Wish

wish — Plan Before You Build

Runtime syntax: invoke the plugin copy through the active runtime's owner-qualified skill selector; use a bare selector only when intentionally selecting a user-tier copy (a separately installed personal copy; Genie no longer seeds this tier). Cross-skill prose below uses bare names as portable semantic routes; the orchestrator resolves the selector for the active runtime.

Convert a validated idea into an executable wish document at .genie/wishes/<slug>/WISH.md.

When to Use

• Non-trivial work needs planning before implementation.
• User wants to scope, decompose, or formalize a feature/change.
• Prior brainstorm output exists and needs to become actionable.

Wish artifacts live in .genie/wishes/ in the shared worktree. Execution-group definitions go in WISH.md (git) so other agents and skills can read them; per-group execution state lives in the state DB via genie task (see the work skill for how groups are claimed and completed). When spawned as a native subagent, use the curated context from your dispatch prompt directly.

Design link pre-flight

Before writing the wish, check the design exists and, when present, verify the review evidence with the helper shipped in this skill:

test -f .genie/brainstorms/<slug>/DESIGN.md
node "<wish-skill-dir>/references/design-review-evidence.mjs" verify ".genie/brainstorms/<slug>/DESIGN.md"

• Present and verification exits 0: consume the reviewer-bound evidence and emit | **Design** | [DESIGN.md](../../brainstorms/<slug>/DESIGN.md) |.
• Present but verification fails: stop and return to design review. Missing evidence, a non-SHIP verdict, or a content-digest mismatch cannot be waived; editing DESIGN.md invalidates its prior review. Never repair the failure with a locally recomputed digest — only a new design review may return the reviewed-sha256 passed to stamping.
• Absent: emit | **Design** | _No brainstorm — direct wish_ | (no link) — valid for hotfixes, trivial changes, or plans obvious enough that a brainstorm adds no value. The linter (scripts/wishes-lint.ts) accepts the literal stub text; a bracket-link to a non-existent brainstorm file fails lint.

Flow

1. Gate check: if the request is fuzzy (no prior design, unclear scope, vague requirements), run brainstorm first and say so. If a design exists, do not scaffold until its digest-bound design-review evidence verifies as SHIP.

2. Align intent: clarify until success criteria are testable.

3. Pass the simplicity gate: state the simplest complete design, justify every mechanism beyond it with a present requirement or measurement, and defer plausible future complexity behind a concrete trigger. A wish cannot outsource this decision to implementation.

4. Define scope: explicit IN and OUT lists. OUT cannot be empty.

5. Decompose: small, loosely coupled execution groups.

6. Scaffold — always copy the template, never hand-write WISH.md. Resolve the absolute directory containing this loaded SKILL.md, replace only the two placeholder assignments below, and run the complete command from the repository root:

   WISH_SKILL_DIR='<absolute directory containing this SKILL.md>'
   WISH_SLUG='<slug>'
   case "$WISH_SLUG" in
     ''|*[!a-z0-9-]*|-*|*-) printf 'invalid wish slug: %s\n' "$WISH_SLUG" >&2; exit 2 ;;
   esac
   WISH_DEST=".genie/wishes/$WISH_SLUG/WISH.md"
   test -f "$WISH_SKILL_DIR/templates/wish-template.md"
   test ! -e "$WISH_DEST"
   mkdir -p "$(dirname "$WISH_DEST")"
   cp "$WISH_SKILL_DIR/templates/wish-template.md" "$WISH_DEST"
   

   The template ships inside this skill as the single source of truth for wish structure — a plain document, no runtime scaffolder. Copying guarantees the skeleton the parser and linter expect; ad-hoc wishes regularly fail structural lint.

7. Fill: replace the {{slug}}/{{date}} tokens and every <TODO: …> marker with real content. Every group gets acceptance criteria plus a non-zero validation command proportional to the planned diff's risk and reach. Start with the narrowest checks that can disprove the changed behavior or contract: documentation-only groups, including deterministic generated documentation or plugin skill mirrors, use relevant format, link, example, generator, parity, or content-contract checks; runtime groups use focused behavior tests and add type, lint, or build checks only for boundaries they reach. Escalate shared runtime/core behavior, dependency or lockfile, generated executable or runtime artifact, configuration or schema, CI or release, broad-refactor, or uncertain-impact groups to the repository full gate plus affected build or end-to-end checks. State why the command scope fits; a repository-documented gate is by itself sufficient justification for its scope. Preserve any repository-defined aggregate integration or release gate separately from per-group validation.

8. Declare dependencies: use the wish-level ## Dependencies keys **depends-on:** <comma-separated slugs or none> and **blocks:** <comma-separated slugs or none> for cross-wish edges. Keep per-group **depends-on:** fields under each execution group. The spelling is always hyphenated; the DAG is a machine-readable planning artifact in git.

9. Create tasks — one per execution group, so work can claim and complete each group and the board reflects progress:

   genie task create --title "<group title>" --wish <slug> --group <group-name>
   genie task list --wish <slug>   # inspect what was created
   

   Tasks carry the --wish/--group linkage; the dependency DAG stays in the WISH.md document, not in task rows. If creation fails (no .genie/genie.db yet, CLI unavailable), warn and continue — WISH.md in git is the source of truth and must remain usable by work without task rows.

10. Handoff: run the wish linter — inside the genie repo, grep -q '"wishes:lint"' package.json 2>/dev/null && bun run wishes:lint. If it reports any error, surface it and stop — never hand a structurally broken wish onward. Only after lint passes, auto-invoke review (plan review) on the WISH.md. Never suggest work directly — the review gate comes first.

11. Persist the verdict: the reviewer only returns evidence. The invoking orchestrator appends that evidence under ## Review Results and sets the WISH status to APPROVED on SHIP, FIX-FIRST on FIX-FIRST, or BLOCKED on BLOCKED. Do not route to work until the APPROVED status is on disk.

12. Record the wave base (APPROVED only): once the status on disk is APPROVED, run genie context --wish <slug> from the repository root. This non---plan resolution pins the integration base SHA as the wish's wave base — every group spawn cuts its worktree from that one SHA. A later run returns the recorded SHA; genie context --wish <slug> --re-resolve refreshes it. Never use --plan for this step: the preview writes nothing, so it cannot record the base. If the command fails (genie CLI or state DB unavailable — an empty ready-task set is NOT a failure; the base is still recorded and returned), warn and continue — the first non-plan resolution or the first spawn --wish records the base instead.

Wish Document Sections

Rules

• Never write WISH.md from scratch — always copy the in-skill template, then edit.
• Lint before handoff: the genie repo's wish linter must pass before review sees the wish.
• Never emit a bracket-link to a non-existent brainstorm — use the _No brainstorm — direct wish_ stub.
• Never consume a linked design whose persisted review evidence is missing, non-SHIP, or stale; the wish linter independently enforces this for new wishes.
• No implementation during wish — planning only.
• On APPROVED, record the wave base with the non---plan genie context --wish <slug> (warn and continue on failure; never --plan).
• No speculative optimization: caches, deltas, sharding, background coordination, and configuration surfaces require a current criterion or measurement in the Simplicity Case.
• Every group testable, bite-sized, and independently shippable; no vague tasks ("improve everything").
• Every group has non-zero, risk-proportional validation with its scope explained; aggregate integration and release gates remain intact.
• OUT scope must contain at least one concrete exclusion.
• Declare cross-wish dependencies early.