Workflow Orchestration

Skill: workflow-orchestration

Overview

This skill orchestrates complex workflows by chaining existing plugins into pipelines. It maintains state awareness through CHANGELOG.md and coordinates cross-plugin operations.

When to Use

• Pre-commit validation: Before any commit, ensure all quality gates pass
• PR creation: When changes are ready for review and PR creation
• CI recovery: When CI fails and automated diagnosis/fix is needed
• Multi-step automation: Any task requiring coordinated plugin execution

Prerequisites

Required Plugins:

• autonomous-ci - Validation and CI monitoring
• code-review - Quality analysis
• smart-commit - Commit message generation

Optional Plugins:

• jules-integration - Async PR delegation

Required Skills (from Superpowers):

• systematic-debugging - For failure analysis
• verification-before-completion - For evidence-based completion

Process

Phase 1: Context Gathering

Before executing any pipeline:

# 1. Read CHANGELOG for recent context
Read the file: CHANGELOG.md
# Focus on [Unreleased] section to understand pending work

# 2. Check git state
git status --porcelain
git log --oneline -5

# 3. Verify required plugins are available
claude plugin list

Phase 2: Pipeline Selection

Choose the appropriate pipeline based on the task:

Phase 3: Pipeline Execution

Pre-Commit Pipeline

Step 1: Validate
├── Run: ./tooling/scripts/local-validate.sh
├── On success: Continue
└── On failure: STOP, report issues

Step 2: Review
├── Invoke: code-review skill
├── Analyze: Security, style, performance
├── On success: Continue
└── On failure: Report issues, suggest fixes

Step 3: Commit Message
├── Invoke: smart-commit skill
├── Generate: Conventional commit message
├── On success: Present message for human approval
└── On failure: Provide manual template

PR-Create Pipeline

Step 1: Pre-Commit Pipeline
├── Execute full pre-commit pipeline
└── On failure: STOP

Step 2: Stage Changes
├── Present diff for human review
├── REQUIRE: Human approval for git commit
└── On approval: Continue

Step 3: Delegate to Jules
├── Invoke: jules-integration skill
├── Create: Jules session with PR task
├── Set: requirePlanApproval = true
└── Monitor: Session status

CI-Recover Pipeline

Step 1: Diagnose
├── Invoke: systematic-debugging skill
├── Analyze: CI failure logs
├── Identify: Root cause
└── On failure: Escalate to human

Step 2: Fix
├── Implement fix based on diagnosis
├── Follow TDD if adding code
└── On failure: Escalate with context

Step 3: Re-validate
├── Run: ./tooling/scripts/local-validate.sh
├── On success: Report recovery
├── On failure: Retry (max 3 times)
└── On max retries: Escalate

Phase 4: Completion

ALWAYS verify before claiming complete:

# Run validation
./tooling/scripts/local-validate.sh

# Check all tests pass
# (if applicable)

# Update CHANGELOG.md under [Unreleased]

Report with evidence:

## Pipeline Execution Summary

| Step | Status | Evidence |
|------|--------|----------|
| Validation | ✅ | local-validate.sh passed |
| Review | ✅ | No critical issues |
| Commit | ⏳ | Awaiting human approval |

### Artifacts

- Commit message: `feat: add workflow orchestration`
- Files changed: 5
- Lines: +230 / -12

State Management

The orchestrator reads state from multiple sources:

CHANGELOG.md

# Extract pending work
grep -A 50 "\[Unreleased\]" CHANGELOG.md

Provides:

• What's been added/changed/fixed
• What's pending
• Recent decisions and context

Git State

git status --porcelain    # Working directory state
git log --oneline -5      # Recent commits
git diff --stat           # Changes summary

CI State

# Via autonomous-ci skill
./plugins/autonomous-ci/scripts/wait-for-ci.sh

Error Handling

Validation Failures

1. Parse error output
2. Identify failing check (shellcheck, markdownlint, plugin validation)
3. Attempt automatic fix if deterministic
4. Re-run validation
5. If still failing after 3 attempts, report with full context

Review Failures

1. Collect all review issues
2. Categorize by severity (critical, warning, info)
3. For critical issues: STOP and report
4. For warnings: Report and continue with human acknowledgment

Jules API Failures

1. Check API key validity
2. Retry with exponential backoff (5s, 15s, 30s)
3. If persistent, report and suggest manual PR creation

Integration with Other Skills

From Superpowers

From This Repo

Examples

Example 1: Pre-Commit Flow

Trigger: Developer requests validation before commit

1. Read CHANGELOG.md → Understand context
2. Run local-validate.sh → All checks pass
3. Invoke code-review → No critical issues
4. Invoke smart-commit → Generate: "feat(agent): add workflow orchestrator"
5. Present summary → Human approves
6. Report complete with evidence

Example 2: CI Recovery

Trigger: CI fails on shellcheck

1. Detect failure via autonomous-ci monitoring
2. Invoke systematic-debugging:
   - Phase 1: Gather evidence (CI logs)
   - Phase 2: Identify cause (SC2086 unquoted variable)
   - Phase 3: Hypothesize fix (add quotes)
   - Phase 4: Verify fix locally
3. Apply fix to script
4. Run local-validate.sh → Passes
5. Report recovery with evidence

Example 3: Full PR Pipeline

Trigger: Feature complete, ready for review

1. Execute pre-commit pipeline → All green
2. Present diff for human review
3. Human approves commit
4. Invoke jules-integration:
   - Create session: "Create PR for workflow-orchestrator agent"
   - Set requirePlanApproval: true
   - Monitor session
5. Report PR URL when created

Maintenance Rules for Claude

1. Never skip validation - Always run local-validate.sh before completion
2. Always read CHANGELOG first - Context prevents duplicate work
3. Chain skills, don't reinvent - Use existing plugins instead of custom logic
4. Require human approval for commits - Orchestration ≠ autonomous commits
5. Report with evidence - Tables with status and artifacts
6. Update CHANGELOG - Every pipeline execution that changes files