Adr

ADR-Driven Development (front-end for adr → nightshift)

Turn an intent into one grounded, cited, build-ready ADR, then hand it to nightshift:plan's landing step. This collapses brainstorm → spec → writing-plans → nightshift into adr → nightshift for "I know what I want, build it" work.

The arc:

intent → GROUND → ADR (you approve) → plan PR → Nightshift lands it → you ratify

Stay thin. This skill is a four-phase orchestrator — prose plus the two embedded blocks below. The determinism lives in Nightshift's loop/, not here. One ADR doc, not a multi-file apparatus. For exploratory "not sure what I want yet" work use brainstorming first.

Phase 1 — Ground (scaled)

Read the real code and current external practice the change touches. Default inline; escalate to a /deep-research fan-out only when the change is novel, cross-cutting, or the user asks — a research fan-out on a one-line change is the ceremony to avoid.

• State grounding: LSP (symbols/types/refs), git history, an Explore agent for breadth.
• Research grounding: context7 for library docs, the cloudflare MCP for CF, a /deep-research fan-out for novel/cross-cutting work or on request — current external knowledge, not ~1-year-stale training.
• Record which mode was used (inline vs research fan-out) in the ADR.

Output: a grounding brief — every claim already cited — that feeds the ADR.

Phase 2 — Author the ADR

Write docs/adr/YYYY-MM-DD-<slug>.md (dated, not numbered; create docs/adr/ if absent) using the template below.

• Citation rule (hard): a codebase claim cites a file/symbol; an external claim cites a dated source; an ungrounded claim is excluded from the ADR. This makes "not stale training" auditable.
• Success criteria must be checkable. Phrase each so the loop can verify it — a test that must pass, a CI signal, a concrete assertion — and mark each oracle-backed or [checker] (checker-agent-evaluable, only when no oracle exists). This block is the loop's done-oracle.
• Decomposition is thin ### Task N subsections, placed LAST so task-brief extracts each cleanly — { n, title, tier, deps }-shaped, not pasted task prose.

ADR template (embed verbatim; Decomposition LAST)

# <Title>
**Status:** Proposed | Accepted | Superseded   **Date:** YYYY-MM-DD

## Context            <!-- grounded; every LOAD-BEARING claim cites a file/symbol or dated source -->
## Decisions          <!-- each load-bearing decision: options + the choice; these bind every task as global constraints -->
## Success criteria   <!-- CHECKABLE; each marked oracle-backed or [checker]; this is the loop's done-oracle -->
## Consequences       <!-- incl. hard-to-reverse bets / risks -->
## Grounding sources  <!-- files/symbols read + external sources WITH dates -->

## Decomposition      <!-- LAST section; thin `### Task N` subsections so task-brief extracts each -->
### Task 1: <title>
<2–4 lines: what to build, which files, deps, tier hint>
### Task 2: <title>
…

Budget the prose. Everything above ## Decomposition targets one page — roughly 500 words, hard ceiling 900. Decomposition is exempt; it scales with the work. The reference ADR is a ten-minute one-pager, and an ADR that takes longer to write than that is a format fighting its author.

Measured drift this exists to stop: transcoder/docs/adr/ averages 1,674 words per ADR, up to 5,283 — three to ten times the target. The inflation is almost entirely citation ceremony, so: cite the claims a reader would otherwise have to go verify, not every sentence, and keep ## Grounding sources to the handful of files and dated sources that actually moved the decision. A bibliography is not grounding. If a section needs more than its share, that is a signal the decision isn't settled yet — go back to Phase 1 rather than writing longer.

Phase 3 — Tiered decision gate (human-in-the-loop)

• Always-surface (blocking) set — new dependency · public-API change · schema/data-model change · architecture-shaping choice. Present each as an explicit choice the human picks before anything builds.
• Reversible decisions: record as "assuming X — override if wrong" defaults — non-blocking.
• Hard gate: nothing implements until the human approves the ADR (its decisions + criteria + decomposition).

Phase 4 — Handoff

1. Commit the ADR on its own branch (git add docs/adr/<file> && git commit). Nothing lands from an uncommitted file.
2. Prove every task extracts. For each ### Task N in the Decomposition run loop/task-brief docs/adr/<file> N "$(mktemp)"; a non-zero exit means the loop cannot read that task — fix the ADR, do not hand off. If the repo has no loop/ yet, say /nightshift:init comes first and stop here.
3. Hand to nightshift:plan's landing step: set PLAN in loop/config to the ADR path (a loop/config change is a PR like any other), open the branch as a PR, and tell the user the daylight recipe: merge the PR, gh variable set LANDING_STATE --body run, MAX=1 loop/land.sh, refreeze. Never merge, never flip the switch yourself.

Scope guard

Nightshift is for bounded, test-covered work. Large ambiguous brownfield → break into smaller ADRs or run manually; don't force it through one ADR.

See also

• Design spec: 2026-06-27-adr-driven-development-design.md
• The loop it drives: the nightshift plugin