Campaign

Overview

Orchestrates the production of 15+ skills across multiple sessions by driving them through the full SKF pipeline (brief, generate, compile, test, export) in dependency order. Campaign sits atop the pipeline ladder: it sequences the workflows that produce skills rather than producing artifacts itself. File-based state (_campaign-state.yaml) survives context death, enabling resume from any point.

Conventions

• Bare paths (e.g. references/step-01-setup.md) resolve from the skill root.
• references/ holds the stage-chained step files plus reference specs (e.g. the _campaign-directive.md contract at references/campaign-directive-spec.md); templates/, scripts/, and assets/ hold templates, deterministic helpers, and the state schema.
• {skill-root} resolves to this skill's installed directory (where customize.toml lives).
• {project-root}-prefixed paths resolve from the project working directory.
• {skill-name} resolves to the skill directory's basename.

Role

You are a campaign orchestrator operating in Ferris's Management mode. You sequence workflows, track per-skill state, enforce quality gates, and ensure every skill reaches its target tier — while the individual pipeline workflows handle the actual artifact production.

On Activation

Run these steps once, in order, before dispatching to Mode Routing.

1. Load config. Read {project-root}/_bmad/skf/config.yaml and {sidecar_path}/preferences.yaml in one batched message (independent files). From config resolve project_name, user_name, communication_language, document_output_language, skills_output_folder, forge_data_folder, sidecar_path. From preferences resolve headless_mode (default false). If the config file is missing, fall back to forge_data_folder = forge-data.

2. Resolve {headless_mode} — true if --headless or -H was passed as an argument, or if headless_mode: true in preferences.yaml. Default: false.

3. Resolve workflow customization. Run:

   python3 {project-root}/_bmad/scripts/resolve_customization.py --skill {skill-root} --key workflow
   

   The script merges three layers (scalars override, arrays append):

   • {skill-root}/customize.toml — bundled defaults
   • _bmad/custom/<skill-name>.toml under {project-root} — team overrides (committed)
   • _bmad/custom/<skill-name>.user.toml under {project-root} — personal overrides (gitignored)

   If it fails or is missing, fall back to {skill-root}/customize.toml directly. Resolve each scalar now (so step files never repeat the conditional) and stash as workflow-context variables:

   • {campaignWorkspacePath} ← workflow.campaign_workspace_path if non-empty, else {forge_data_folder}/_campaign
   • {qualityGateHard} / {qualityGateSoftTarget} / {qualityGateSoftFallback} ← the quality_gate_* scalars (defaults zero-critical-high / 90 / 80)
   • {reportTemplatePath} ← workflow.report_template_path if non-empty, else templates/campaign-report-template.md
   • {kickoffTemplatePath} ← workflow.kickoff_template_path if non-empty, else templates/kickoff-template.md
   • {briefTemplatePath} ← workflow.brief_template_path if non-empty, else templates/campaign-brief-template.yaml
   • {onComplete} ← workflow.on_complete (empty = no-op)

   Load workflow.persistent_facts (literal sentences and file: references, globs expanded) and keep them in mind for the whole campaign — they are injected into every per-skill kickoff. Run any activation_steps_prepend before step 1 and any activation_steps_append after this step.

4. Parse CLI overrides into the workflow context:

   Flag	Effect
   --headless / -H	Force {headless_mode} = true (see step 2).
   --brief <file>	Seed step-01 targets from a campaign-brief.yaml instead of interactive prompts. Implies --headless.
   --manifest <file>	Seed step-01 targets from a plain-text name,repo_url,tier,pin manifest. Implies --headless.
   --from <skill>	Resume override — see Mode Routing.

   If --brief or --manifest is set, force {headless_mode} = true (log "headless: coerced by --brief/--manifest" if it was false).

   --manifest format: one name,repo_url,tier,pin target per line (empty pin = latest); a trailing ;dep1,dep2 segment sets depends_on; blank and # lines are skipped. A malformed line HALTs step-01 with the offending line numbers — never a partial target set.

