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

Plan Handoff

This file contains post-plan-writing instructions for the Durable path: document review, post-generation options, and issue creation. Load it after the plan file has been written and the confidence check (5.3.1-5.3.7) is complete. Direct and Chat brief results never reach it.

5.3.8 Document Review

Invoke the ce-doc-review skill with arguments mode:non-interactive <plan-path> using the host's normal skill-invocation mechanism. Do not substitute a generic Task, Agent, or subagent; those are delegation mechanisms, not skill invocation. This phase runs for both markdown and HTML; ce-doc-review applies fixes in the artifact's native format. It is mandatory — do not skip it because the confidence check already ran. The two workflows catch different classes of issues.

If ce-doc-review cannot be invoked, capture a synthetic envelope and proceed to Final Checks:

• fixes_applied = 0
• proposed_fixes_count = 0, decisions_count = 0, fyi_count = 0
• skipped_reason: skill_unreachable
• skipped_detail: <why the host's normal skill-invocation mechanism could not start ce-doc-review>

This is a pre-entry state: say that ce-doc-review did not run. Report a review error or timeout only after the ce-doc-review workflow actually begins.

Non-interactive is the default at this phase because most users want to start work after planning, not adjudicate every reviewer concern up front. Non-interactive applies safe_auto fixes silently and returns structured findings text — no walkthrough, no per-finding routing, no blocking prompts. The post-generation menu (see 5.4) offers Decide on the review's open items as a first-class option so users can opt into the full interactive walkthrough when they want it.

The confidence check and ce-doc-review are complementary:

• The confidence check strengthens rationale, sequencing, risk treatment, and grounding
• Document-review checks coherence, feasibility, scope alignment, and surfaces role-specific issues

Capture the non-interactive envelope so it can drive the contextual summary above the post-generation menu:

• The number of fixes auto-applied
• The count of remaining findings, broken out by user-facing bucket (proposed fixes, decisions, FYI observations)
• The severity breakdown of decisions and proposed fixes (specifically the P0/P1 count, since those benefit from explicit user attention)

When ce-doc-review returns "Review complete", proceed to Final Checks.

Pipeline mode: Pipeline runs (LFG or any disable-model-invocation context) force OUTPUT_FORMAT=md at Phase 0.0. They invoke ce-doc-review with mode:non-interactive and the plan path — non-interactive mode is identical to the interactive default at this phase. No further routing is offered in pipeline mode; the caller decides what to do with the returned findings. Address any P0/P1 findings before returning control to the caller. If the review could not start and ce-plan recorded the skill_unreachable envelope, return that envelope explicitly so the caller does not treat review as complete.

5.3.9 Final Checks and Cleanup

Before proceeding to post-generation options:

• Confirm the plan is stronger in specific ways, not merely longer
• Confirm the planning boundary is intact
• Confirm origin decisions were preserved when an origin document exists

If artifact-backed mode was used:

• Clean up the temporary scratch directory after the plan is safely updated
• If cleanup is not practical on the current platform, note where the artifacts were left

Format-specific composition. When OUTPUT_FORMAT=html (resolved in SKILL.md Phase 0.0), the plan is written as a single self-contained .html file — there is no markdown sibling. Read references/html-rendering.md for composition rules: invariants, precedence stack, format principles, agent-consumability rules, and the post-compose audit. The .html file is the artifact downstream consumers (ce-doc-review, ce-work, human readers) read and update directly.

When OUTPUT_FORMAT=md, write the markdown directly per references/markdown-rendering.md. No HTML is composed.

After all mutations in this run have settled (initial write, deepening synthesis, and ce-doc-review fixes in the artifact's native format), the artifact at its single path reflects the final state.

5.4 Post-Generation Options

Pipeline mode: If invoked from an automated workflow such as LFG or any disable-model-invocation context, skip the interactive menu below and return control to the caller immediately. The plan file has been written, the confidence check has run, and either ce-doc-review completed or ce-plan recorded skill_unreachable because the review could not start. Return the resulting review envelope to the caller (e.g., LFG), which determines the next step.

Path format: Use absolute paths for chat-output file references — relative paths are not auto-linked as clickable in most terminals.

