/consult-plan plan and decide

Install

Install just this, from a clone of the repo. Anything it needs comes with it.

./scripts/install-skills.sh --skill consult-plan   # bash, Git Bash, macOS, Linux
.\scripts\install-skills.ps1 -Skill consult-plan   # Windows PowerShell

Needs: next (installed with it).

What it does

Grills a proposed change, deviation or new idea against the repo's existing plan (open issues, board, roadmap doc), then records the outcome where the repo already keeps decisions.

When to use

• Pitching a new idea: "does this fit the plan?"
• Automatically, from update-progress, when a handoff lists deviations or innovations.

How to invoke

/consult-plan <the idea, deviation, or innovation>. Claude can also run it itself.

How it works

1. Baseline (whatever exists):
   • Open issues (gh issue list --state open).
   • Board state (gh project item-list or status:* labels).
   • A roadmap doc (ROADMAP.md, docs/roadmap.md, …).
   • The decisions doc (found by the same rule as step 3).
   • The grill transcripts (skilleddocs/grills/, or grills/ beside a tracked register).
   • Earlier decisions are cited as D<k>.
2. Grill: calls grilling with that baseline. The questions are framed as fit, conflict or extension, plus what you want to happen.
3. Record once settled, both:
   • Decision: append to the repo's decisions doc.
     • The one AGENTS.md / CLAUDE.md names, else an existing docs/decisions.md or ADR folder, else skilleddocs/decisions.md (header and rows as in grill-docs).
     • Source column: consult-plan <date> plus the issue or PR link if any.
   • Issue (accepted or changed ideas):
     • A comment on the relevant issue when it refines existing work.
     • A new issue when it needs its own work, put on the board at Todo (Projects v2: item-add + item-edit; label mode: status:todo, created first if missing).
     • A rejected idea gets the decision row only, plus a comment if a related issue exists; no new issue.

Flow

Card status flow: todo → in-progress → in-review → done.

• todo: set explicitly by gh project item-edit when an issue is added — item-add alone leaves Status empty.
• in-progress: set by pair or meta-orchestrator when they create the branch (their guarded agents can only read with gh).
• in-review: set by session-handoff.
• done: set by update-progress, once verified and merged; unmerged stays in-review.
• Label-mode status:* labels are created on first use (gh label create --color <hex> --force, colors in next/BOARD.md), not assumed to exist.

Design principles

• Ideas meet the plan before they enter it. A deviation or new idea is tested against open issues, the board, the roadmap and earlier decisions, not added on enthusiasm.
• Reuse the interview. The questioning is grilling, with the plan as context; this skill adds the baseline and the record.
• Record where the repo already does. A decisions doc named in AGENTS.md / CLAUDE.md wins, then an existing docs/decisions.md or ADR folder, then skilleddocs/decisions.md; an accepted outcome lands on an issue as well.

Shared context for these principles: Matt Pocock's video.

Use cases

• Pitching an idea mid-project: "does this fit the plan?"
• A handoff's ## Board status lists a deviation, and update-progress calls this to settle it.
• An orchestrated run where the verifier agent answers on your behalf (when authorized) and lists every Q and A.
• Deciding whether a new idea is its own issue or a comment on an existing one.

Tips

• State the idea in one line as the argument; the baseline supplies the context.
• Earlier decisions are cited as D<k>, so a conflict with a past decision is visible in the questions.
• A settled idea that needs work becomes a new issue at Todo; one that only refines existing work becomes a comment; a rejected one is a decision row only.
• Want the full Q and A transcript kept too? Run grill-docs on it instead; it also writes a transcript under skilleddocs/grills/.

Example

Related

• Calls grilling; called by update-progress.
• Preloaded by the verifier agent, which may answer the questions on your behalf when authorized.

Prereqs

• gh, authenticated, and origin on GitHub.
• On a fork it asks which repo to write to. If the fork has issues turned off (GitHub's default), it reads issues from the parent.
• Projects v2 boards also need the project OAuth scope: run gh auth refresh -s project -s read:project once (see kanban/README.md); label mode doesn't.
• grilling installed.

Sample workflows

• Pitch an idea against the plan
  you → grill-me → grilling → you → consult-plan → you
  Install just this one: ./scripts/install-skills.sh --workflow pitch-an-idea or .\scripts\install-skills.ps1 -Workflow pitch-an-idea

Source

• kanban/consult-plan/SKILL.md
• kanban/consult-plan/README.md