popoffvg/harness/plugins/work-manager/common/skills/explore

Explore — subcommand router

/explore <subcommand>. Pick the route, read its reference, follow it. Default is docs. Artifacts live in <notes-dir>/research/.

Subcommands

| /explore … | You need to… | Reference | |---|---|---| | docs (default) | Write the markdown research write-ups + question lists. One <ep-slug>.questions.md + one <ep-slug>.md per entry point, graded against the 6-step chain. Convergence loop + INDEX.md. | references/docs.md | | workflow | Write the typed TS pseudocode + path bindings — <ep-slug>.workflow.ts, <ep-slug>.bindings.json, components/*.d.ts, flows.json. The navigable, reveal-in-editor layer over the docs artifacts. | references/workflow.md |

How they combine

docs (prose + questions, 6-step chain) → workflow (TS pseudocode + bindings) → /flow-map (HTML)

• docs is the default and the foundation: it produces the human-readable .md write-ups and the explorer question lists, and runs the autonomous convergence loop until research stops surfacing gaps.
• workflow is the navigation layer over those .md artifacts: clean typed TS pseudocode where every component and notable branch reveals to its real (possibly non-TS, cross-repo) source. Run docs first — workflow mirrors the cited locations from each <ep-slug>.md.

Run docs alone for a read-only refactor brief. Add workflow when the team wants to navigate the flows in the editor or render them with /flow-map.

Inputs

A list of entry points. Each may be:

• A file path (src/server/index.ts)
• A symbol (HandleRequest, userController.create)
• A URL or doc reference

If the user provides a free-form description, use cocoindex to find relevant entry points.

The user may also pass a destination folder inline with a dst:<path> token (e.g. dst:docs/research/auth). It sets $RESEARCH_DIR directly, overriding the resolved <notes-dir>/research (see "Output location"). A relative dst: resolves against the current working directory.

Output location

<notes-dir> is the wm notes directory for the active task (commonly .notes/). It persists with the rest of the planning context (spec.md, worklog.md, todos/) and ships with the work, instead of vanishing from $TMPDIR. Resolve it from the phase context:

• If a wm flow is active, use its notes dir (typically .notes/ at repo root).
• If no flow is active, default to ./.notes/ in the current working directory and tell the user.
• The user may override the notes dir with --notes-dir <path>.
• A dst:<path> token in the input sets $RESEARCH_DIR directly and wins over both the resolved notes dir and --notes-dir. Use it to drop research outside the wm flow (e.g. into a docs folder).

Create the research subdirectory:

NOTES_DIR="${NOTES_DIR:-.notes}"
# dst:<path> overrides; else <notes-dir>/research
RESEARCH_DIR="${DST:-$NOTES_DIR/research}"
mkdir -p "$RESEARCH_DIR"

The previous $TMPDIR/claude-explore/ location is deprecated.

Integration with wm

• During the research phase, explore-research saves coarse findings as <notes-dir>/research-*.md. explore complements that with per-entry-point deep dives under <notes-dir>/research/.
• During spec phase, code new may reference research/<ep-slug>.md#DP-N or #EC-N from a TODO's Pre-reads so the implementer doesn't re-derive the analysis.
• research/ is committed alongside spec.md and todos/ — it travels with the task.

What this skill is NOT

• Not implementation. No code edits to the target codebase.
• Not a code review.
• Not a planning doc. The workflow.ts files are descriptive, not prescriptive.