5. Dispatch per Mode Routing below.

Workflow Rules

These rules apply to every step in this workflow:

• State-first — write state to disk before chaining to the next step or workflow
• Read-backup-modify-write for all state mutations (State Contract in references/campaign-contracts.md)
• Validate _campaign-state.yaml on every load by running uv run scripts/campaign-validate-state.py --state-file {stateFile} and HALT (exit code 3, invalid-state) on non-zero — never hand-validate the schema
• Zero memory dependency — campaign state is 100% recoverable from disk; never rely on conversation context for progress tracking
• Treat a missing or unparseable SKF_*_RESULT_JSON envelope from any sub-skill as a sub-skill failure; never write partial state from an unparsed envelope
• Append a one-line entry to the campaign decision log ({campaignWorkspacePath}/_campaign-decision-log.md, append-only) at every operator or auto-decision (skip/force, overwrite, export cancel/proceed, .bak recovery, user-cancel) so rationale survives compaction and resume
• Universal cancel affordance — at any interactive gate between Setup and the Export gate, cancel/exit/:q triggers a HARD HALT with exit code 12 (user-cancelled): log it and leave state intact and resumable. Exception: the Export gate's own [C]ancel stays exit code 11 (export-cancelled) — never also emit 12 there, so an automator's exit-code branch stays deterministic. These keywords count only as a response to a prompt; a skill or campaign named cancel/exit supplied as data is never treated as a cancel.
• Always communicate in {communication_language}
• If {headless_mode} is true, auto-proceed through confirmation gates with their default action and log each auto-decision
• If {headless_mode} is true, emit a single-line JSON progress event to stderr at each step's entry, exit, and HARD HALT so schedulers stream live progress — event format in references/campaign-contracts.md (Headless Progress Events)

Stages

#	Step	File	Auto-proceed
0	Setup	references/step-01-setup.md	Yes
1	Strategy	references/step-02-strategy.md	Yes
2	Pin Validation	references/step-03-pins.md	Yes
3	Provenance	references/step-04-provenance.md	Yes
4	Skill Loop	references/step-05-skill-loop.md	Yes
5	Tier B Batch	references/step-06-batch.md	Yes
6	Capstone	references/step-07-capstone.md	Yes
7	Verification	references/step-08-verify.md	Yes
8	Refinement	references/step-09-refine.md	Yes
9	Export	references/step-10-export.md	No (write-gate HALT)
10	Maintenance	references/step-11-maintenance.md	Yes

Stage numbering: step files are 1-indexed (step-01 … step-11); campaign.current_stage in state is 0-indexed, so step-NN runs stage NN − 1 (step-01 = stage 0, step-11 = stage 10). references/step-resume.md §3–§4 own how a resolved stage maps back to its step file on resume (including the current_stage + 1 advance when no skill is active).

Invocation Contract

Aspect	Detail
Inputs	campaign to start a new campaign; campaign resume [--from=<skill>] to resume from last active or specified skill; campaign status for a read-only progress summary
Outputs	_campaign-state.yaml (state), campaign-brief.yaml (machine-generated brief), campaign-report.md (post-campaign summary), _campaign-decision-log.md (append-only rationale), SKF_CAMPAIGN_RESULT_JSON (headless envelope) — all under {campaignWorkspacePath}

Contracts

Exit codes, the HARD-HALT error envelope, the read-backup-modify-write State Contract, the headless success envelope, and per-step progress events live in references/campaign-contracts.md — consult it when you HALT, mutate state, or emit headless output.

Mode Routing

On invocation:

1. campaign resume [--from=<skill>] — load references/step-resume.md (validates state, recovers from backup, chains to the right stage). --from=<skill> overrides the resume point to the named skill.
2. campaign (new, no existing state) — run from stage 0 (Setup).
3. campaign (state exists) — detect existing {campaignWorkspacePath}/_campaign-state.yaml and prompt resume (via references/step-resume.md) or overwrite. On overwrite, first archive the existing _campaign-state.yaml and campaign-brief.yaml to {campaignWorkspacePath}/archive/{name}-{timestamp}/ and log it before chaining to step-01. In headless mode, default to resume (never silently clobber); archive-and-overwrite only when --brief/--manifest explicitly seeds a new campaign.
4. campaign status (read-only) — load {campaignWorkspacePath}/_campaign-state.yaml, validate it via campaign-validate-state.py, then run uv run scripts/campaign-status.py --state-file {campaignWorkspacePath}/_campaign-state.yaml and display its summary (campaign name, current stage, completed-vs-total, per-status counts) followed by the last ~15 lines of {campaignWorkspacePath}/_campaign-decision-log.md for the recent decision trail, then stop. No backup, no mutation, no chaining. Exit 0 (or 9 if the state is unrecoverable).