Skills/implement/SKILL.md

name, description

name

description

implement

Use when an implementation plan exists under paths.plan_dir and is ready to execute, OR when a debug RED-test is handed off for a bugfix. Dispatches the implement-orchestrator agent, which runs the entire per-task loop (implementer phase → spec-compliance check → quality check, as sequential role-switches in its own context) directly in the working tree without creating commits, writes a stats file (and on BLOCKED/PARTIAL also `BLOCKED.md`), and returns a compressed end-report. The orchestrator reads the end-report, inspects the working tree, decides commit shape, and performs all commits.

implement — plan execution via a dedicated orchestrator-agent

Violating the letter of these rules is violating the spirit.

Overview

Plan execution is fully delegated. The orchestrator dispatches ONE subagent (implement-orchestrator), which runs the entire per-task loop in its own context: implementer phase → spec- compliance check → quality check, per task, as sequential role-switches inside the orchestrator-agent itself (Claude Code does not permit nested subagent dispatch — see Cross-references). All work lives in the working tree: code edits and the stats file (and BLOCKED.md if the outcome is PARTIAL/BLOCKED). The orchestrator-agent does NOT commit. The orchestrator sees one ≤500-token end-report and an unstaged working tree, then decides commit shape — the end-report carries the per-task summary the orchestrator uses to write the commit body.

This skill body is intentionally short. The procedural details of the per-task loop live in agents/implement-orchestrator.md. The canonical discipline (Iron Law, sub-status table, common rationalisations) lives in this file and is read by the orchestrator-agent every dispatch.

When to Use / Skipping

Triggers:

• A plan exists under paths.plan_dir (standard mode).
• A debug skill has produced a RED test + cause and is handing off for the GREEN side (mini mode).

Never skipped when there is code to ship. Trivial mechanical edits (one-line typo fix, schema rename across N files) MAY be handled inline by the orchestrator without dispatch, per the project's CLAUDE.md "trivial mechanical edits" carve-out — but no review-and-commit discipline is shed.

The Iron Law

THE IMPLEMENTER NEVER COMMITS. CODE EDITS AND THE STATS FILE LIVE IN THE WORKING TREE AS UNSTAGED CHANGES UNTIL THE ORCHESTRATOR COMMITS THEM.
MAIN HEAD IS SACROSANCT — NO RESET, NO REVERT, BY ANY ACTOR. MAIN MOVES FORWARD ONLY VIA ORCHESTRATOR COMMITS.
PER-TASK PHASES RUN SEQUENTIALLY IN THE ORCHESTRATOR-AGENT'S OWN CONTEXT — implementer phase, then spec-compliance check, then quality check. Each phase is a deliberate role-switch, NOT a fresh subagent (nested-subagent dispatch is forbidden by Claude Code).
TWO-STAGE CHECK PER TASK: SPEC COMPLIANCE FIRST, CODE QUALITY SECOND.
NEVER START THE QUALITY CHECK BEFORE THE SPEC-COMPLIANCE CHECK IS GREEN.
NEVER PUSH PAST `BLOCKED` BY HAND.
ON `PARTIAL` OR `BLOCKED`, THE ORCHESTRATOR-AGENT WRITES `BLOCKED.md` AT THE REPO ROOT BEFORE RETURNING — UNCOMMITTED BY CONVENTION. ON `DONE`, NO SEPARATE FILE.

Per-task sub-status mechanics

The orchestrator-agent reads and follows this table verbatim every dispatch. Sub-status values are internal to the orchestrator-agent — they describe the state of an inline role-phase, not the status of a separate subagent. The vocabulary is preserved because it maps 1:1 to the phase reference files (implementer.md / spec-reviewer.md / quality-reviewer.md) the orchestrator-agent consults at each role-switch.

