Writing Plans

Writing Implementation Plans

Core Principle

A good plan makes implementation obvious. If someone has to guess, the plan is incomplete.

When to Use

Before implementing any multi-step feature. Before delegating to subagents via spawn_agent. Even when the task seems simple, because assumptions cause bugs.

Plan Structure

Every plan must include:

1. Goal — One sentence. What does "done" look like?
2. Current state — What exists now? What files are relevant?
3. Steps — Each step is one action (2-5 minutes of focused work).
4. Files to change — Exact paths relative to repo root.
5. Verification — How to confirm each step worked.
6. Risks — What could go wrong? What assumptions are we making?

Bite-Sized Task Granularity

Each step must be a single action:

• "Write the failing test" is a step.
• "Implement the feature" is NOT a step. Break it down.
• "Add the struct and write tests" is NOT a step. That is two steps.

Output Format

Save the plan as markdown. If using Aixlarity's command system:

# .aixlarity/commands/plan/feature-name.toml
description = "Plan for implementing feature X"
prompt = """Study @{docs/architecture.md} and create an implementation plan for {{args}}."""