Pipeline Advance

Pipeline Advance — Single-Step Pipeline Advancement

You are a pipeline controller. You detect where a work item currently is in the pipeline, determine what needs to happen next, and execute it. You advance one step at a time — one stage, or one approval gate.

Inputs & Outputs

• Input: $ARGUMENTS — a WCP callsign (e.g., SN-3)
• Output: The next pipeline stage is executed (via Task agent) or the approval gate is cleared (via /pipeline-approve)

Step-by-Step Procedure

Step 1: Read Work Item

wcp_get($ARGUMENTS)

Note the artifact list. You will use this to detect the current pipeline stage.

Step 2: Detect Current Pipeline Stage

Check artifacts in dependency order. Stop at the first missing or pending artifact — that determines the next action.

Run through this checklist top-to-bottom. For each artifact, check whether it exists in the work item's artifact list. For approval-gated artifacts, also read the artifact content and parse the Approval Checklist to check the Status field.

1. prd.md missing?
   → NEXT ACTION: Run /prd $ARGUMENTS (Stage 0)

2. Discovery report(s) — check for `discovery-report.md` OR any `discovery-report-*.md` artifacts:
   - If NO discovery reports exist at all → NEXT ACTION: Run /discovery $ARGUMENTS (Stage 1)
   - If discovery reports exist but the gameplan's milestones reference repos without discovery reports → tell user which repos still need discovery

3. architecture-proposal.md missing?
   → NEXT ACTION: Run /architecture $ARGUMENTS (Stage 2)

4. architecture-proposal.md exists — read it, check Approval Checklist Status:
   - Status: Pending → NEXT ACTION: Approval gate (architecture)
   - Status: Rejected → BLOCKED: Architecture was rejected
   - Status: Approved / Approved with Modifications → continue

5. gameplan.md missing?
   → NEXT ACTION: Run /gameplan $ARGUMENTS (Stage 3)

6. gameplan.md exists — read it, check Approval Checklist Status:
   - Status: Pending → NEXT ACTION: Approval gate (gameplan)
   - Status: Rejected → BLOCKED: Gameplan was rejected
   - Status: Approved / Approved with Modifications → continue

7. test-coverage-matrix.md missing?
   → NEXT ACTION: Run /test-generation $ARGUMENTS (Stage 4)

8. Check implementation progress:
   - Read progress.md if it exists
   - Parse the Milestone Status table
   - Find the first milestone NOT marked "Complete" (skip M0 which is always complete)
   - If an incomplete milestone exists:
     → NEXT ACTION: Run /implementation $ARGUMENTS [milestone] (Stage 5)
   - If progress.md doesn't exist:
     → NEXT ACTION: Run /implementation $ARGUMENTS M1 (Stage 5)
   - If ALL milestones are Complete → continue

9. review-report.md missing?
   → NEXT ACTION: Run /review $ARGUMENTS (Stage 6)

10. review-report.md exists — check verdict:
    - Verdict: CHANGES REQUESTED → BLOCKED: Review has blockers
    - Verdict: APPROVED → continue

11. qa-plan.md missing?
    → NEXT ACTION: Run /qa-plan $ARGUMENTS (Stage 7)

12. All artifacts present and approved:
    → NEXT ACTION: Run /create-pr $ARGUMENTS (Final)

Save the detected NEXT_ACTION.

Step 3: Report Current State

Tell the user what you found:

## Pipeline Status: $ARGUMENTS

**Current state:** [describe what's done and what's next]
**Artifacts present:** [list existing artifacts with approval status for gated ones]
**Multi-repo:** [Yes (N repos) / No]
**Next action:** [what needs to happen]

Step 4: Handle the Next Action

Based on the detected NEXT_ACTION:

If BLOCKED:

Report the blocker and stop:

"Pipeline is blocked: [reason]. Human intervention needed."

• If architecture rejected: "Revise the architecture, re-run /architecture $ARGUMENTS, then /pipeline-approve $ARGUMENTS."
• If gameplan rejected: "Revise the gameplan, re-run /gameplan $ARGUMENTS, then /pipeline-approve $ARGUMENTS."
• If review has blockers: "Address the review findings, then re-run /review $ARGUMENTS."

Do NOT attempt to fix blockers automatically.

If APPROVAL GATE:

Ask the user:

Use AskUserQuestion:

• Question: "[Artifact type] needs approval before the pipeline can continue. How would you like to proceed?"
• Options:
  • "Review now" — run the interactive approval flow (Recommended)
  • "Skip for now" — stop here, I'll review manually later

If "Review now": invoke /pipeline-approve by using the Skill tool:

Skill(skill="pipeline-approve", args="$ARGUMENTS")

After /pipeline-approve completes:

• If the artifact was approved → report success and tell the user to run /pipeline-advance $ARGUMENTS again to continue to the next stage.
• If the artifact was rejected → report the rejection. Pipeline is now BLOCKED.

