Planning and task breakdown

Planning And Task Breakdown

Overview

Convert the approved plan into small, executable tasks that can be verified one at a time. Good task breakdown reduces hidden coupling, scope drift, and fake progress.

Model tier: runs on sonnet (bounded decomposition against a written spec) per .claude/references/model-routing.md. Tool discipline (phase-locked): planning is a read + plan-artifact phase. Write only the plan/todo artifacts (docs/plans/, tasks/todo.md) — never source or test code. Implementation belongs to Phase 3; a source edit here is a scope violation the scope-guard hook will flag.

When To Use

• After spec approval
• Before any multi-file implementation
• When implementation needs explicit checkpoints or re-planning boundaries

When NOT To Use

• Tiny single-file work already small enough to execute safely
• Exploratory debugging before the root cause is known

Workflow

1. Start from the approved change manifest and test manifest. 1a. Prior-work freshness check. If the spec's ## Prior Work Check section is missing OR was generated more than one session ago (different branch HEAD, different day), re-run prior-work-check against the current branch state. Risk profiles and lessons can shift between approval and planning. A BLOCK verdict here means planning stops until the spec is amended and re-approved.
2. Break work into batches of 2-4 related files, dependency-ordered.
3. For each task, write:
   • task description
   • acceptance criteria
   • verification step
   • files in scope
   • Boundary: what this task owns and must not leak into (e.g., "handler only — no controller changes")
   • Depends: which prior tasks or existing code this task assumes is complete (e.g., "requires Batch 1 entity to exist")
   • Governing constraints: the Critical Rule / principle ids that constrain this batch, cited from the spec's Constitution Check (run bash scripts/constitution-digest.sh if absent). Each batch states which rules it must satisfy, not just what it builds — recorded in the plan so the implementer and human reviewers see, per batch, exactly which rules constrain it. An empty list is allowed only with an explicit "no rule constrains this batch" note.
4. Prefer vertical slices where possible so each batch leaves the system in a working state. 4b. Package-legitimacy gate for new dependencies. If any batch introduces a third-party package not already present in the repo's dependency manifests — especially one an AI assistant, blog post, or the spec's research brief recommended — do NOT plan a bare install step. Instead:
   • Run the stack's registry-verification command (from .claude/references/dependency-intake-checklist.md criterion 0, also listed in the active tech-stack skill) to confirm the package exists and is the real one (not a typosquat / hallucination).
   • Tag the package [ASSUMED] in the plan until verified, and insert an explicit checkpoint:human-verify step before the install task. This checkpoint is one of the conditions that blocks MTK_AUTO_PROCEED at the implement Phase 2.5 gate, so an unverified package can never be installed autonomously.
   • A criterion-0 Poor (not found / dead repo / typosquat signal) blocks the dependency outright — re-plan without it.
5. Mark tasks that can run in parallel and tasks that must stay sequential.
6. Write tasks/todo.md with:
   • task title
   • scope and branch
   • batches with checkboxes
   • post-implementation review items
7. If a spec file exists in docs/specs/, persist the plan alongside it:
   • If the plan was supplied by the engineer as input (adopted by implement Phase 0.7 — the file already exists at the plan path): do not author a new plan or version-bump the engineer's file. Adopt the supplied path as-is, validate its plan.batches against the JSON sidecar schema, and run prior-work-check's existing-plan reconciliation mode so already-implemented batches are marked done before the approval gate rather than re-run. Skip the authoring sub-steps below.
   • Use the full filename stem of the active spec, including any version suffix (e.g., -v2, -v3). If the spec was written as docs/specs/2026-04-23-foo-v2.md, the plan is docs/plans/2026-04-23-foo-v2.md.
   • If no spec path is available (standalone planning run), use YYYY-MM-DD-<feature-slug>.md with no suffix.
   • Create docs/plans/ if it does not exist.
   • Add docs/plans/ to .gitignore if not already present.
   • This enables session recovery and plan reuse across sessions.
8. Append the plan section to the existing JSON handoff artifact at docs/specs/<date>-<slug>.json (created by spec-driven-development). Schema: .claude/schemas/handoff.schema.json. Required keys:

   "plan": {
     "batches": [
       { "id": "B1", "files": ["src/X.cs"], "acceptance": "...",
         "verification": "...", "boundary": "...", "depends": [],
         "governing_constraints": ["C0.2", "S1.15"],
         "parallel_safe": false }
     ]
   }
   

   Every files entry must already exist in the top-level change_manifest. If it does not, re-plan first — don't quietly widen scope here.
9. Keep the task list synchronized with reality. If a new file is needed, re-plan before continuing.
10. Record the plan/todo paths on the workflow artifact and leave plan_trust_gate at pending — only the engineer's Phase 2.5 approval flips it to pass. See .claude/references/orchestration-gates.md. 10.5. Update the workflow artifact (additive, capability-gated). With plan_path/todo_path recorded, follow .claude/references/artifact-publishing.md to add the Plan section to the workflow's Claude Artifact. Because the artifact is keyed to the workflow uuid, this updates the existing URL in place (passing the recorded results.artifact_url) — it does not mint a new link. Silent no-op when the tool is unavailable or MTK_ARTIFACT_PUBLISH=0.
11. Anti-anchored gap check. Before surfacing the plan to the engineer, dispatch the plan-gap-reviewer agent with the original user request and the saved plan path — plus, when they exist, the spec markdown path, the spec JSON sidecar path, and tasks/todo.md. Passing the sidecar and todo activates the agent's cross-artifact consistency check: spec ↔ plan ↔ todo are mapped against each other in both directions (manifest entries ↔ batches, success criteria ↔ tests, out-of-scope ↔ batch contents) so disagreement between the artifacts is caught before the approval gate, not after implementation. The agent runs in a forked context and is forbidden from reading lessons, prior reviewer output, or the workflow artifact — its job is to challenge the plan against the repo with no anchors. Surface every BLOCKING finding back to the planner and revise before the approval gate. Surface ADVISORY findings unchanged at the approval gate so the engineer decides.

Rules

• Every touched file must already exist in the change manifest.
• Every batch must be buildable.
• Every behavior change must have an associated test task.
• No task should require changing more than a small handful of files without justification.
• Re-planning is mandatory if the task grows beyond the approved manifest.

Common Rationalizations

See .claude/skills/context-engineering/SKILL.md for the shared table. Planning-specific traps: "I'll just keep the tasks in my head" (hidden plans drift fastest — write the list so implementation and review can check reality against it), "this batch is a bit large, but it saves time" (oversized batches hide breakage and make checkpoints meaningless), and "I'll add verification steps later" (a task without verification is not a task, it's a wish).

Red Flags

• Batches too large to verify quickly
• Checkpoints omitted
• tasks/todo.md drifting from actual implementation
• Tasks ordered by convenience rather than dependency
• Missing Boundary or Depends annotations — without them, task scope is ambiguous
• Circular dependencies between tasks

Verification

• tasks/todo.md exists and is actionable
• Batches are dependency-ordered
• Each task has acceptance and verification
• Each batch ends with a concrete checkpoint
• Each task has Boundary and Depends annotations
• No circular dependencies exist between tasks
• Workflow artifact updated in place (same URL) or gate correctly closed, per .claude/references/artifact-publishing.md (step 10.5)