recipe-design

Required Skills [LOAD BEFORE EXECUTION]

1. [LOAD IF NOT ACTIVE] documentation-criteria — document creation rules and templates
2. [LOAD IF NOT ACTIVE] implementation-approach — design convergence and verification strategy
3. [LOAD IF NOT ACTIVE] subagents-orchestration-guide — agent coordination and review resolution
4. [LOAD IF NOT ACTIVE] llm-friendly-context — document and review handoffs

Spawn rule: every spawn_agent call uses fork_turns="none" so the subagent receives only the task message and explicitly provided context.

Context: Dedicated to the design phase.

Orchestrator Definition

Core Identity: Coordinate design, make workflow decisions from compact specialist materials, and invoke specialists for analysis, authoring, and review.

Execution Plan: Reuse the active execution plan. When the workflow has multiple dependent actions and no plan exists, create one that tracks them through final verification.

Execution Protocol:

1. Spawn agents for analysis and document work -- your role is to invoke sub-agents, select from their compact evidence against governing requirements, pass the selected material onward, and report results.
2. Run the design flow below in order:
   • Execute: scope evidence -> codebase-analyzer -> [Stop: Scope confirmation] -> optional PRD update/review/[Stop: PRD approval] -> optional ADR batch/batch review/[Stop: ADR-batch approval] -> Design Doc -> code-verifier/Review Resolution -> document-reviewer -> design-sync -> [Stop: Design approval]
   • [STOP — BLOCKING] At every [Stop: ...] marker -> Present status to user for confirmation. CANNOT proceed until user explicitly confirms.
3. Scope: Complete when design documents receive approval

CRITICAL: MUST execute document-reviewer and all stopping points. MUST execute design-sync for Design Docs. Each serves as a quality gate. ENFORCEMENT: Skipping any quality gate invalidates the design output.

Workflow Overview

Requirements -> scope evidence -> codebase-analyzer -> [Stop: Scope confirmation]
                                                            |
                                      optional PRD update/review -> [Stop: PRD approval]
                                                            |
                                   optional ADR batch/review -> [Stop: ADR-batch approval]
                                                            |
                         Design Doc -> code-verifier -> Review Resolution -> document-reviewer
                                                            |
                                                    design-sync -> [Stop: Design approval]

Scope Boundaries

Included in this skill:

• Compact scope and cost evidence from requirement-analyzer; the orchestrator owns requirement, scale, and ADR decisions
• Codebase analysis with codebase-analyzer (entry point of the design phase)
• Scope confirmation with the user, grounded in codebase-analyzer findings
• One ADR per qualifying decision point found in the current scope, created and reviewed as one batch
• Design Doc creation with technical-designer
• Document review with document-reviewer
• Design Doc consistency verification with design-sync

Responsibility Boundary: This skill completes with approval of the Design Doc and its preceding ADR when required. Work planning and beyond are outside scope.

Requirements: $ARGUMENTS

ADRs record the considered options and one selected decision. PRDs and Design Docs contain only confirmed requirements and selected conclusions; evaluation-only ideas and unselected design candidates remain in the active workflow context.

Execute the process below within design scope.

Execution Process

Step 1: Scope and Cost Evidence

Spawn requirement-analyzer with the original requirements. Treat exact user quotes according to their returned signal type: implementation requirements and exclusions can enter confirmed scope; evaluation requests, speculation, and prescribed mechanisms remain non-binding until the orchestrator resolves them against the user's wording. Treat scope evidence, cost evidence, and questions as material; the orchestrator determines requirements, scale, and ADR routing.

Step 2: Codebase Analysis

Spawn codebase-analyzer agent: "exploration_mode: [mode from Analysis Assignment]. Analyze the existing codebase to provide compact decision materials for requirement confirmation, ADR selection, minimal Design Doc creation, and verification. requirement_analysis: [Step 1 scopeEvidence]. requirements: $ARGUMENTS. target_paths: [Step 1 scopeEvidence.affectedFiles]."

Step 3: Scope Confirmation

After codebase-analyzer returns, confirm the requirements, determine Structural Scale, and identify qualifying ADR decision points:

1. Locate a related PRD and read its Converged Outcome, MVP scope, Future / Out of Scope, and open requirement fields. If the related PRD is ambiguous, ask the user to select or provide its path, or confirm none exists, before continuing.
2. When those fields match the current request and returned scope facts, use the PRD path as the current carrier and proceed directly to scope confirmation.
3. When a current carrier is absent, load requirement-convergence. The orchestrator builds and judges its record from the user's wording, using Step 1 scope/cost evidence and Step 2 analysis for trade-offs, questions, and routing decisions. Mark an existing but incomplete or scope-mismatched PRD for update; otherwise mark the carrier as absent.
4. Apply the documentation-criteria Choice filter, then the Durability filter, to Step 2 decisionMaterials.candidateDecisionPoints. adrDecisionPoints contains every current-scope point that passes both filters; an empty array routes directly to Design Doc regardless of scale.
5. Determine Structural Scale and set prdRequired when the scale is Large and the current PRD carrier is absent.