Summary line above the menu (always): Print a single concise line summarizing the non-interactive review state — e.g., Doc review applied 3 fixes. 2 decisions, 1 proposed fix, 4 FYI observations remain (1 at P1). When no fixes were applied and no findings remain, print Doc review clean — no fixes needed. When the envelope carries skipped_reason: skill_unreachable, print Doc review skipped — ce-doc-review could not be invoked (<skipped_detail>); it did not run. If a review that actually began failed, print Doc review failed after starting — <actual error>; the plan was not fully reviewed. This line establishes what the autofix pass did (or didn't) so the user has the context to choose between the menu options below. Never describe a pre-entry harness or delegation failure as a downstream skill timeout.

Render returned findings in their decision-first structure — do not re-narrate. The non-interactive envelope ce-doc-review returned already follows its shared rendering floor: each finding leads with a recommendation and a one-sentence consequence that names no opaque identifier, with mechanism capped at two sentences and two glossed anchors. When surfacing those findings alongside the menu, present them in that returned structure (Recommendation / Consequence if unchanged / Change / Basis). Do not compress a finding into a denser single-paragraph narration, and do not reintroduce bare document IDs, ticket or PR numbers, or code symbols the envelope already glossed or moved to trace — that recreates the illegibility the floor exists to remove. The summary line above is the only re-narration; the findings themselves pass through verbatim.

Question: "Plan ready at <absolute path to plan>. What would you like to do next?"

Options:

1. Start ce-work - Build and ship the plan in this session — subagent-driven development with simplification, code review, and commits. Show only for artifact_readiness: implementation-ready plus execution: code; universal-planning, answer-seeking, approach-plan, and requirements-only artifacts keep their own handoff/checkpoint behavior.
2. Run it as a /goal - Choose this if you'd rather run the plan through your harness's autonomous goal mode instead of ce-work's build-and-ship flow. The alternative to option 1, not an add-on — pick one. Show only when (a) the artifact is artifact_readiness: implementation-ready plus execution: code AND (b) the host has goal capability at all — Codex create_goal in the available tool list, or a user-typed /goal in Claude Code; omit it where neither exists. Where the host can start a goal directly the session begins it immediately; where it cannot, it hands over a copyable /goal prompt. See the routing below.

Recommended marker: ce-work (option 1) always carries (recommended) — render option 1 as Start ce-work (recommended) and leave option 2 unmarked. ce-work is the correctly-layered execution entry point: it owns engine selection and reaches goal or dynamic-workflow engines itself when a plan's shape warrants, so recommending it never forecloses goal mode. Goal mode (option 2) is the opt-in preference for users who'd rather drive the work through their harness's native goal loop. Exactly one option ever carries (recommended). 3. Decide on the review's open items - Confirm or skip the suggested edits, and settle the judgment calls the auto-pass left for you. (Safe, mechanical fixes were already applied; you can also defer items into Open Questions.) Hide this option when Prototype a remaining feel-question is shown. 3. Prototype a remaining feel-question - Invoke ce-prototype on a named remaining question that is expensive to unravel and that neither talk nor a cheap sketch can settle. A question turning on finish or motion is already past the sketch tier; a cheap-to-reverse decision does not qualify however visual it is. Shown only when such a question remains. A visual-probe question that already settled fails this predicate. The option description names the proposed slice. When this option is shown, omit Decide on the review's open items from the same menu. 4. Create Issue - Create a tracked issue from this plan in your configured issue tracker (e.g., GitHub Issues, Linear, Jira) 5. Open in browser - Open the HTML plan file locally for review and sharing. Render only when OUTPUT_FORMAT=html.

There is no "done" / "pause" option — the blocking question already waits, and the user ends the turn by dismissing it (Esc) or just not picking anything. The plan file is already saved.

HTML browser option. Under exclusive output mode, the plan exists as exactly one artifact — .md or .html, never both. Render Open in browser only for HTML runs. Implementation handoff (options 1 and 2) remains available in both modes only when the artifact is implementation-ready code — ce-work reads either format, and the launch prompt is emitted at handoff regardless of format (see the ce-work skill's plan-input handling).

