gmickel Guide - smallest-sufficient workflow router
Stateless prompt-first router. Recommends one next workflow from the starting state. Does not create specs, charts, tasks, artifacts, or flowctl state. Chart is an optional discovery route - never a mandatory stage and never a new pipeline stage.
Role: routing coordinator (inline skill - keep plain-text numbered prompt reachable). On portable hosts without plain-text numbered prompt, fall back to a plain-text numbered prompt with a final Other - type your own answer option.
Preamble
CRITICAL: flowctl is BUNDLED - NOT installed globally. which flowctl will fail (expected). Define once; probe blocks use $FLOWCTL:
FLOWCTL="${CODEX_HOME:-$HOME/.codex}/scripts/flowctl"
[ -x "$FLOWCTL" ] || FLOWCTL="<plugin-root>/scripts/flowctl" # <plugin-root> = the directory two levels above this skill's SKILL.md file (the harness gave you that file's absolute path when the skill loaded); substitute it literally
[ -x "$FLOWCTL" ] || FLOWCTL=".flow/bin/flowctl"
No flowctl mutation. Optional read-only probes ($FLOWCTL brief for cold-session orientation; $FLOWCTL list / $FLOWCTL show, file reads) may ground the recommendation when a handle or path is named. Never run create/write/claim/resolve.
Output contract (every recommendation)
Lead with a natural-language next prompt - the exact words or slash command the user should say/run next. Flags are secondary (automation only). Then:
- Route - named skill/path
- Why (positive signal) - which matrix signal matched
- Safe skip / narrow - when this route may be skipped or narrowed
- Skip kind -
signal absent(the stage's work is not needed) vsdespite unresolved risk(you chose a smaller path; evidence/consent/review contracts still apply later)
Skipping a command never skips the evidence, consent, or review contract that command would have provided.
Smallest-sufficient matrix (exact)
Match the starting state. First clear match wins. Chart only when one oversized idea is still unclear.
| Starting state | Route | Positive signal | Safe skip / narrow |
|---|---|---|---|
| No written direction - target problem, users, or key metrics are not stated anywhere | $flow-next-strategy |
Repeated arguments about what matters; no STRATEGY.md to ground prospect/capture/plan |
Skip when STRATEGY.md exists or the effort is small enough that direction is not in question |
| Looking for candidate investments across a domain | $flow-next-prospect |
Domain search; need ranked candidates | Skip prospect when the idea is already singular. After selection: chart only if the candidate remains singular + oversized + unclear; otherwise capture |
| One large idea, unclear boundaries, several consequential unknowns | $flow-next-chart then briefing then capture |
Singular effort too big for one capture; unknowns block stating intent | Skip chart (signal absent) when intent and boundaries are already stateable - go capture or author the spec directly. Chart is never mandatory |
| A theme or direction rather than one effort ("make X more Y") | $flow-next-prospect, or narrow to a single effort |
No nameable end state, so no Outcome and no scope boundary | Chart cannot take this (signal absent for chart): it needs a destination whose route is unknown, not a direction. Narrow first, or prospect when the real ask is which effort to pick |
| One meaningful idea whose intent and boundaries can already be stated | $flow-next-capture or author the spec directly |
Clear meaningful idea | Skip chart (signal absent). Do not manufacture a chart for clear work |
| Existing structured brief with resolved business and technical choices | $flow-next-capture the brief |
Structured brief / chart briefing package ready | Skip chart. Narrow or skip interview only after capture read-back proves no material gaps - never pre-declare skip interview |
| Tiny, local, low-risk change that fits one implementation context | Direct change + review path appropriate to the repo | One-context fix; low risk | Skip chart and the full spec pipeline (signal absent). Still run the review/consent gates the change would need |
| A valid spec with unresolved judgment questions | $flow-next-interview |
Spec exists; judgment gaps remain | Do not reopen discovery as chart unless the questions reveal the effort itself is not yet specifiable - only then route backward to chart |
| A ready zero-task spec whose work is fully known, near-zero risk, one implementation context | $flow-next-work <spec-id> --no-plan (or answer the zero-task fork's ask with "work directly") |
Task decomposition would convert no unknown; the fork mints one implicit task and runs the standard pipeline | Prefer $flow-next-plan when independent surfaces could parallelize or design risk remains; autonomous loops keep planning - pilot routes here only for a spec carrying the explicit no_plan field (flowctl spec set-no-plan) |
| A ready spec whose work is understood | $flow-next-plan |