Sub-status	Action
DONE	next phase / next task
DONE_WITH_CONCERNS	accumulate concern, next phase
NEEDS_CONTEXT (1st–2nd)	re-attempt the phase with expanded context
NEEDS_CONTEXT (3rd)	stop → BLOCKED to orchestrator, reason context-exhausted
non_compliant / changes_requested (1st–2nd)	switch back to implementer mindset, repair with the check's report as repair brief, then re-run the check phase
non_compliant / changes_requested (3rd)	stop → BLOCKED to orchestrator, reason review-loop-exhausted
BLOCKED (implementer phase)	stop → BLOCKED to orchestrator, reason verbatim
unclear (spec-compliance phase)	stop → BLOCKED to orchestrator, reason spec-ambiguous
Tool / infra error	stop → BLOCKED to orchestrator, reason infra + raw error

Re-loop limit: 2 retries per failure-mode per task. The 3rd is BLOCKED to the orchestrator. skip task K, continue is intentionally NOT a mode — tasks have implicit ordering dependencies and the orchestrator-agent does not know the dependency graph.

The Process — orchestrator side

Step 1 — Dispatch the orchestrator-agent

For a standard iteration:

Agent("implement-orchestrator", {
  mode: "standard",
  iter_id: "<iter_id>",         // e.g. "ct.2.3", "or.1", "23.4"
  plan_path: "<path under paths.plan_dir>",
  task_range: [3, 8]            // optional
})

For a debug-handoff (mini mode):

Agent("implement-orchestrator", {
  mode: "mini",
  iter_id: "bugfix-<short-symptom>",
  red_test_path: "<absolute path>",
  cause_summary: "<1-2 sentences from debugger>",
  constraint: "minimal fix, no surrounding cleanup"
})

Before dispatch: ensure the working tree is clean (git status --porcelain empty). The orchestrator-agent's Phase 0 will refuse to start on a dirty tree.

Step 2 — Read the end-report

The orchestrator-agent returns a ≤500-token plain-text report (see the agent's "Output format — end-report" section for the fixed structure). Read it. The end-report is the only thing that costs the orchestrator-context tokens; per-task chatter has stayed inside the orchestrator-agent.

Step 3 — Orchestrator inspect + commit step (on DONE)

The orchestrator-agent returns with code edits and the stats file sitting in the working tree as unstaged changes. Nothing is committed yet, and there is no BLOCKED.md (DONE never writes one).

1. Inspect: git status and git diff — confirm the changes match what the end-report claims. The end-report is the per-task summary; use it as the basis for the commit body.
2. Decide commit shape — by default one cohesive commit for the whole iter; split into a few logical commits only if the diff genuinely covers multiple unrelated changes. Per-task commit splitting is NOT a goal; the iter is the unit of consistency the orchestrator is committing to.
3. Write the commit body. It carries everything a future reader needs that the diff itself does not: the why, the alternatives that were considered and rejected, the verification steps run, and any concerns that remain. Detail-fill comes from the end-report — the per-task chatter that stayed inside the orchestrator-agent does not come back, by design.
4. Stage + commit the code edits and the stats file.
5. If trigger is done-state and the user is away, run the project's configured notification command per ../boss/SKILL.md "Done-state notifications" subsection.

Step 4 — Orchestrator handling (on PARTIAL or BLOCKED)

The orchestrator-agent returns with whatever work-in-progress it managed plus BLOCKED.md at the repo root carrying the diagnostic. Nothing is committed. The orchestrator decides what to do with the dirty working tree:

1. Read BLOCKED.md — ## What did not names the failure mode and the worker's verbatim reason. Read git diff to see what was attempted.
2. Decide:
   • Repair: keep the working-tree changes in place (or stash them with git stash if a clarifying read of clean main is needed first). Adjust plan or extend context; delete BLOCKED.md (rm BLOCKED.md) before re-dispatch — the orchestrator-agent's Phase 0 clean-tree check counts it as dirt. Either stash everything and re-dispatch on a clean tree, or commit the known-good subset, then rm BLOCKED.md, then re-dispatch.
   • Discard: git checkout -- . to drop unstaged file changes; git clean -fd BLOCKED.md (or rm BLOCKED.md) plus anything else new. main HEAD does NOT move.
   • Escalate: ask the user via the configured notification command. BLOCKED.md sits in the working tree until the conversation resumes.

Under no circumstance does the orchestrator git reset or git revert on main: there is nothing on main to undo (the orchestrator-agent did not commit), and the policy forbids history rewinding on main even if there were.

