notque/feature-lifecycle

Feature Lifecycle Skill

Phase-gated feature workflow: DESIGN > PLAN > IMPLEMENT > VALIDATE > RELEASE. Each phase must pass its gate before the next begins.

Phase Routing

Determine which phase to execute based on feature state:

1. If .feature/ exists, check current phase:

   python3 ~/.claude/scripts/feature-state.py status
   

   Route to the phase indicated by the state machine.

2. If no feature state exists, determine entry point from user intent:

   • "design", "think through", "explore approaches" -> DESIGN
   • "plan", "break down", "create tasks" -> PLAN (requires completed design)
   • "implement", "execute plan", "start building" -> IMPLEMENT (requires completed plan)
   • "validate", "quality gates", "check feature" -> VALIDATE (requires completed implementation)
   • "release", "merge", "ship it" -> RELEASE (requires passed validation)
   • "end to end", "full lifecycle", "from scratch" -> DESIGN (start from beginning)

3. Load the phase reference for the current phase:

   • DESIGN: Read references/design.md
   • PLAN: Read references/plan.md
   • IMPLEMENT: Read references/implement.md
   • VALIDATE: Read references/validate.md — Opus 4.7 override applies: run quality gate commands, do not reason about whether they would pass. Paste exit codes and output.
   • RELEASE: Read references/release.md
   • END-TO-END: Read references/pipeline.md

4. Follow the loaded reference exactly. Each reference contains the full phase instructions, gates, and checkpoints.

State Conventions

Read references/shared.md for directory structure, state management commands, context loading rules, and naming conventions. All state operations go through python3 ~/.claude/scripts/feature-state.py -- never manipulate state files directly.

Phase Ordering

DESIGN -> PLAN -> IMPLEMENT -> VALIDATE -> RELEASE
  |         |         |           |          |
  v         v         v           v          v
design.md plan.md  impl.md   report.md  PR merged

Each phase produces an artifact consumed by the next. Skipping phases is not supported because downstream phases depend on artifacts from earlier phases.

Reference Loading Table

| Signal | Load These Files | Why | |---|---|---| | tasks related to this reference | design.md | Loads detailed guidance from design.md. | | errors, error handling | error-handling.md | Loads detailed guidance from error-handling.md. | | tasks related to this reference | implement.md | Loads detailed guidance from implement.md. | | tasks related to this reference | pipeline.md | Loads detailed guidance from pipeline.md. | | tasks related to this reference | plan.md | Loads detailed guidance from plan.md. | | tasks related to this reference | release.md | Loads detailed guidance from release.md. | | tasks related to this reference | shared.md | Loads detailed guidance from shared.md. | | tasks related to this reference | validate.md | Loads detailed guidance from validate.md. |

Error Handling

| Error | Cause | Solution | |-------|-------|----------| | Phase mismatch | User requests phase N but state is at phase M | Report current state, suggest correct next phase | | Missing artifact | Previous phase did not produce expected output | Route back to previous phase | | Gate failure | Phase requirements not met | Report what failed, suggest fixes |

References

| Task Signal | Load | |-------------|------| | Phase routing (design/plan/implement/validate/release) | Phase reference (design.md, plan.md, implement.md, validate.md, release.md) | | End-to-end or full pipeline | references/pipeline.md | | State commands, directory structure, naming | references/shared.md | | Error, failure, blocked, gate fail, retry, deviation | references/error-handling.md |

• references/design.md -- Design phase: explore requirements, discuss trade-offs
• references/plan.md -- Plan phase: break design into wave-ordered tasks
• references/implement.md -- Implement phase: dispatch tasks to domain agents
• references/validate.md -- Validate phase: run quality gates
• references/release.md -- Release phase: merge, tag, cleanup
• references/pipeline.md -- End-to-end orchestration across all phases
• references/shared.md -- State conventions shared across all phases
• references/error-handling.md -- Recovery patterns for phase errors, gate failures, agent dispatch failures