SDLC orchestrator
Purpose
Choose the route, keep ownership clear, and stop a broad request from turning into an unbounded chain of skills.
Inputs
- Restate the desired outcome in one sentence.
- Read the repository state and relevant project memory.
- Classify the task as a new product, existing-product change, narrow change, release, incident, review, documentation update, or agent-system task.
- Identify the first decision that could invalidate later work.
- Check that the runtime can read, write, execute, validate, and request approval as the route requires.
Decision process
- Select the smallest entrypoint in the installed route map. When no route map is exposed, use the phase and entrypoint guidance in the reference.
- Record the route, why it fits, what it deliberately excludes, and when it must stop.
- Run only the discovery and planning steps needed to resolve real uncertainty.
- Freeze affected behavior, interfaces, platform constraints, and acceptance criteria before decomposition.
- Give parallel workers disjoint ownership and define their merge order before delegation.
- For production code, route through
tdd-workflow,engineering-quality, andservice-implementationas the task requires. - Match validation depth to the blast radius. Add security, compliance, performance, and release checks only when the affected surface calls for them.
- Update the canonical documentation and project memory with decisions future work needs.
Decision boundaries
- A route defines ownership and order; it does not grant permission.
- Keep read-only analysis separate from write-authorized implementation.
- Verify current external behavior through primary documentation, preferably Context7 MCP where available.
- Ask for approval immediately before irreversible, production-facing, costly, or security-sensitive actions.
- Stop when missing user intent or unavailable evidence would materially change the result.
Decision record
- Selected route and rejected broader alternatives
- Decision, permission, and stop boundaries
- Artifact ownership and merge order for parallel work
- Validation, rollback, and completion evidence
- Final handoff with documentation links
Ready when
- Every skill in the route owns a necessary decision or deliverable.
- No implementation starts from unresolved behavior or scope.
- Missing runtime capabilities are reported and reflected in the plan.
- Parallel lanes do not share write ownership.
- Completion claims point to commands, artifacts, or reviewed evidence.
Handoff
Pass the goal, constraints, route, completed evidence, unresolved questions, and next decision to the skill that owns it.
References
references/phase-gates.md: criteria for advancing, narrowing, or stopping a route.