Menu rendering: The menu has up to 5 options (execution options 1 and 2 render only for implementation-ready code, and option 2 only on hosts with goal capability; option 3 is the exclusive review-or-prototype slot — see below; Open in browser is HTML-only). Detect goal capability by capability, not by slash-command shape: Codex has it when create_goal is in the available tool list, while Claude Code has it through user-typed /goal. Account for each platform's blocking-question option cap rather than trimming choices: Claude Code AskUserQuestion supports up to 4 explicit options, and Codex request_user_input supports only 2-3 explicit options. When the visible menu exceeds the current platform's cap, render it as a numbered list in chat with the hint "Pick a number or describe what you want." When the visible menu fits the cap, use the platform's blocking tool and renumber the visible options 1-N. When no matching tool is in the current list or a real question call errors, fall back to the same numbered-list-in-chat rendering. Never silently skip the question.

Hide Decide on the review's open items (option 3) when no actionable findings remain or doc review was skipped. Show this option only when the non-interactive envelope reports proposed_fixes_count + decisions_count > 0 — i.e., at least one gated_auto or manual finding at confidence anchor 75 or 100. Drop the option in any other case, including FYI-only state. FYI observations (anchor 50) do not enter ce-doc-review's interactive routing question or walkthrough — that flow is gated to actionable findings — so a Decide on the review's open items option that only has FYIs to show is a dead-end: ce-doc-review would re-dispatch the persona team, find the same FYIs, skip the routing question, and fall through to the terminal question with nothing to walk through. The user paid the dispatch cost for no engagement surface. Also drop this option when the envelope carries skipped_reason: skill_unreachable — the skill did not run. Always renumber the visible options 1-N for display so users see a clean sequence (e.g., an implementation-ready plan with no actionable findings shows ce-work, give-me-/goal, Create Issue, and browser when HTML; a requirements-only plan hides both execution options and shows the remaining doc, issue, prototype, or browser options that apply). The summary line above the menu still names the FYI count when present (Doc review applied 3 fixes. 2 FYI observations remain.) so the user sees what was found, even though there is no menu action attached to it — the FYIs are visible in the non-interactive envelope text the menu rendered alongside.

Cross-skill invocation rule: Invoke ce-work, ce-doc-review, and ce-prototype using the host's normal skill-invocation mechanism. Do not substitute a generic Task, Agent, or subagent; the invoked skill may still dispatch its own subagents according to its protocol.

Before acting on any selection received after a user turn, reload this file. Then act on the selection; rendering the menu or announcing the route is not the routed action:

• Start ce-work -> Classify the artifact first. If it is not artifact_readiness: implementation-ready plus execution: code, do not execute it; route requirements-only artifacts back to ce-plan enrichment and non-code artifacts to their own workflow. If it is executable, invoke the ce-work skill under the cross-skill invocation rule, passing the plan path as the skill argument; ce-work then owns engine selection (inline/subagent vs goal-mode vs dynamic-workflow) and the implementation tail. If ce-work cannot be invoked, print the existing ce-work fallback prompt for the user to run; in that prompt, tell the executor to read Goal Capsule, Verification Contract, Definition of Done, and active U-IDs (scanning headings to find them) rather than the whole document first. Do not merely tell the user to type an invocation when the host can invoke it directly.

• Run it as a /goal -> Build a thin implementation objective from the plan (generated here at handoff, never written into the doc). It points to the plan's sections; do not copy the plan's resolved decisions, exact verification commands, or requirements into the prompt. Deletion test: if your draft names a specific command, file path, U-ID dependency relationship, stop condition, or DoD item, cut it — the objective should read identically for any plan except the substituted path. Don't hardcode an open-a-PR or do-not-open-a-PR directive; carry the PR-precedence line instead. The objective: implement <plan-path> to its Definition of Done; the plan is the authority — scan headings, don't read it whole; read the Goal Capsule, then work the units in dependency order, reading each unit plus its cited R/F/AE/KTD and any Product Contract Key Decision whose exact Governs R… links name that unit's cited R-IDs; run the plan's Verification Contract gates and satisfy each unit's test scenarios; track progress outside the plan file; follow the plan's PR/landing strategy if it defines one, with the repo's conventions and the user's preferences overriding it; surface a genuine blocker (something that changes scope or contradicts the plan) instead of guessing, using judgment on details the plan leaves open. Then, by host capability — either way ce-work does not also run (that would double-execute and split tail ownership):

  • If create_goal is in the available tool list (Codex): call create_goal with that objective. The current session works toward it; do not call update_goal (the goal session marks its own completion). No copy-paste.