Handoff Contract

implement consumes:

Source	Carrier
from planner	path to plan under paths.plan_dir (+ optional task_range)
from debug	RED-test path + cause summary + minimal-fix constraint

implement produces: an unstaged working tree containing the code edits and the stats file; on PARTIAL/BLOCKED, also BLOCKED.md at the repo root. The orchestrator inspects, commits the code + stats (DONE) or repairs/discards (PARTIAL/BLOCKED). No further hand-off — audit runs independently at cycle close.

Common Rationalisations

Excuse	Reality
"Single task, dispatch overhead exceeds the work"	The orchestrator-agent IS the discipline. A single dispatch is cheap; the per-task phase loop and the working-tree isolation are the value.
"Let me have the orchestrator-agent commit the per-task work, it's cleaner"	The orchestrator-agent never commits. Orchestrator-only commit is a project-wide rule: only the orchestrator decides when a state is consistent enough to enter main history.
"Per-task commits would help bisection later"	The orchestrator-agent's per-task phases are review gates, not bisection points. Iter-level commits are the bisection unit — and they only exist if the whole iter passes the orchestrator's review.
"BLOCKED end-report, let me dig into BLOCKED.md and continue myself"	Read the ## What did not section first. The orchestrator-agent stopped at the re-loop limit for a reason. Continuing by hand undoes the discipline.
"End-report says PARTIAL with 4/5 tasks DONE — close enough, commit them"	The 5th task may carry an invariant the earlier 4 silently depend on. Either re-dispatch for the missing task or git checkout -- . and re-plan.
"BLOCKED.md feels redundant — the end-report already has the blocked detail"	The end-report dies when the chat scrolls; BLOCKED.md sits in the working tree across pauses, mode-switches, and orchestrator-inspection rounds. It is the durable handoff.
"The per-task phases run inline anyway, just have the orchestrator dispatch the reviewer-agents instead and skip the orchestrator-agent"	That gives back fresh-per-phase context but loses the orchestrator-context offload — the per-task chatter goes back through the orchestrator. The orchestrator-agent exists precisely for the offload. If you want fresh-per-phase context AND offload, you want a capability Claude Code does not provide.
"BLOCKED iter with a bad commit on main — let me git revert it"	There is no bad commit on main: the orchestrator-agent did not commit. Bad work stays in the working tree where it is still discardable. main HEAD is sacrosanct.
"Re-dispatch refuses because BLOCKED.md is still in the tree — let me just commit it to clear the check"	No. BLOCKED.md is never committed. rm BLOCKED.md (or stash) before re-dispatch — the file's whole purpose is to live in the working tree, not on main.

Red Flags — STOP

• Orchestrator dispatching implementer directly (bypassing the orchestrator-agent).
• Orchestrator running git reset or git revert on main.
• Orchestrator-agent running git commit (anywhere, ever).
• Two /implement runs overlapping on the same working tree.
• BLOCKED.md staged or committed by anyone.
• End-report longer than ~500 tokens.

Cross-references

• Agent dispatched: agents/implement-orchestrator.md — carries the per-task loop inline; each phase is a role-switch in the orchestrator-agent's own context. The role-files below are phase references (the orchestrator-agent reads them at each role-switch to inhale the discipline) — they are NOT separately dispatched subagents:
  • agents/implementer.md — Phase 2.1 reference (implementer mindset, TDD discipline)
  • agents/spec-reviewer.md — Phase 2.2 reference (spec-compliance mindset)
  • agents/quality-reviewer.md — Phase 2.3 reference (quality-review mindset)
  • agents/tester.md — Phase 3 reference (E2E coverage mindset)
• Why inline phases, not nested subagents. Claude Code does not permit a subagent to spawn other subagents. The orchestrator-agent cannot dispatch the role-agents above; it adopts each role as a sequential phase in its own context. This was a known platform constraint at the time the role was designed.
• Input sources:
  • ../planner/SKILL.md — produces the plan files this skill consumes
  • ../debug/SKILL.md — produces the RED-test handoff for mini-mode
• Output target: orchestrator reads the end-report, inspects the working tree, and commits; ../audit runs at cycle close.