---
name: grill-planner
description: The authoring discipline for the project's plan-of-record at docs/graph/plans/grill.md — what a worker filling any section carries, and the audit that says whether the plan is still consistent with the specs, the wiki, and the decisions. Use whenever a brief produces or updates grill.md, or grill.md needs a consistency pass. The pass itself (which section, which owner, in which order) is protocol.grill; this skill is how each section is written well.
id: skill.grill-planner
tier: 2
kind: skill
origin: seed
title: grill-planner — author, update, and audit the living plan-of-record at docs/graph/plans/grill.md
owns:
  - grill-planner.method
  - grill-planner.audit
requires:
  - protocol.grill
peers:
  - skill.spec-author
load_when:
  - "author or revise a section of grill.md"
  - "write the plan-of-record well, plan authoring discipline"
  - "grill.md drifted from the specs, audit the plan"
artifacts:
  - templates/grill.template.md
prevents: A plan-of-record that drifts out of agreement with the specs, wiki and decisions it claims to implement, with nothing that detects the drift.
est_tokens: 1430
---

# grill-planner

`docs/graph/plans/grill.md` is the project's plan-of-record. It links to
the specs it implements and to the wiki pages it depends on, and it is
the document the next agent reads first to know what's happening.

This skill is the discipline of writing it well. Which section is filled
when, by whom, and in what spawn order is the protocol's (`grill.flow`
and `grill.revise` in `docs/graph/protocols/grill.md`); a brief that
produces or updates grill.md cites this skill so the worker carries the
principles below into whatever section it owns.

## When to apply this skill

- A brief hands you a section of grill.md to author or revise.
- The plan and the spec catalog, the wiki, or the decisions have drifted
  apart and the plan needs an audit.

## The principles

### Append, don't rewrite

Sections 1–14 evolve by addition. When a claim becomes obsolete, strike
it through (or move it to a "history" subsection) and add the new claim
with today's date, because the next agent needs to see what was believed
and what changed. A retraction follows the one rule in
`holistic-editing` (The append-only exception).

§15 (Changelog) collects the meaningful changes session by session.

### Section numbers are stable

Other agents and tooling index into grill.md by section number, so the
numbers stay as the template sets them. If a section doesn't apply to
the current project, leave it with a single line saying so (e.g. "§10
Verification Plan — covered by the project's standard gates, see
docs/graph/runbooks/verification.md").

### Specs upstream, plan downstream

The plan implements specs. If the plan introduces behavior not in any
spec, that's a spec-shaped hole: file an open question in §12 and
back-write the spec via the `specify` protocol.

The protocol presses this (`grill.press`: every increment names a
contract, every contract has an increment) before the plan exits;
`grill-lint.py` runs the mechanical half.

### Increments are small and verifiable

A good increment fits one RED-GREEN-REFACTOR cycle (or a small handful).
If you can't write the failing test from the increment description, the
increment is too vague or too big. Re-slice.

### Structure earns its place at plan time

An increment that introduces structure (a module, layer, interface,
service, or extension point) names, in its §9 row, the single
responsibility that structure owns and the real, already-present
variation that justifies any abstraction (the structure-earns-its-place
posture: `docs/graph/method/design-posture.md`,
`docs/graph/method/stewardship-posture.md`). The plan's default is the
smallest structure that fits; a speculative seam is cheapest to delete
here, before it is built; the reviewer flags what the plan lets through.

### Cite, and mark what you haven't verified

Every claim in the plan is either confirmed from a primary source (cite
it) or carries an explicit `[verify]` tag (or "not recorded"), so the
next reader knows exactly what to re-check instead of trusting a guess.
A value or decision that needs human input (a real origin, a credential,
an irreversible go-ahead) is marked **do-not-guess** in §12 and waits
for sign-off, because a guessed credential or go-ahead gets acted on as
if it were real. When the plan is executed, append what actually
happened and how each `[verify]` resolved rather than editing the tables
in place.

## Workflow

The creation and revision passes (which sections, which owner, which
spawn waits for which handback) are `grill.flow` and `grill.revise` in
`docs/graph/protocols/grill.md`. This skill's own workflow is the audit.

### Auditing grill.md (consistency pass)

Run this when grill.md feels out of sync. First the mechanical part:
`python3 docs/graph/grill-lint.py` checks the shape (every section
populated, §1 lines cited, §9 rows complete and in dependency order, §5
covering the library pages §9 depends on, §14 a single action), the
plan→spec half of the alignment check (every contract an increment names
exists in a live spec; every contract of those specs appears in an
increment), and every decision the plan cites by identifier against
`docs/graph/decisions/`, because a decision not yet accepted is filed
with the status that says so rather than left as a number in a table.
Then the judgment the lint cannot make:

- Every active spec in `docs/graph/specs/` is referenced from §3 or §9.
- Every ADR in `docs/graph/decisions/` matches a row in §6, and no §6
  row that changed a boundary is missing its ADR; the lint above checks
  the reverse direction.
- Every gate named in §10 is a genuine divergence from
  `docs/graph/runbooks/verification.md`, not a duplicate of it.
- Every §11 row has a verification that would actually detect the risk,
  and a mitigation owner who can carry it out; every §12 row has an
  owner who can resolve it.
- A `no external dependency` line in §5 is true; the lint sees only what
  §9 names.

Record any inconsistency as a §12 row with an owner; the fix runs
through the protocol's revision pass.

## Section shapes

- §14 holds one next step.
- §6 rows carry an evidence column, because a decision without evidence
  is a guess recorded as a decision.
- §9 rows each name an increment with files, tests, and a gate.
- §11 rows give probability and impact, qualitative or quantitative:
  "medium / high" is acceptable, "manageable" is not.

## Reference files

- `docs/graph/templates/grill.template.md`: the template.
- `docs/graph/protocols/grill.md`: the protocol that owns the pass this
  skill writes inside: phases, owners, spawn order, the press, the exit
  conditions.
- `docs/graph/grill-lint.py`: the mechanical half of the audit.
- `docs/graph/agents/00-orchestrator.md`: the agent that opens grill.md
  first thing every session.
