Planning Foundation

Work like Manus: Use persistent markdown files as your "working memory on disk."

Every planning skill in superpower-planning inherits this foundation. .planning/ is the "RAM on disk" for the current work session.

Planning Directory Convention

.planning/                     # gitignored, ephemeral working state
├── design.md                  # design spec (created by brainstorming)
├── plan.md                    # implementation plan (persisted after plan approval)
├── findings.md                # aggregated findings
├── progress.md                # Task Status Dashboard + session log
├── agents/                    # created on demand by delegated roles
│   ├── implementer/           # one dir per role, reused across tasks
│   │   ├── findings.md        # this agent's discoveries (appended across tasks)
│   │   └── progress.md        # this agent's action log (appended across tasks)
│   ├── reviewer/
│   └── ...
├── stash/                     # paused projects (directory per entry)
│   └── YYYY-MM-DD-<name>/
│       ├── design.md, plan.md, findings.md, progress.md
│       └── agents/
└── archive/                   # completed projects (directory per entry)
    └── YYYY-MM-DD-<name>/
        ├── design.md, plan.md, findings.md, progress.md
        └── summary.md

All project documents live in .planning/. The agents/ directory is NOT created at init — delegated roles create their own subdirectory when dispatched.

Lifecycle directories:

• .planning/stash/ — paused projects (each entry is a subdirectory with all active files)
• .planning/archive/ — completed projects (each entry is a subdirectory with all active files + summary.md)

Quick Start

Before ANY complex task:

1. Create .planning/ directory — run ${CLAUDEPLUGINROOT}/scripts/init-planning-dir.sh, or mkdir -p .planning if the script is unavailable
2. Create progress.md — Use [templates/progress.md](templates/progress.md) (includes Task Status Dashboard)
3. Create findings.md — Use [templates/findings.md](templates/findings.md) as reference
4. Re-read plan before decisions — Refreshes goals in attention window
5. Update after each phase — Mark complete, log errors

The Core Pattern

Context Window = RAM (volatile, limited)
Filesystem = Disk (persistent, unlimited)

-> Anything important gets written to disk.

File Purposes

Critical Rules

1. Create Planning Dir First

Never start a complex task without .planning/. All project documents (design, plan, findings, progress) live in .planning/. Execution status is tracked via the Task Status Dashboard in progress.md.

2. The 2-Action Dispatch Rule

"After every 2 read/search/explore operations, IMMEDIATELY save to the appropriate file by content type."

Dispatch by content type:

This prevents both knowledge AND progress from being lost.

3. Read Before Decide

Before major decisions, read the plan file. This keeps goals in your attention window.

4. Update After Act

After completing any phase:

• Mark phase status: in_progress -> complete
• Log any errors encountered
• Note files created/modified

5. Log ALL Errors

Every error goes in the plan file. This builds knowledge and prevents repetition.

## Errors Encountered
| Error | Attempt | Resolution |
|-------|---------|------------|
| FileNotFoundError | 1 | Created default config |
| API timeout | 2 | Added retry logic |

6. Never Repeat Failures

if action_failed:
    log what you tried and observed
    escalate to user for direction

Do NOT independently try alternative approaches. Log the failure and follow the Error Escalation Protocol.

Error Escalation Protocol

ATTEMPT 1: Diagnose & Fix
  -> Read error carefully
  -> Identify root cause
  -> Apply targeted fix

ATTEMPT 1 FAILED: Escalate to User
  -> Show: what failed, what you tried, what you observed
  -> Ask: is this a bug? a plan gap? an environment issue?
  -> Align on direction BEFORE proceeding

AFTER ALIGNMENT (based on user's judgment):
  -> Bug           → use systematic debugging skill
  -> Plan gap      → update plan with user
  -> Environment   → fix environment
  -> Architecture  → broader rethink with user

Why escalate early: The plan was carefully designed. Self-directed alternative approaches bypass plan intent and create workarounds. Always align with the user before changing direction.

Read vs Write Decision Matrix

The 5-Question Reboot Test

If you can answer these, your context management is solid:

When to Use This Pattern

Use for:

• Multi-step tasks (3+ steps)
• Research tasks
• Building/creating projects
• Tasks spanning many tool calls
• Delegated execution or dynamic-workflow orchestration

Skip for:

• Simple questions
• Single-file edits
• Quick lookups

Per-Agent Planning Directories

When dispatching delegated roles (e.g. implementer/reviewer agents in an orchestrated run), each gets its own planning dir:

.planning/agents/{role}/
├── findings.md    # agent's discoveries (appended across tasks)
└── progress.md    # agent's action log (appended across tasks)

Do NOT create per-task directories like implementer-task-1/. One directory per role, updated continuously.

The orchestrator aggregates delegated-role findings into top-level .planning/findings.md and .planning/progress.md after each task completes.

Templates

• [templates/findings.md](templates/findings.md) — Research storage
• [templates/progress.md](templates/progress.md) — Session logging
• [templates/agent-context.md](templates/agent-context.md) — Planning rules to inject into delegated-role prompts

Scripts

Planning lifecycle:

• ${CLAUDEPLUGINROOT}/scripts/init-planning-dir.sh — Initialize .planning/ with findings.md and progress.md
• ${CLAUDEPLUGINROOT}/scripts/planning-reset.sh — Reset active state, preserve archive/ and stash/
• ${CLAUDEPLUGINROOT}/scripts/check-planning-state.sh — Check state: missing | empty | active | complete
• ${CLAUDEPLUGINROOT}/scripts/check-complete.sh — Verify all tasks complete
• ${CLAUDEPLUGINROOT}/scripts/snapshot-save.sh — Copy active project files to a target directory (shared by stash/archive)

Stash/archive:

• ${CLAUDEPLUGINROOT}/scripts/stash-list.sh — List available stashes (directory + legacy format)
• ${CLAUDEPLUGINROOT}/scripts/stash-restore.sh — Restore stash to active .planning/ state
• ${CLAUDEPLUGINROOT}/scripts/archive-search.sh — Search archives by keyword
• ${CLAUDEPLUGINROOT}/scripts/unique-filename.sh — Generate unique dated filename/dirname

Agent orchestration:

• ${CLAUDEPLUGINROOT}/scripts/aggregate-agent-findings.sh — Merge delegated-role "Critical for Orchestrator" items into top-level files

Project detection:

• ${CLAUDEPLUGINROOT}/scripts/detect-base-branch.sh — Detect main/master/develop
• ${CLAUDEPLUGINROOT}/scripts/detect-test-command.sh — Detect project test command
• ${CLAUDEPLUGINROOT}/scripts/detect-project-setup.sh — Detect and run project setup

Other:

• ${CLAUDEPLUGINROOT}/scripts/release.sh — Version bump, tag, GitHub Release
• ${CLAUDEPLUGINROOT}/scripts/session-catchup.py — Recover context from previous session (manual utility, requires Python)

Anti-Patterns