Build Tasks

Build Tasks Skill (work through the plan)

You work through the backlog: pick the next task, hand it to run-task, record the outcome, continue. You choose which task, never how it is built — the cycle lives in run-task and is not repeated here. Work is sequential on a single working tree on the current branch. The backlog is the source of truth, so a killed run resumes without losing anything.

check the plan isn't stale → compute ready set → lowest id → /run-task → regen board → next (max 8)

Language & git

Respond and reason in the user's language. Never translate code, identifiers, commands, or file paths.

Workflow vocabulary follows ../_shared/glossary.md exactly — what is translated, what stays Latin, no hybrid verbs, template anchors verbatim.

One branch — the current one, normally main. Never create a branch, switch branch, or open a worktree on your own initiative; only an explicit request in this session changes that, and a request to commit, fix or ship is not one. Full rule: ../_shared/git-workflow.md.

Every agent you spawn inherits this and the language rule — pass both down; an agent that thinks the work needs a branch reports it to you instead of creating one.

Modes

Read .dev-skills/build-plan/.build-config.md for mode (write it if absent, default interactive). Full rules: ../_shared/build-pipeline/build-config.md. Backlog schema, ready, and the board: ../_shared/build-pipeline/backlog-format.md.

• Straight through (default). Between tasks you do not stop and do not ask permission. The only real reasons to pause: a task where the human has something to check by hand (run-task handles that), a needs_human escalation, a red gate, or the per-run limit.
• One at a time (opt-in, argument one-at-a-time) — confirm before each task.
• Acceptance every N (opt-in, argument review every N; suggest N=5) — only the human turns this on, never you. Manual acceptance then happens on every Nth task and always on the run's last task; the rest are passed to run-task with "acceptance deferred, manual review at TXX". Nothing else softens: the verifier, the fix round, the green gate, and the needs_human stop are unchanged. At the next manual acceptance, show the batch — one line per auto-accepted task since the last one (what was built + what proved it) — so the human can spot and undo something wrong. The mode lasts for this run only.

Procedure (copy this checklist into your response and check off as you go)

- [ ] Step 0: Intake — backlog present? spec moved ahead of the plan? mode? interrupted run?
- [ ] Loop: ready set → lowest id → /run-task → regen board → acceptance if due → next (stop at 8 tasks)
- [ ] Done: report built / needs_human / blocked / spec_sync pending; at the limit, ask for /compact

Step 0: Intake

• No .dev-skills/build-plan/tasks/ → stop: there is nothing to run. Offer /plan-development first. A single task from a sentence, with no plan at all, is /run-task "<request>".
• Has the spec moved ahead of the plan? Read the Reconciled with spec anchor in the header of .dev-skills/build-plan/board.md and check whether the spec changed since: git log <anchor-commit>..HEAD -- .dev-skills/project-spec/. If it did, stop and offer /plan-development to reconcile first — otherwise the run will confidently build what the user has already dropped. If the human says "go anyway", agree, but name which spec files diverged.
• Interrupted run. A task left in_progress is not restarted blindly: show its ## Log and offer to continue it through run-task (which re-verifies before committing). Finished tasks are never rebuilt.
• Also reclaim a stale env lock left by a killed run (../_shared/build-pipeline/env-access.md).
• Is another session working here? List the tasks whose claim.heartbeat is fresher than 30 minutes and say so in one line — those are skipped, not waited for. The user does run two sessions on one repository, and a run that quietly re-does another's task is worse than one that stops (../_shared/build-pipeline/backlog-format.md → claim). If a "study only, don't write" mode is asked for, read the tasks and plan them, and change no file until the other session's claim clears.
• Does the scoped test target exist? Confirm the make test-scoped equivalent named in verification.md is there and really selects. Missing or fake → say it once, now: every hand-off will otherwise pay for the whole suite, and /setup-dev-environment is the fix. Then proceed — the run is not blocked on it (../_shared/build-pipeline/quality-gate.md).
• An argument that is a task id → start from that task (its blockers must still be done).

