
- Existing tests to extend and new tests to add.
- Explicitly say when a task is non-TDD and why.

## Rollout
How does this ship? Feature flag? Migration? Backwards-compat shim? If the answer
is "just merge", say so explicitly.

## Non-goals
Bulleted. What is explicitly out of scope. Placed near the end because it is
boundary-setting context, not the headline — but still load-bearing: this list
prevents scope creep during develop, so don't omit it.

Things to leave out of plan.md:

• Full implementation code. Inline snippets >~5 lines belong in tasks.md (as test signatures) or in the actual implementation. Exception: Mermaid diagrams requested in ## Approach are exempt from this limit — they are not implementation code, they are the picture of it.
• Long type signatures inside ## Change map. Keep Change map entries to a single list item (continuation lines fine). Type signatures longer than that — or short contracts that need a few lines — belong in ## Approach, not in Change map bullets.
• Step-by-step instructions. Those are tasks.md's job.
• Restating what's in research.md. Reference it, don't copy it.

Plan self-review

Before showing the plan to the user, review it with fresh eyes and fix gaps inline:

• Goal locked: Goal is unambiguous, the spec + user flow are written, and any schema/contract was decided with the user (AskUser) — not left implicit.
• Coverage: Every stated success criterion maps to at least one task.
• Placeholders: No TBD/TODO/fill-in-later language remains.
• Change map present: For size M/L, every file the plan implies touching appears in ## Change map (New / Modified / Deleted). A reader can answer "what files change?" without reading the rest of the plan.
• Change map coverage: Every entry in ## Change map is touched by at least one task in tasks.md, and every file edited by tasks.md appears in ## Change map (or the section is intentionally collapsed for size S).
• Flow legible: Where the change involves message passing or non-trivial control flow, ## Approach contains a Mermaid diagram (fenced ```mermaid block). Prose-only is allowed only when the planner explicitly states why a diagram would be noise or infeasible — not as a default escape hatch.
• Reuse: The plan explains what existing code/docs/tests it reuses, or why not.
• Alternatives: At least two approaches were considered for non-trivial work, with a clear chosen approach and rejected-option rationale.
• Failure modes: Important nil/empty/error/timeout/concurrency paths are named and either handled, tested, or explicitly out of scope.
• Scope: Non-goals are explicit, and size S tasks are not bloated with M/L process.
• Handoff: tasks.md is specific enough for flow:develop to execute without rediscovering the architecture. Each task carries its expected commit hint(s).

tasks.md structure

A concise checkbox list of behaviors. Each task is a behavior, not a step. The develop skill treats each unchecked item as a TDD cycle (write test → implement → commit).

Do not use Given-When-Then prose. GWT made tasks long and hard to scan for no benefit. Express each behavior in the shortest form that is still testable:

• A one-line behavior statement (imperative, concrete), and
• for code work, either a pseudo-code test snippet (the assertion you would write) or a small Mermaid flowchart/journey showing the behavior — whichever reads faster. Pick one; do not write both.
• for non-code work (config, deps, docs), just the one-line statement.

The pseudo-code test or diagram replaces the GWT body — it states the same "when X, expect Y" contract in a form a human scans in seconds and flow:develop can turn into a real test.

Format is non-negotiable: - [ ] bullets, never a markdown table. "Checklist" in this plugin literally means "list of - [ ] items." A table cell cannot be checked off, cannot be appended to mid-task, and breaks flow:develop, which reads progress by scanning for [ ] vs [x]. The same rule applies to any file whose role is a checklist — audit checklists, status checklists, verification checklists. If you reach for a table to show "item / status / note," stop and use:

- [ ] **Item** — note. Status: ❌
- [x] **Item** — note. Status: ✅

Tables are fine for inventories or comparison matrices (read-only reference data). They are wrong for anything called a checklist.

Each TDD task carries an inline commit hint showing the expected commit boundary — typically one test(...) followed by one feat(...) (or fix(...)/refactor(...)). Non-TDD tasks carry a single hint.

