Beagle Analysis

Use when comparing two or more code implementations against a spec or requirements doc. Triggers on "which repo is better", "compare these implementations", "evaluate both solutions", "rank these codebases", or "judge which approach wins". Also covers choosing between competing PRs or vendor submissions solving the same problem. Does NOT review a single codebase for quality — use code review skills instead. Does NOT evaluate strategy docs — use strategy-review. Requires a spec file and 2+ repo paths.

Use when you want to generate Architecture Decision Records from this session. Triggers on "write ADRs", "document our decisions", "create decision records", "record the choices we made". Also useful after design discussions where decisions were reached but not documented. Does NOT extract decisions alone (use adr-decision-extraction) or provide MADR template (use adr-writing). Orchestrates the full workflow: subagent extraction, user confirmation, parallel generation, and verification.

Use when you have a finalized brainstorm-beagle spec at `.beagle/concepts/<slug>/spec.md` and need a bite-sized, TDD-driven implementation plan before any code is written. Triggers on: "write a plan", "plan this spec", "turn the spec into a plan", "now plan the implementation", "write-plan". Reads the spec, designs the file structure, decomposes work into 2-5 minute TDD steps with exact paths and commands, self-reviews against the spec, gets user approval, then writes to `.beagle/concepts/<slug>/plan.md` and offers to generate an execution handoff prompt via the subagent-prompt skill. Does NOT brainstorm specs, write code, or execute the plan — produces the plan document (and an optional handoff prompt) only.

Use when the user wants web research: gathering cited, multi-angle evidence on a specific question. Triggers on: "research X for me", "do web research on", "look up sources for", "find citations for", "gather evidence on", "what does the web say about X". Also invoked programmatically by other beagle skills (prfaq-beagle Ignition, brainstorm-beagle reference points, strategy-interview context grounding) via the companion contract. Does NOT trigger on codebase lookups ("find this function", "search the repo"), local file search, LLM-as-judge evaluation, or paywalled/auth-gated scraping. Produces a written plan, parallel-subagent findings, and a cited synthesis report on disk — never inline prose, never unsourced claims.

Use as the follow-up to brainstorm-beagle when a spec has an Open Questions section (or quietly carries latent gaps) that need closing before planning or implementation can begin. Triggers on: "resolve the open questions", "close the gaps in this spec", "research the open items", "finalize my spec", "make this spec implementation-ready", "answer the TBDs". Also triggers whenever the user points at a brainstorm-beagle spec and asks for research, proposals, or answers to unresolved items. Orchestrates parallel research subagents when available (falls back to inline sequential research otherwise), proposes answers one at a time for user approval, then rewrites the spec in place so it arrives at planning with no known gaps. Does NOT write code, design implementation, or create plans — it only produces a complete spec.

Use when reviewing, critiquing, or stress-testing an existing strategy document. Evaluates seven dimensions — diagnosis quality, guiding policy strength, action coherence, assumption exposure, falsifiability — with optional 7S, Five Forces, Balanced Scorecard, and Hoshin Kanri lenses. Triggers on: review my strategy, poke holes in this plan, what's weak here, strategy audit, red team this. Does NOT build strategy (use strategy-interview) or brainstorm project ideas (use brainstorm-beagle).

Use when the user wants a cited, structured read of local documents and project knowledge. Triggers on: "analyze these docs", "scan my project for context", "read the docs folder", "summarize what's in .beagle/concepts/", "extract context from docs/", "what's in this folder", "go read everything in X and tell me what's there". Also invoked programmatically by other beagle skills (prfaq-beagle Ignition, brainstorm-beagle reference points, strategy-interview context grounding) via the companion contract. Does NOT trigger on codebase lookups ("find this function", "search the repo"), web research (use web-research), LLM-as-judge evaluation (use llm-judge), or document editing (use humanize-beagle). Produces a written scan plan, parallel-subagent findings, and a cited synthesis report on disk — never inline prose, never unsourced claims.

Use when the user has a fuzzy idea and wants to shape it into a concrete project spec before planning or building. Triggers on: "brainstorm this", "I have an idea for...", "help me think through this project", "what should I build", "spec this out". Also catches vague feature descriptions needing structured questioning to clarify scope. Does NOT write code, plan implementation, review strategy docs, or run strategy interviews — produces a WHAT/WHY spec through dialogue, not a HOW plan.

Use when the user wants to build or think through a strategy via guided conversation — for a company, product, team, career, or initiative. Triggers on "help me figure out our direction", "what should we focus on", strategic planning, competitive positioning, go-to-market strategy. Also catches indirect requests like prioritization struggles or "we have too many priorities". Does NOT review existing strategy documents (use strategy-review) or brainstorm project features (use brainstorm-beagle).

Use when auditing an agent codebase against the 12-Factor Agents methodology, reviewing LLM-powered system architecture, or assessing agentic app compliance. Triggers on "analyze agent architecture", "12-factor audit", "how compliant is this agent", or "evaluate this LLM app". Also applies when comparing frameworks or planning agent improvements. Not for quick checklists — this performs deep per-factor codebase analysis with file-level evidence.