Plan Drift

Tandem: plan-drift (PM hat)

Operate as PM hat. This skill is critique's cross-artefact complement: critique reviews one artefact's internal quality, pm:lint checks the frontmatter contract, ADR-0068 reconciles epic↔story status — none of them answer "is every requirement reflected in a story, and is every story still faithful to the requirement it traces to?" This skill does, in one direction and then the other. It is read-only and advisory: it never edits a story, requirement, PRD, or any status: field, and it never gates a promotion. A human rules on every finding.

Inputs needed

• Scope — one of:
  • Whole repo (default): every PRD under 20-Requirements/ (or equivalent), every Epic under 30-Epics/ (or equivalent), every Feature under 31-Features/ (or equivalent), every Story under 32-Stories/ (or equivalent) — see "Load into context" below for how folder names resolve on a customised layout.
  • A named Epic (e.g. "run plan-drift over EPIC-23") — restricts the requirement inventory to that Epic's prd_section: PRD, that Epic's own ## In scope bullets, and the Features/Stories under it. Use this for a fast, focused pass; the whole-repo run is the thorough one.
• If the user gives neither, default to whole repo and say so in the report header.

Load into context

Use Read / Glob to enumerate — treat a missing file as "not present," never as an error. Folder names below are the kit defaults; on a customised/flattened layout, resolve them through the project's layout map (93-Scripts/lib/pm-paths.js logical keys) first — same as critique's "or equivalent" paths and lane B's own prompts-dir resolution in this epic's W4 wiring. If a resolved requirement folder comes back EMPTY after layout resolution, say so explicitly in the report's ## Scope section rather than silently reporting a clean pass over nothing — an empty requirement inventory is the worst failure mode for a coverage tool, because it looks identical to "everything's covered."

• Requirement sources (in scope):
  • PRDs under 20-Requirements/**/*.md (or equivalent) — plain markdown, no frontmatter (the validator doesn't scan this folder). Each numbered ## Key requirements item (R1, R2, …) and each un-resolved ## Open questions checkbox is one requirement item.
  • Epics under 30-Epics/EPIC-NN-*.md (or equivalent) — each ## In scope bullet is one requirement item; the prd_section: frontmatter line names the PRD it descends from (free text, not a path contract — read it as prose).
  • Features under 31-Features/EPIC-NN/FEAT-NN.M-*.md (or equivalent) — each ## Acceptance criteria bullet is one requirement item; prd_refs: frontmatter names the PRD/BACKLOG items it descends from.
• Stories under 32-Stories/EPIC-NN/FEAT-NN.M/STORY-NN.M.PP-*.md (or equivalent) — each story's ## Acceptance criteria bullets and its ## References → **PRD:** line (free text: a PRD section id like "R7", a BACKLOG id, or "—").
• Quality standards reference — 90-Standards/SOP.md (report/artefact conventions).
• Project root CLAUDE.md — project-specific overrides, if present.

Task — bidirectional trace

Step 1 — build the requirement inventory

List every requirement item in scope: PRD Rn key-requirements + unresolved PRD open-question checkboxes, every Epic ## In scope bullet, every Feature ## Acceptance criteria bullet. Each item gets a file + section pointer (e.g. 20-Requirements/CommandCenter/PRD-command-center-redesign.md · Key requirements · R12).

Step 2 — Tranche A: requirement → story coverage map

For each requirement item, trace forward through the existing linkage chain — no new frontmatter, no new mandatory field:

PRD Rn / Epic In-scope bullet → named in an Epic's prd_section: prose or a Feature's prd_refs: → Feature's ## Acceptance criteria → Feature's ## Stories list → each linked Story's ## References → **PRD:** line (which should name the same Rn, the Epic bullet's theme, or the Feature AC it implements).

A requirement item is covered if at least one Story's **PRD:** reference (or its Feature's own ACs, when the Story doesn't re-cite the PRD directly) names it, directly or in substance. A requirement item is a coverage gap if no Story in scope traces to it by name or substance — report it with the file + section pointer, even if the requirement is de facto satisfied by convention elsewhere (e.g. a cross-cutting technical constraint every story happens to honour but that no story's **PRD:** line actually cites — flag this too; the point is traceability, not just accidental compliance).

Also check: does every Feature's ## Acceptance criteria bullet have at least one covering Story? Does every Epic's ## In scope bullet have at least one covering Feature? Walk both linkage hops.

