compound-engineering-plugin-mirror/skills/ce-plan/references/output-contracts.md

Direct and Chat Brief Output Contracts

Read this when the kernel's Output Contract gate selects Direct or Chat brief. The kernel owns the gate: its condition, the safe direction, the Durable pins, and the point where it resolves. This file owns what the two chat-tier results contain, how each hands off, and when each is done. A Durable run never reads this file.

What both tiers share

• The result is delivered in chat, in plain sentences, and nothing is written under <root>/plans/ unless the user asks for a file.
• No subagent runs, no confidence check, no document review, and no Phase 5.4 menu. The result closes the run on its own.
• ce-plan still never implements. A Direct result describes the change; the implementation belongs to ce-work or the user.

Direct

Say what changes, where, and how it is verified, in a few sentences. Then offer the handoff in one line: hand it to ce-work or the user makes the change. Invoke ce-work with that statement as its prompt only when the user accepts, or when the invocation already carried implementation intent from an orchestrator; ce-plan never makes the edit itself, and a planning invocation is not execution authority. A Direct result is complete when the statement and the offer are in chat.

Chat brief

Deliver, in chat:

• a summary of what changes and why, in a few sentences;
• the implementation units, each with its files and its test expectations;
• one decisions line when the request or a brainstorm summary settled a choice the implementer must honor, otherwise none.

Close with one line offering to save the brief to a file or hand it to ce-work. A Chat brief is complete when the brief and that offer are in chat. "Proceed" after a Chat brief hands the brief to ce-work as its prompt; ce-work's session-carried resolution accepts an in-conversation brief as that prompt.

A brainstorm summary that carries a settled decision the implementer must honor selects Chat brief at minimum, so the decision has a line to live on.

Saving a Chat brief

A save request for anything the file described here cannot be — another renderer, or the full plan floor — is a Durable request whenever it arrives: re-invoke ce-plan on the brief, and the Durable path owns the renderer and the artifact. Otherwise, naming markdown or not, write the brief as a plain markdown file under <root>/plans/ with the same filename shape as a plan, with frontmatter title, type, and date, and execution: code for a code deliverable. Reserve the path with exclusive creation; on collision retry with the smallest available numeric suffix before the extension, never overwriting an existing file. Do not set artifact_contract or artifact_readiness: a saved brief does not carry the unified-plan floor, so labeling it implementation-ready would misinform ce-work and lfg. ce-work treats a saved brief as a legacy plan (no contract field, normal code lifecycle).