  • If only a user-typed /goal exists (Claude Code): print that objective as a single copyable /goal … block and tell the user to paste it at the start of a message (a skill cannot issue /goal itself there). Best-effort clipboard copy: also put the exact prompt on the OS clipboard so the user only has to paste. Never interpolate the prompt into the command — the plan path and the prompt's own backticks/$ would be evaluated or mangled by the shell. Hand it off as data: write it to a temp file via a quoted-sentinel here-doc (the quotes stop all expansion), then pipe that file to the first available tool:

    PROMPT_FILE=$(mktemp "${TMPDIR:-/tmp}/ce-goal-prompt.XXXXXX")
    cat >> "$PROMPT_FILE" <<'__CE_GOAL_PROMPT_END__'
    <the exact /goal prompt goes here, verbatim>
    __CE_GOAL_PROMPT_END__
    if   command -v pbcopy   >/dev/null 2>&1; then pbcopy   < "$PROMPT_FILE"                    # macOS
    elif command -v wl-copy  >/dev/null 2>&1; then wl-copy  < "$PROMPT_FILE"                    # Linux/Wayland
    elif command -v xclip    >/dev/null 2>&1; then xclip -selection clipboard < "$PROMPT_FILE"  # Linux/X11
    elif command -v xsel     >/dev/null 2>&1; then xsel --clipboard --input   < "$PROMPT_FILE"  # Linux/X11 alt
    elif command -v clip.exe >/dev/null 2>&1; then clip.exe < "$PROMPT_FILE"                    # WSL/Windows
    else false
    fi
    copy_status=$?
    rm -f "$PROMPT_FILE"
    exit "$copy_status"
    

    The exit "$copy_status" at the end is load-bearing: it makes the block's exit code the clipboard result, not rm's (which is otherwise the last command and always 0, masking a failed or no-op copy). Only tell the user it was copied when that exit code is 0, and say "copied to this machine's clipboard" — not "your clipboard": on a remote or sandboxed session the copy lands on the wrong machine and the paste comes up empty, so the printed block above stays the source of truth. If no tool is found or the copy fails (nonzero exit), say nothing about the clipboard. After printing (and the optional copy), return to the options.

  Render only for implementation-ready code plans, and only where the host has goal capability at all (Codex create_goal or Claude Code user-typed /goal) — omit the option where neither exists.

• Decide on the review's open items -> Invoke the ce-doc-review skill again under the cross-skill invocation rule, passing the plan path without mode:non-interactive so the interactive routing question and walkthrough fire. The non-interactive pass already applied safe_auto fixes and recorded its findings in the session, so the interactive pass reuses that prior safe_auto / R29 decision state (its R29 suppression rule prevents prior-round Skipped/Deferred entries from re-raising) — "picks up where non-interactive stopped" means that state reuse, not skipping Phase 4 presentation or jumping straight to routing with a count. ce-doc-review's walkthrough owns the same-turn presentation-before-routing rule on this re-entry; a prior-turn envelope shown beside this menu does not satisfy it. If the skill cannot be invoked, say that it did not run and return to the menu. After it returns, re-render this menu with the refreshed counts so the user can pick what to do next.

• Create Issue -> Follow the Issue Creation section below through an available connector, MCP, API, or documented CLI; no linear CLI is guaranteed, and one missing binary is not proof that the tracker is unavailable.

• Prototype a remaining feel-question -> Invoke the ce-prototype skill under the cross-skill invocation rule, passing the plan path as the skill argument. Do not build a prototype in this skill. If it cannot be invoked, say that it did not run and return to the menu. After it returns, re-render this menu from the artifact's current readiness — a plan it wrote back to is requirements-only now, so the execution options drop out on their own; when it returned decisions instead of writing them, say so, since the plan still describes the pre-prototype behavior.