Hints are advisory and human-/reviewer-readable only. flow:develop does not currently parse → ... lines; it still derives commit messages from the task body and references/commit-conventions.md. Treat hints as a planner-side aid for catching badly-scoped tasks (a behavior that needs three commits probably needs three checkboxes) and as a reviewer signal for what the planned commit shape was — not as a contract the develop skill enforces. A future PR may wire flow:develop to read and honor hints (and to record deviations in the commit body); until then, do not rely on that behavior.

# Tasks — <task name>

## Phase 1 (optional grouping)

- [ ] Redirect to Google's OAuth consent screen when a user without a linked
      account clicks "Sign in with Google".
      ```
      test: click sign-in → expect redirect URL host == accounts.google.com
      ```
      → `test(auth): redirect to Google consent on sign-in click`
      → `feat(auth): wire Google OAuth redirect`

- [ ] Issue a session and land on `/dashboard` on a valid Google callback.
      ```
      test: callback(validCode) → expect session token set && route == /dashboard
      ```
      → `test(auth): issue session on valid Google callback`
      → `feat(auth): implement Google callback handler`

- [ ] Show a non-technical error and stay on `/login` when Google denies consent.
      (diagram alternative when a flow is clearer than an assertion:)
      ```mermaid
      flowchart LR
        cb[callback] -->|error/denied| err[show message] --> login["/login"]
      ```
      → `test(auth): show error and stay on /login when Google denies`
      → `feat(auth): handle Google error/denial path`

## Non-TDD tasks

- [ ] Update `.env.example` with `GOOGLE_CLIENT_ID` and `GOOGLE_CLIENT_SECRET`.
      → `chore(env): add Google OAuth env vars`
- [ ] Add Google OAuth library to `package.json` (no test — dep bump).
      → `chore(deps): add google-auth-library`

Rules:

• Every item is a - [ ] checkbox. No markdown tables, no plain bullets, no numbered lists. If flow:develop can't toggle it from [ ] to [x], it doesn't belong here.
• One-line behavior, then one of: pseudo-code test or a small Mermaid diagram — never the verbose Given-When-Then prose, never both forms at once.
• One behavior per checkbox. Don't bundle.
• Commit hint(s) on every task. → <type>(<scope>): <subject> lines, one per planned commit (arrow outside the backticks). Follow ../../references/commit-conventions.md.
• Mention "non-TDD" explicitly for config/dep/rename tasks — see ../../references/tdd-policy.md.
• The order roughly follows implementation order, but the develop skill picks the next unchecked task and decides if dependencies require reordering.
• Sub-tasks are allowed (nested checkboxes) when a behavior splits naturally into validation + happy-path + error-path. Keep nesting one level deep.

Workflow

1. Read prepare.md and research.md (if it exists). Don't restart research — build on it.
2. Read the user's task goal in their words. If anything is ambiguous, ask one or two focused questions. Don't ask 10 questions; the user reads the plan before develop, and review concentrates on the result.
3. Decide whether to brainstorm (see "Multi-LLM brainstorming" above for the trigger criteria). If yes, generate options across the lenses (optionally a brief for external agents), synthesize brainstorm.md, and resolve any "open questions for the user" before drafting.
4. Choose the approach. Use research.md candidate approaches and brainstorm.md divergence as inputs. For size M/L, if two viable approaches remain close or the choice changes user-visible scope, pause once and ask the user to choose before writing the final plan.
5. Draft plan.md. Drafting order can differ from document order: it is normal to write Approach first (clarifying the shape often sharpens the Goal), then sketch the Change map (this surfaces missed files and forces the approach to be concrete), then Goal, Risks, Rollout, and finally Non-goals once scope boundaries are visible. The rendered document leads with Goal → Decision context → Approach → Change map (두괄식, then file surface) and pushes Non-goals near the end as boundary context. If brainstorm.md exists, consult it as you go — convergence informs assumptions, divergence informs explicit decisions in Alternatives considered and Approach.
6. Draft tasks.md. Each task should look like something you could write a failing test for, except the explicit "non-TDD" ones. Add the commit hint(s) inline as you go — drafting the hint forces you to confirm the commit boundary fits one behavior. Cross-check that every entry in ## Change map is touched by at least one task.
7. Self-review plan.md and tasks.md using the checklist above. Fix gaps inline before presenting them.
8. Dispatch Korean translation. Generate artifacts/plan.ko.md and artifacts/tasks.ko.md (see "Korean translation dispatch" below).
9. Show both files to the user for a quick read, then proceed to flow:develop on go-ahead. Keep this fast — the plan is short and visual; deep review happens on the result.