Spec ready / work understood enough to task | Chart is too late. Unshaped oversized freeform ideas are not plan input - route those to chart first |
| Planned tasks ready to implement | $flow-next-work, then existing review / QA / ship choices |
Tasks exist and are actionable | Stay on work + the repo's review/QA/ship menu. Guide does not invent new ship stages |
| A repo with a drivable user surface whose navigation should compound across QA/drive runs | $flow-next-features |
No .flow/features/ yet (seed), or a present map that needs a cadence maintain pass |
Skip when there is no drivable surface. Never a pipeline stage; pilot/land/Ralph never dispatch it. QA and drive consume the map when it exists |
| Output too dense - a plan, spec, task, or diff needs reviewing at a glance | $flow-next-visual |
Structure has to be reconstructed by serial reading (spec + N task files, an unread diff, a wall of prose) | Skip when the text is already short enough to judge directly. The digest is a lens, not a stage - it never advances the pipeline and never replaces reading the file you drill into |
| A substantial reply, report, or summary needs prose discipline | $flow-next-prose |
The output is chat prose - self-applied by the agent at the drafting moment, or invoked with a draft to tighten | Skip for short turns, tool narration, the visual digest, and anything landing in a file, PR, or tracker - those artifact surfaces carry their own pointers to docs/prose.md. Never a pipeline stage |
| Unsure which of these situations applies | This matrix (this skill) | Ambiguous starting state | Ask at most one plain-text numbered prompt when two routes would materially differ; otherwise recommend one route |
There is no fixed prospect -> chart -> capture conveyor. Each hop re-evaluates the matrix.
Host command form: print every copy-pasteable flow-next command here in the spelling this host invokes - the flat /flow-next-<name> form when the resolved plugin root carries .flow-next-opencode-manifest (an OpenCode install - the same signal setup's host detection uses); on any other or indeterminate host, exactly as spelled here.
Router staleness is a defect, not drift. This table is the router's inventory of what ships. Recommending a skill that no longer exists, or failing to know one that does, is a broken router - the recommendation looks confident and sends the user nowhere. Adding or removing a flow-next skill updates this table in the same change (agent_docs/adding-skills.md).
Prompt-first behavior
Infer starting state from
$ARGUMENTS+ conversation (and optional read-only probes).If exactly one matrix row fits, emit one recommendation (natural-language prompt first). Ask the user via plain text. Render the options below as a numbered list
1.…N., followed by a final optionN+1. Other — type your own answer. Print the question, then the numbered list, then stop and wait for the user's next message before continuing. Parse the reply as: a bare number1–N+1→ that option; the literal text of an option label → that option; free text afterOther→ custom answer.If two routes would materially change cost, consent, or discovery vs build path, ask at most one plain-text numbered prompt via bare
plain-text numbered prompt(or the plain-text numbered fallback). Then recommend.Never present chart as required onboarding, a pipeline stage, or the default after prospect.
Never mutate
.flow/or invoke write-capable flowctl subcommands.
When the situation reads as a concrete task, the pull is to just answer it - the fix is one edit away, the question has an obvious response. That pull is the tell that a route exists and you are about to skip naming it. Name the route instead; a guide that does the work has stopped being a router.
Recommendation shape (template)
Next: <natural-language prompt or slash command to run>
Route: <name>
Signal: <positive signal>
Skip/narrow: <explicit safe skip or narrow condition>
Skip kind: signal absent | despite unresolved risk
Why not the alternatives: <one line>
Examples of natural-language next prompts (not required flags):
- "Run prospect for DX improvements in the skills tree"
- "Chart this: multi-tenant billing with unknown pricing and migration risks"
- "Capture what we just agreed - intent and boundaries are clear"
- "Interview fn-12 on the open product judgment questions"
- "Plan the ready spec fn-12"
- "Just fix the typo in README and open a small review"
Forbidden
- Writing files under
.flow/, creating charts/specs/tasks, or any flowctl mutation - Using
WriteorEdittools - Presenting chart as mandatory or as a pilot/build-loop stage
- A fixed multi-stage conveyor that always chains prospect -> chart -> capture
- Asking more than one plain-text numbered prompt per invocation
- Leading with flag vocabulary when a natural-language next prompt exists
- Claiming that skipping a command also skips its evidence/consent/review contracts