Planner Refine

planner-refine

Targeted repair of validate_plan findings. Loads validation.json and repairs each finding type: re-elaborates failed WPs, resolves duplicate deliverable ownership, and fixes dependency reference errors. Sizing violations are escalated as CRITICAL. Writes corrected artifacts back to the output directory so validate_plan can re-run.

The recipe runs this skill with retries: 2 — up to 3 total attempts (1 initial + 2 retries) before escalation.

When to Use

• Invoked by the planner recipe when validate_plan returns verdict: fail
• One invocation per retry cycle

Arguments

• $1 — Absolute path to validation.json
• $2 — Absolute path to the run-scoped planner directory (e.g., {{AUTOSKILLIT_TEMP}}/planner/run-YYYYMMDD-HHMMSS)

Critical Constraints

NEVER:

• Attempt to auto-fix missing assignments or missing WPs — these require human review
• Remove a deliverable without reassigning it to another WP
• Introduce new WP IDs — the skill never creates WPs; it repairs or escalates existing ones

ALWAYS:

• Load validation.json before reading any artifact
• Fix all addressable finding types in a single pass
• Update wp_manifest.json and wp_index.json whenever WP structure changes
• Escalate sizing violations, missing structural elements, malformed WP IDs, and DAG cycles as CRITICAL (write to stdout; do not count toward issues_fixed)
• Emit both refinement_complete and issues_fixed output tokens

Workflow

Step 1: Load validation.json

Read $1. Extract the findings array (contains only error-severity findings as structured dicts). Extract the message field from each finding for classification. Group by type:

• failed_wps: Findings matching WP .* has status 'failed'
• sizing_violations: Findings matching WP .* has \d+ deliverables
• duplicate_deliverables: Findings matching Deliverable '.*' claimed by multiple WPs
• dep_references: Findings matching WP .* depends on unknown WP
• missing: Findings matching Phase .* has no assignments or Assignment .* has no work packages
• malformed_id: Findings matching WP .* has malformed id
• dag_cycle: Findings matching Cycle detected among WPs
• files_touched_overlap (informational): Findings matching File '.*' touched by multiple WPs — these appear in the warnings array, not findings. No action needed; skip if encountered in findings.

Step 2: Load required artifacts

• Always load: {$2}/work_packages/wp_manifest.json, {$2}/work_packages/wp_index.json
• Load only the {id}_result.json files for WPs mentioned in the findings

Step 3: Fix each finding type

Failed WPs — re-elaborate:

• For each failed WP ID, read its entry from wp_manifest.json (provides name, scope, estimated_files)
• Spawn a sub-agent with model: "sonnet" per failed WP. Provide: WP name, scope, estimated_files, and the relevant portion of wp_index.json for context
• Sub-agent writes a corrected {$2}/work_packages/{id}_result.json
• Sub-agent appends corrected compact entry to wp_index.json
• Update the WP status in wp_manifest.json from failed to done

Sizing violations — escalate:

• Findings matching WP .* has \d+ deliverables indicate WPs outside the 1–5 deliverable sizing bound. Cannot be auto-corrected — the implementation recipe handles re-splitting downstream.

CRITICAL: Cannot auto-fix sizing violation:
- {finding text}
Manual review of WP deliverable allocation required.

Write this to stdout. Do NOT attempt WP splitting or merging.

Duplicate deliverables — resolve ownership:

• For each duplicated file path, assign ownership to the WP whose scope most directly implements that file (strongest semantic claim)
• Remove the duplicate from the lower-priority WP's deliverables (keep in files_touched)
• Post-deduplication orphan check: After resolving all duplicate deliverables, scan every modified WP. If any WP now has deliverables: [], that WP is an orphan. For each orphan:
  1. Identify the WP(s) that received this orphan's former deliverables (the "owner WPs")
  2. Promote the orphan's files_touched entries as deliverables to the most relevant owner WP (the one with the most scope overlap), selecting at most DELIVERABLE_BOUNDS[1] - len(owner.deliverables) entries. Any remaining entries stay in files_touched only.
  3. Merge the orphan's technical_steps and acceptance_criteria into the owner WP
  4. Remove the orphan WP from the plan and update all depends_on references
  5. Update wp_manifest.json and wp_index.json accordingly This is a deduplication side-effect resolved in the same step, not a sizing violation. Deliverable count bounds are defined in schema.py::DELIVERABLE_BOUNDS.
• Write updated _result.json for the affected WPs

Dependency reference errors — fix broken dep IDs:

• For each WP X depends on unknown WP Y finding:
  • Search wp_index.json for a WP with a similar name or scope to the missing Y (it may have been renamed or split)
  • If a valid replacement is found, update depends_on in {$2}/work_packages/{X}_result.json
  • If no valid replacement exists, remove the broken reference from depends_on
• If dep_graph.json exists, update it to reflect corrected dependency IDs

Missing assignments/WPs — escalate:

CRITICAL: Cannot auto-fix missing structural elements:
- {finding text}
Manual intervention required before validate_plan can pass.

Write this to stdout. Do NOT attempt structural creation.

Malformed WP IDs — escalate:

• Findings matching WP .* has malformed id (expected PX-AY-WPZ) indicate a corrupted _result.json or wp_manifest.json. Cannot be auto-corrected without understanding the intended ID.

CRITICAL: Cannot auto-fix malformed WP ID:
- {finding text}
Manual inspection of wp_manifest.json required.

Write this to stdout. Do NOT attempt ID renaming.

DAG cycles — escalate:

• Findings matching Cycle detected among WPs: ... indicate a circular dependency in the WP graph. Resolving cycles requires semantic understanding of the plan structure.

CRITICAL: Cannot auto-fix DAG cycle:
- {finding text}
Manual restructuring of depends_on relationships required.

Write this to stdout. Do NOT attempt cycle-breaking.

Step 4: Write corrected artifacts

Write all modified files back atomically (read current → apply change → write). Modified files may include: _result.json files, wp_manifest.json, wp_index.json, dep_graph.json.

Note: Combined documents (combined_*.json, refined_*.json) are intermediate orchestration artifacts and are NOT updated by this skill. Downstream consumers (validate_plan, compile_plan) read from individual *_result.json files directly, so stale combined documents do not affect pipeline correctness.

Step 5: Emit output tokens

refinement_complete = true
issues_fixed = <N>

N = count of findings addressed from the findings array (failed_wps + duplicate_deliverables + dep_references). Sizing-violation, missing-element, malformed-ID, and DAG-cycle findings are excluded from the count (they are escalated as critical, not fixed). Files-touched overlap findings are in the warnings array and are not actionable.