Korean translation dispatch

After self-review passes, generate Korean translations of plan.md and tasks.md so the user can skim the plan quickly in Korean. Translations live under artifacts/ (filenames plan.ko.md / tasks.ko.md) — they are user-facing reading copies, not LLM-facing artifacts.

Dispatch method

Primary — Sonnet subagent. Spawn a Claude Code Task agent with model: sonnet. The subagent reads plan.md and tasks.md from the task directory and writes:

• artifacts/plan.ko.md
• artifacts/tasks.ko.md

Prompt the subagent to preserve all structural formatting (headings, checkboxes, code blocks, Mermaid diagrams) and translate only the prose. The subagent writes the files directly via its Write tool.

Alternative — GLM 5.1 via opencode CLI. If the user requests a cost-efficient translation (e.g., "GLM으로 번역해줘"), use opencode run -m opencode-go/glm-5.1 with the file-write contract instead. Pipe the prompt via stdin per references/multi-llm.md. This is opt-in only — do not default to it.

Translation frontmatter

Each translation file carries frontmatter for agentic search:

---
title: "Plan (Korean) — <task name>"
type: plan-translation          # or tasks-translation
task: <kebab task name>
task_date: <YYYY-MM-DD>
created: <today>
last_updated: <today>
status: active
size: <S|M|L>
parent: ../plan.md              # or ../tasks.md
source: ../plan.md              # the English file this translates
language: ko
translator: sonnet              # or glm-5.1
---

Version management

If the plan is substantively revised after the user has seen it, move the old versions into artifacts/ with a .v<N> suffix before writing the new one:

• plan.md → artifacts/plan.v<N>.md
• artifacts/plan.ko.md → artifacts/plan.v<N>.ko.md

Then re-dispatch Korean translation for the new plan.md using the same method above. Same logic for tasks.md / tasks.ko.md. With lightweight fast-iteration most revisions are small in-place edits — only version when the change is large enough that the old plan is worth keeping.

When to skip

Size S plans (20-50 lines, 1-3 tasks) — skip translation unless the user explicitly asks. The plan is short enough to scan in English.

Sizing decisions

Treat these as ceilings, not targets — keep plans as short as the work allows.

• Size S — plan.md 20-50 lines. tasks.md 1-3 checkboxes (each with its commit hint). Skip phases and brainstorming. Change map can collapse into a sentence or be omitted when the touched files are obvious from tasks.md.
• Size M — plan.md ~100-200 lines, ideally less. tasks.md ~5-15 checkboxes. Lead ## Approach with a Mermaid diagram. Change map mandatory (New / Modified / Deleted, one bullet per file). Include meaningful alternatives, failure modes, and test strategy. Brainstorm when cross-module / security-sensitive / public-surface (else skip).
• Size L — plan.md + per-phase files; keep each phase file lean. tasks.md scoped by phase. Mermaid diagram(s) in ## Approach. Change map mandatory and grouped by area/phase when the change spans >10 files. Include decision context, alternatives, failure-mode registry, rollout/rollback posture, and test strategy. Brainstorming expected (incl. security lens). Even at L, prefer splitting into smaller sub-tasks/sub-issues over one giant plan.

Reference

• Directory layout: ../../references/directory-structure.md
• Frontmatter schema: ../../references/frontmatter.md
• TDD policy (what gets tests, what doesn't): ../../references/tdd-policy.md
• Doc style (prefer lists over tables): ../../references/doc-style.md
• Mermaid diagram types & skeletons: ../../references/mermaid.md
• Multi-LLM brief model (used by brainstorming): ../../references/multi-llm.md
• Model registry (research tier + external agents): ../../references/models.md