• Open in browser -> Display the absolute path to the .html plan file so the user can open it locally. Where the platform exposes a browser-opening primitive (e.g., open on macOS, xdg-open on Linux, start on Windows), the agent may invoke it directly; otherwise print the absolute path and let the user open it. After the path is displayed (or the browser is opened), return to the post-generation options so the user can pick a follow-up action.

• Free-form prompts that target the findings (e.g., the user types "review", "walk through", "deep review" instead of picking a numbered option) -> route as if they had picked Decide on the review's open items. Do not loop back to the menu without firing the review. When the envelope carries skipped_reason: skill_unreachable, say that ce-doc-review could not be invoked and loop back without misreporting a review failure.

• Other free-form input -> Accept revisions to the plan and loop back to options.

Issue Creation

When the user selects "Create Issue":

1. Identify the project's issue tracker from the active instructions and conventions already in your context — the issue / project-management tool the project uses (e.g., GitHub Issues, Linear, Jira). Don't open or name specific instruction files to do this; the project's instructions are already available to you. Look for an explicit project_tracker: declaration (github, linear, …) or any documented tracker convention. Only if your context doesn't already carry the project's instructions (e.g., you're a fresh subagent) or they're silent, consult supplementary signals: README.md, CONTRIBUTING.md, PR templates under .github/, or visible tracker URLs.

2. Create the issue through whatever interface that tracker actually exposes in this environment — a platform connector/MCP tool, documented API/GraphQL credentials, or a documented CLI. First actively discover what's available: use the platform's tool-discovery primitive (e.g., ToolSearch in Claude Code) to look for a tracker connector or MCP tool before assuming none exists — lazy-loaded connectors and credentials stored outside the shell won't surface in a passive check. Do not assume a tracker means a particular CLI, and do not treat a missing binary, env var, or unloaded MCP server as proof the tracker is unavailable — those are false negatives when access comes through a connector or a raw API with credentials stored outside the shell. When using a direct API, never print secret values; read the plan body from disk and send it as the issue's markdown/description per the API contract. Worked examples for the common cases:

   • GitHub — gh issue create --title "<type>: <title>" --body-file <plan_path>
   • Linear (no guaranteed first-party CLI) — prefer, in order: a Linear connector or MCP tool that can create issues → documented direct API/GraphQL credentials and endpoint → a documented local Linear CLI, only when the project or user explicitly states it is installed and authenticated.

3. If no tracker is configured, ask the user which tracker they use with the host's blocking question tool already in the current tool list (match by capability, not by a host-specific name). Presence in the current tool list is proof the tool exists; never call a user-facing question tool to discover whether it exists. If a matching tool is listed but unloaded, use the host's tool-discovery primitive to load that capability — do not search for another host's tool name. Fall back to asking on the host's user-visible chat surface only when no such tool is in the list or a real question call errors. Never silently skip. Offer three explicit options — GitHub, Linear, Skip — and let the user name a different tracker (Jira, etc.) through the tool's built-in free-form / "Other" input. Don't add an explicit fourth Other option — that's redundant where the tool already offers free-form and can exceed a 2–3 explicit-option cap. When the tool exposes no free-form path, capture the other-tracker name via the chat fallback. Then:

   • Proceed with the chosen tracker's creation path above
   • If the user names a different tracker through the free-form path, ask for its reachable interface if they didn't say, then create the issue via the capability path in step 2
   • Offer to persist the choice by adding a project_tracker: <value> declaration to the project's root agent-instructions file (e.g., AGENTS.md; if it @-includes another file, write to the substantive one). Use the lowercase tracker key (github, linear, jira, …) — not the display label — so future runs match step 1 and skip this prompt
   • If Skip, return to the options without creating an issue

4. If the detected tracker has no reachable interface after actively discovering available connector/MCP tools and following its documented access method — no working connector, MCP tool, CLI, or API path — surface a clear error (e.g., "gh CLI not found or not authenticated for GitHub Issues"; "Linear is documented for this project, but no connector, MCP tool, or API credentials were found") and return to the options. Do not silently fall back to a local issue-plan document unless the user explicitly asks for a local-only artifact.

After issue creation:

• Display the issue URL
• Ask whether to proceed with ce-work using the host's blocking question tool already in the current tool list