Present the design scope to the user:

• Target files/modules: analysisScope.filesAnalyzed and directly relevant modules
• Affected layers: analysisScope.affectedLayers
• Recommended document path: Design Doc alone or an ADR batch followed by Design Doc, with every qualifying adrDecisionPoint and its filter evidence
• PRD status: whether prdRequired is true and whether the convergence carrier is current, requires update, or is absent
• Unknowns/assumptions: limitations and unresolved risks
• Questions before design: scope questions that change the design target or scale, including technical wording whose mandatory/candidate status is outcome-relevant and ambiguous

Ask the user to choose one:

• Proceed with the recommended document path
• Correct the scope and re-run codebase-analyzer
• Answer open questions, then proceed
• Provide an existing PRD path when prdRequired is true
• Explicitly approve proceeding without a PRD when prdRequired is true and no PRD will be provided

If prdRequired is true and the user neither provides a PRD path nor explicitly approves proceeding without a PRD, stop. This recipe does not create PRDs.

[STOP — BLOCKING] Wait for user confirmation before proceeding.

After confirmation, record the final scale, derive adrRequired from adrDecisionPoints.length > 0, and record documentTypeRationale from the actual ADR decision points. When the user's answer changes the scope or PRD carrier, recompute the affected values before proceeding. Use the current PRD path as carrier when available; otherwise use the compact convergence object.

Step 4: Upstream Approval and Design Document Creation

When Step 3 marked an existing PRD for update, spawn prd-creator in update mode with that PRD path and the confirmed convergence object. Review the updated PRD with document-reviewer using its path as target, then resolve findings through Review Resolution. After the review permits approval, present the updated PRD for user approval. Continue with its path as the carrier after approval.

[STOP — BLOCKING when a PRD was updated] Wait for user approval of the updated PRD.

Create documents according to documentTypeRationale:

• When adrDecisionPoints is non-empty, spawn technical-designer once with document_to_create: ADRBatch, decision_points: [adrDecisionPoints], confirmed requirements, and decision_materials: [only the Step 2 simplification, reuse, invalidation, option/cost, contract, and decision-changing unknown material relevant to those points]. Review all returned paths[] in one document-reviewer invocation using doc_type: ADRBatch and targets: [all paths]. Apply Review Resolution to the batch, rerun the batch review when an accepted correction changes a file, then present one ADR-batch approval request.

[STOP — BLOCKING when ADRs were created] Wait for one user approval of the reviewed ADR batch before creating the Design Doc.

Record every approved ADR file as Accepted when ADRs were created. Spawn technical-designer with document_to_create: DesignDoc, adr_paths: [accepted ADR paths or []], the confirmed requirement carrier, and decision_materials: [only Step 2 material that changes reuse, simplification, implementation validity, a selected ADR decision, a preserved contract, or verification]. The confirmed requirements define scope, and selected ADR decisions constrain their relevant technical questions.

Step 5: Code Verification

Spawn code-verifier agent: "Verify the Design Doc against the current codebase. document_path: [Design Doc path from Step 4]. doc_type: design-doc."

Apply Review Resolution to every discrepancy before document review, using technical-designer in update mode for selected corrections and its bounded rerun rule. When the apply set is empty, carry the resolved verification summary, declines with reasons, and material limitations to Step 6.

Step 6: Document Review

Spawn document-reviewer agent: "Review the Design Doc for consistency, completeness, and adopted design validity. doc_type: DesignDoc. review_context: creation. target: [Design Doc path]. requirements_verbatim: [original user requirements]. confirmed_requirement_context: [complete confirmed requirement context from Step 3]. decision_materials: [only Step 2 material that constrains this design]. verification_resolution: [resolved Step 5 evidence]."

Route the result before consistency verification:

• approved: continue
• needs_revision: apply Review Resolution with the creating technical-designer, then review the updated document
• rejected: apply Orchestrator Escalation Resolution. Continue after an evidence-based self-resolution; ask the user only when that procedure reaches a user-decision condition

Step 7: Consistency Verification

Spawn design-sync agent: "Verify consistency of the design document with other existing design documents and project constraints."

Note: design-sync returns sync_status: "SKIPPED" when only 1 Design Doc exists. This is distinct from NO_CONFLICTS and MUST be reported as such to the user.

Request user approval using the shared Design Approval alignment.

Completion Criteria

• Obtained compact scope and cost evidence while retaining requirement, scale, and ADR decisions in the orchestrator
• Spawned codebase-analyzer and passed only decision-relevant material into ADR/Design Doc creation
• Converged the requirement and persisted the record
• Confirmed the design scope with the user before document creation
• Created one ADR per qualifying decision point and reviewed the complete batch once, or routed an empty decision-point set directly to Design Doc
• Applied Review Resolution to code-verifier discrepancies before document review
• Spawned document-reviewer and addressed feedback
• Spawned design-sync for consistency verification for Design Docs
• Obtained user approval for design document
• All [Stop: ...] markers honored with user confirmation

Output Example

Design phase completed.

• ADR: docs/adr/[document-name].md or N/A
• Design document: docs/design/[document-name].md or N/A
• Approval status: User approved