The loop

Repeat while ready tasks remain:

1. Compute the ready set — todo tasks whose blocked_by are all done. Empty → go to Done. If the open count (todo + in_progress + needs_human) is over 15, say so once and offer /plan-development consolidate before continuing — the ceiling is the backlog's, not just the planner's, and it is what keeps tasks coarse (../_shared/build-pipeline/planning-method.md). The human decides; the run is not blocked on it.
2. Take one — the lowest id among them, so two runs produce the same order. Announce it in one line and continue without asking; wait for confirmation only in one-at-a-time mode.
3. Run it through /run-task (via the Skill tool) — the whole cycle, no steps skipped and no logic of your own; a green gate is mandatory in autopilot too — the static gate plus that task's scoped test selection, never the whole suite (../_shared/build-pipeline/quality-gate.md). In acceptance every N mode, tell it whether this task's acceptance is deferred and where the manual one lands.
4. A task that went needs_human → don't take it again; show it to the human and move to the next ready task. One stuck task must not stop the whole plan.
5. Regenerate .dev-skills/build-plan/board.md from the task files — the progress header (done/total, %, and the Now line) included. run-task already refreshes it at each stage boundary; here you refresh the totals.
6. Acceptance, when the human asked for it. In acceptance every N mode, if this was the Nth task of the run — or the run's last one — do the manual acceptance now, before taking anything else: show the batch (one line per auto-accepted task since the previous acceptance: what was built
   • what proved it) and wait. Skipping this silently turns the mode the human switched on into a promise nobody kept.
7. Next task — unless you hit the limit. Count the tasks handled this run (including escalated ones): at 8, stop even if ready tasks remain, and go to Done. An argument run N lowers the limit to N.

Done: report

Report as a table: how many tasks finished this run · which went needs_human (the human's action list, one line each on where it got stuck) · which remain blocked and by what · and which tasks sit at spec_sync: pending — done, but not yet reflected in the spec. Point at .dev-skills/build-plan/board.md for the detail.

Give each task a time column from its timings.total, and one line under the table splitting the run into build / verify / fix / solve plus the time spent waiting on you, so the parts reconcile with the total. Report the numbers flat, with no verdict attached (../_shared/build-pipeline/backlog-format.md). End the report with the «What you should do» block — imperative, one line per item, no pipeline jargon (../_shared/build-pipeline/report-format.md).

Stopped at the limit with ready tasks left — ask the human to compact and re-run:

Ran 8 tasks; ready tasks remain. Continuing in this session isn't wise — the context is full of diffs and reports, and tasks start blurring together. Run /compact (or /clear for a fully fresh start) and call /build-tasks again: the plan, statuses, and logs live in .dev-skills/build-plan/, so the run picks up at the next task and nothing is lost.

You cannot compact the context yourself — the human runs that command. Your job here is to stop in time and say so.

If no ready tasks remain but unfinished ones do, explain why (they wait on needs_human tasks). If everything is done, say so plainly and point at the release phase (/release-product) — and add one line saying that the whole test suite has not been run yet: the build loop only ever ran each task's own selection, and the full run happens in the release pipeline (../_shared/build-pipeline/quality-gate.md). Say it as a fact about where the suite gets run, not as a warning to act on now.

Rules

1. Don't duplicate the cycle. All per-task work is /run-task's. You choose the next task and keep the books.
2. One task at a time, one working tree. No parallel tasks, no worktrees, no new branch.
3. The plan sets the order — ready tasks, lowest id. Never reshuffle "by importance".
4. A task with unmet blockers is never taken.
5. needs_human is never retried automatically and is always surfaced, in both modes.
6. Don't stop between tasks and don't ask permission; only the human slows it down, by choosing one-at-a-time.
7. Acceptance every N is the human's switch, never yours. Every Nth task and the run's last task are always manual, with the batch of auto-accepted ones shown. A failure, a red gate, or needs_human stops the run in any mode.
8. At most 8 tasks per run. At the limit, stop and ask for /compact — you don't compact anything yourself.
9. A spec that moved past the plan means /plan-development first. Running a plan that disagrees with the spec is confidently building the wrong thing.
10. Finished work is never rebuilt; an interrupted run continues rather than restarts.
11. The board is regenerated from the task files after every task, never hand-edited.