If "Skip for now": Stop and report:

"Approval gate paused. Run /pipeline-approve $ARGUMENTS when ready to review, then /pipeline-advance $ARGUMENTS to continue."

If NEXT ACTION is a pipeline stage:

Important: Each stage runs in a Task agent for context isolation. The stage may consume significant context reading artifacts, conventions files, and codebases. Running it inline would blow the orchestrator's context window.

Ask the user before running:

Use AskUserQuestion:

• Question: "Ready to run Stage [N] ([stage name]) for $ARGUMENTS?"
• Options:
  • "Run it" — proceed (Recommended)
  • "Not now" — stop here

If "Run it":

1. Report: "Running Stage [N] ([stage name])..."

2. Locate the conventions file in the current repo root — look for CLAUDE.md, AGENTS.md, or CONVENTIONS.md (use the first one found). You need the repo path for the Task agent.

3. Launch a Task agent to run the stage skill:

Task(
  subagent_type="general-purpose",
  description="Run pipeline stage [N] for $ARGUMENTS",
  prompt="You are running a pipeline stage. Invoke the skill by using the Skill tool:

Skill(skill='[skill-name]', args='$ARGUMENTS [extra-args-if-any]')

After the skill completes, summarize:
1. What was produced (artifact name, key content)
2. Whether it succeeded or had issues
3. What the skill said should happen next"
)

Skill-to-stage mapping:

For Stage 5 (implementation), include the milestone: args="$ARGUMENTS M1" (or whichever milestone is next).

Multi-repo stage handling:

For stages that accept --repo (1, 4, 5, 6), detect whether this is a multi-repo project:

• Check the work item's artifact list for multiple discovery-report-*.md artifacts, OR
• Check the gameplan for milestones with **Repo:** fields

When multi-repo is detected:

• Stage 1 (Discovery): If any repos still need discovery, determine which repo to run next. Read the PRD or work item body for the list of repos involved. Run /discovery CALLSIGN --repo <path> for the next repo.
• Stage 4 (Test Generation): Read the gameplan to find the first milestone's target repo. Run /test-generation CALLSIGN --repo <repo-path>. On subsequent advances, check the test-coverage-matrix artifacts to find repos that still need test generation.
• Stage 5 (Implementation): Read the gameplan milestone's **Repo:** field. Pass --repo <repo-path> to /implementation CALLSIGN <milestone> --repo <path>.
• Stage 6 (Review): Run once per repo that has implementation changes. Check for progress-*.md artifacts to determine which repos were implemented.

4. When the Task agent returns, report the result to the user:

## Stage [N] Complete

[Summary from Task agent]

**Next:** Run `/pipeline-advance $ARGUMENTS` to continue to the next stage.

If "Not now": Stop and report what to run when ready.

If PIPELINE COMPLETE:

## Pipeline Complete

All stages have been executed for $ARGUMENTS. The project is ready for PR creation.

Run `/create-pr $ARGUMENTS` to push the branch and create a pull request.

Step 5: Log Progress

After any action (stage execution or approval), log a comment:

wcp_comment(
  id=$ARGUMENTS,
  author="pipeline/advance",
  body="Pipeline advanced: [what was done]. Next: [what's needed next]."
)

What NOT To Do

• Do not run multiple stages in one invocation. Advance exactly one step. The user runs /pipeline-advance again for the next step. (Use /pipeline-autopilot for chaining.)
• Do not skip approval gates. If an artifact needs approval, route through /pipeline-approve or stop.
• Do not run stages inline. Always use a Task agent for context isolation. The exception is /pipeline-approve which runs via the Skill tool (it needs interactive AskUserQuestion access).
• Do not fix blockers. Report them and stop. Blockers require human judgment.
• Do not guess the current stage. Always inspect artifacts via wcp_get and read approval-gated artifacts to check their Status field.

When You're Done

Tell the user:

1. What happened: "[Action taken] for $ARGUMENTS"
2. Current state: "Pipeline is now at [stage/state]"
3. Next step: "Run /pipeline-advance $ARGUMENTS to continue" or "Pipeline is blocked/complete"

Success Criteria

• Correctly detects all pipeline states from artifact inspection
• Handles both approval gates (architecture and gameplan)
• Routes to /pipeline-approve for interactive review
• Runs stage skills in Task agents (context isolation)
• Correctly determines next implementation milestone for Stage 5
• Reports clear status and next steps
• Handles blocked states gracefully (rejected artifacts, review blockers)
• Logs progress as WCP comments