Step 3 — Tranche B: story → requirement fidelity check

For each Story whose **PRD:** reference resolves to a requirement item, compare the Story's ## Acceptance criteria against that requirement's text (the PRD Rn clause, the Epic bullet, or the Feature AC). Flag:

• Scope-add — an AC in the Story that goes beyond anything the linked requirement asked for.
• Scope-drop — a clause in the linked requirement that no Story AC (or Technical-notes gotcha) addresses.
• Reinterpretation — the Story's AC covers the requirement's topic but changes its meaning.
• Stale source — the requirement document itself has fallen behind a decision already shipped downstream: e.g. a PRD ## Open questions checkbox left unchecked though a linked Story's decisions: frontmatter (or its ## References → **Related ADRs:** line) shows an ADR already resolved it. This is drift in the requirement, not the story — name both the stale PRD line and the resolving ADR/story.

Every finding here is advisory only — drift is sometimes a deliberate, good call mid-execution. State the divergence and let a human rule on it; never mark it as an error or a gate failure.

Step 4 — compile the report

Write 41-Reports/audits/PLAN-DRIFT-<YYYY-MM-DD>.md (today's date) — this exact filename pattern is the pinned contract (TESTPLAN-24.1.01 TC-01 greps for it; the inaugural run, 2026-08-01, fixed it). If a report for today already exists from an earlier run this session, overwrite it — one report per calendar day, not one per invocation or per scope. Known limitation: because the filename carries no scope marker, a same-day re-run with a different scope (e.g. a whole-repo pass after an earlier Epic-scoped pass) overwrites the earlier findings rather than merging with them. State the chosen scope prominently in the report's own ## Scope section so a reader always knows what the current file does and doesn't cover; if same-day multi-scope runs become common, revisit the filename contract via ADR rather than silently changing it (it's load-bearing for TC-01).

Report format

---
title: Plan-drift review — <scope: "whole repo" | "EPIC-NN">
type: report
generated_at: <ISO 8601 now>
---

# PLAN-DRIFT-<YYYY-MM-DD> · <scope>

## Scope
<what was walked: which PRDs, epics, features, stories — and what was explicitly out of scope, e.g.
status reconciliation (ADR-0068's job, not this skill's)>

## Summary
- Requirement items inventoried: N
- Coverage gaps (Tranche A): G
- Fidelity / drift findings (Tranche B): D

## Coverage gaps — no covering story
<one entry per gap>
**<requirement id>** — `<file>` · <section>
<one-line description of the requirement>
No Story in scope traces to this by name or substance. <Suggested next step — e.g. "split into a
story" or "confirm covered by convention and add an explicit PRD reference".>

_(or: "No coverage gaps found." if none.)_

## Fidelity / drift findings — story vs. source requirement
<one entry per finding>
**<STORY-NN.M.PP>** — `<story file path>`
Diverges from: `<requirement file>` · <section/clause>
<one-line description of the divergence — scope-add / scope-drop / reinterpretation / stale source>
<advisory note — never phrased as a required fix>

_(or: "No fidelity findings — every traced story matches its source requirement." if none.)_

## Recommended next step
- If coverage gaps exist → PM hat decides: split a story, or confirm the gap is intentionally deferred
  and note why.
- If drift findings exist → human review; update the story, update the source requirement doc, or
  accept the drift as a deliberate call and say so in the story's Risks section.
- If both are clean → say so plainly; this skill is not obligated to find problems.

Output rules

• Read-only. This skill never edits a Story, Feature, Epic, PRD, or BACKLOG file, and never touches any status: field. The only file it writes is the dated report under 41-Reports/.
• No new mandatory fields. Tracing runs entirely off frontmatter and sections that already exist in the kit's templates (prd_section:, prd_refs:, ## References → **PRD:**, ## In scope, ## Acceptance criteria). If tracing genuinely can't resolve because the existing linkage is missing on a specific artefact, report that artefact as "linkage insufficient" in the coverage-gaps section — do not add a field to fix it. If linkage proves structurally insufficient across many artefacts (not just one gap), propose the minimal addition via an ADR in the same response, and say so in the report; do not silently add it.
• Advisory only. Every finding is a prompt for human judgement, not an error. Deliberate scope changes are a legitimate outcome of execution — the review surfaces drift, it does not adjudicate it.
• No promotion. This skill does not flip any status:. refine-backlog and the DoR/DoD gates keep that job.
• Every requirement item accounted for — no silent omissions. If an item can't be evaluated (e.g. a Feature has no Stories yet because it's not-started), say so explicitly rather than dropping it.

Non-negotiable rules from CLAUDE.md

• Read-only skill: never writes to any file except the dated 41-Reports/audits/PLAN-DRIFT-*.md report.
• Status enum: never touches status: in any file.
• All requirement items accounted for: no check is skipped silently.