git:20260930.3322c8f to git:20261014.0f16275

- The decision this skill makes, before any other: **does this task get a plan, and does the plan block on the operator?** Those are two questions with a plan file between them: the second judges the plan, so it is asked once the plan exists.

- **The prompt is a conditional go-ahead.** It authorizes implementation *on condition that* the agent judges the operator's gate unnecessary, scoped to the task in that message and to that message alone.

- `/task <what to do>` is the invocation, and it is also where an unrouted session's first change lands: CLAUDE.md § "Plan mode & questions in web sessions" routes here the first turn that asks for a change to this codebase, whether that is the opening prompt or a follow-up to one that was answered, so most tasks arrive without anyone typing the name. A task routed mid-session is the work as the conversation now stands. A `#<N>` in that prompt means the thread is exported and committed before anything else happens — `/take-issue` does that and hands the number back. Both mentions stay bare rather than `@`-references: this skill ships to adopters who track no issues at all, and nothing here needs those files read.

- **What that routing costs, plainly:** the agent makes the plan-or-not call on every session that asks for a change, without the operator opting into it. The gate survives that — Step 3 routes gate-worthy work back to `/plan` — but it fires when Step 3's questions say so rather than on every task.

- **Anything a caller passes beyond the task — an `<issue>`, an export path — rides through unchanged to whichever outcome runs, and is never read here:** this skill knows what a task is and nothing else, and what the extras mean belongs to the skills at either end of them.

- **Writing it down would change what you build.** A plan is how an agent gets its own head straight, and that value needs no operator:

- - several parts whose order matters, or edits that only make sense landing together;

- - a live reuse call — the mandatory `## DRY notes` is the forcing function, and it earns the file whenever "shared or duplicated?" has a real answer to argue;

- - a shape you would otherwise discover halfway through, after building the first half against a different one.

- The test: if you can hold the whole change in your head and name every file it touches, the file buys nothing.

- **Or any of Step 3's four signs is even arguably present.** You are not deciding it yet — that is Step 3's call, made against the plan rather than against the line that asked for the work. Here you only notice that the question is live.

- **No to both → `@.claude/skills/go/SKILL.md` § "Planless entry"** with the task, where the diff is the plan.

- **This step is deliberately over-inclusive.** Being wrong costs a file `/finalize` sweeps, so a close call writes one.

- `@.claude/skills/plan/SKILL.md` Part 1, unchanged: `docs/plans/<slug>.draft.do-not-implement.md`, banner and all, published through `/pr` so the operator has a surface to read and interrupt on.

- **Every planning route produces a draft.** It is what a `/handle` reads if this session dies between writing the file and flipping it — a plan awaiting a go-ahead, which costs one round trip to re-give. The alternative, an `*.in-progress.md` claiming a live session holds the plan right now, is a reading someone has to untangle by hand.

- It is also what makes a carve safe here. `@.claude/skills/plan/carving.md` files nothing at plan time and leans on the draft being the gate, so a carve found while writing this plan needs no procedure of its own: the file is already a draft carrying its banner, and Step 3 is where it stops.

- Now the plan exists, so the question is asked against it rather than forecast from the line that asked for the work. Any one of these is a yes:

- - **The work costs far more to produce than to describe.** The plan is a page, the work is a day, and a wrong direction is caught for the price of the page.

- - **A fork carries no recommendation** — the exception in `@.claude/skills/plan/SKILL.md` Part 2. Guess wrong and most of the work is wasted; the plan is what makes the choice the operator's.

- - **The alternatives land far apart** — an operator who read the diff and asked for the next-best option would be asking for a rewrite, not an amendment.

- - **The scope is itself the question** — you would be deciding *what* the task is, not just how to do it. So is a split across sessions, an elephant or a pizza alike (`@.claude/skills/plan/SKILL.md` § "Splitting work across sessions"): the shape is the operator's to pick, so a plan that splits ends here.

- None of these asks how important the change is. Importance is why the operator reviews the diff; the gate is for what a diff review could only change by rewriting the diff.

- **Yes → end at `@.claude/skills/plan/SKILL.md` § "Handing off"**, and the next session flips the draft.

- **No → enter `@.claude/skills/go/SKILL.md` at its Step 1**, which flips the draft in a commit quoting the `/task` prompt as the go-ahead, and carries on into the work. The conditional go-ahead is what that flip records; nothing about it is skipped because the same session wrote the plan.

- Two of the three are the two ends of one route, forking at Step 3 where the plan exists to fork on.

- **Report the call in the first sentence of the turn, with its reason and the override**: "Doing this directly rather than planning it — *reason*. Say `plan` and I'll write one instead." That costs the operator one word to reverse, and puts the judgment on the record in the turn that acted on it.

- **On that override, stop where you are.** Write the plan for the whole task and name the commits that already exist, so the operator reviews it knowing what is built. Leave those commits in place; reverting work nobody asked you to revert costs more than the work does.

- **When a call is close the two steps break opposite ways.** A close Step 3 goes to the operator — being wrong toward the gate costs a round trip, being wrong past it costs them reviewing work that should not exist. A close Step 1 writes the file, per above.

- **The pull is toward outcome 2**, which starts producing this turn and bills its cost later, to whoever reads the result. Weigh it against that round trip rather than against the appetite to start.