Gepetto Orchestrator

Gepetto = 17-step planning pipeline: Research → Interview → Spec Synthesis → Plan → External LLM Review → Section Files → Execution Files (ralph-loop prompt + PRD).

Skill location: ~/.agents/skills/gepetto/SKILL.md

Is Gepetto Worth It?

Ask before starting — gepetto is expensive in time and tokens.

Use Gepetto when:

• Non-trivial feature (multi-day work, multiple files, architectural impact)
• Requirements are fuzzy and need clarification
• You want external LLM review of the plan (Gemini + Codex)
• You'll hand off to ralph-loop or Ralphy for autonomous execution

Skip Gepetto when:

• Task is well-understood and < 1 day
• You already have a clear spec → go straight to /gsd-plan-phase or /ralph-loop
• You just need a quick implementation → /gsd-fast or /gsd-quick

Phase 1: Prepare the Spec File

Gepetto requires a .md spec file. If the user doesn't have one, help draft it.

A good spec file:

# [Feature Name]

## What
[One paragraph: what we're building]

## Why
[Business/technical motivation]

## Scope
- In: [what's included]
- Out: [what's explicitly excluded]

## Known constraints
[Tech stack, performance requirements, existing patterns to follow]

## Open questions
[Things you're unsure about — Gepetto's interview will resolve these]

Present the draft and ask: "Does this capture it? Save it as planning/[feature-name]-spec.md then run /gepetto @planning/[feature-name]-spec.md."

Phase 2: During Gepetto

Gepetto runs mostly autonomously — it spawns its own subagents. Your role during the run:

• Answer the interview questions (Step 6) — these are the most important input. Be specific.
• Review the integrated plan (Step 12) — gepetto pauses here. Edit claude-plan.md if needed.
• Let external review run — Gemini + Codex reviews happen automatically.

Keep this chat context clear while gepetto runs. Resume here after Step 17.

Phase 3: After Gepetto — Choose Execution Path

When gepetto finishes, three outputs matter:

Advise on execution path

Combining with ralph-orchestrator

If using ralph-loop for execution, hand off to ralph-orchestrator skill for:

• Prompt quality review before launching
• Monitoring for stuck loops
• Windows hook fix if needed

Status Header

Show at every response:

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Gepetto  |  Stage: [spec prep / running / post-planning]
         |  Spec: [filename or "not created yet"]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Resuming a Gepetto Session

Gepetto auto-detects existing files and resumes from the right step. If the user wants to resume:

/gepetto @planning/[feature-name]-spec.md

It will scan for claude-research.md, claude-interview.md, etc. and pick up where it left off.