Implementation Planning

Guide for creating implementation plans through interactive dialogue.

The 6 Phases

1. Discovery → 2. Requirements → 3. Codebase → 4. Questions → 5. Design → 6. Document
      ↑              ↑               ↑             ↑            ↑           ↑
    [User]         [User]         [User]        [User]       [User]      [User]

Core Principles

1. Interactive - Every phase ends with user confirmation
2. No assumptions - Ask before deciding anything
3. CRITICAL: Clarifying Questions - Phase 4 is the most important, never skip
4. Traceable - Link plan steps to requirements (SUB-CAP-NNN)
5. Concrete - End with specific files and changes

Phase Checklist

Phase 1: Discovery

• Understand what needs to be built
• Clarify problem, solution, beneficiary
• User confirms understanding

Phase 2: Requirements

• List all requirements in scope
• Clarify acceptance criteria per requirement
• User confirms scope

Phase 3: Codebase

• Ask user for relevant areas
• Find similar features and patterns
• Present findings
• User confirms findings

Phase 4: Clarifying Questions (CRITICAL)

• Review requirements + codebase
• List ALL ambiguities
• Present questions to user
• Get answers before proceeding

Phase 5: Plan Design

• Propose approach (with alternatives if needed)
• Get user preference
• Break into steps with file paths
• Map steps to requirements
• User approves plan

Phase 6: Document

• Create docs/plans/[name].md
• Include all sections
• Present summary

Dialogue Patterns

Opening (Phase 1)

"Let's plan [item]. Help me understand:
1. What problem does this solve?
2. Who benefits?
3. What does success look like?"

Scoping (Phase 2)

"I see these requirements in scope:
- [REQ-1]
- [REQ-2]

Are these all? Any I'm missing?"

Before Code Exploration (Phase 3)

"Before I explore the codebase:
- Any specific areas I should look at?
- Patterns I should follow?"

Clarifying Questions (Phase 4)

"Before designing the plan, I need to clarify:

**Edge Cases:**
1. What happens when X?
2. How should Y behave if Z?

**Integration:**
3. Should this integrate with A?

**Scope:**
4. Is B included or out of scope?

Please answer these before I proceed."

Presenting Options (Phase 5)

"I see two approaches:

**A) Minimal Changes**
- Reuse existing X
- Tradeoff: Less flexible

**B) Clean Architecture**
- New abstraction for Y
- Tradeoff: More work upfront

I recommend A because [reason].
Which do you prefer?"

Red Flags - Stop and Ask

• Requirement is vague or undefined
• Multiple valid approaches exist
• Change impacts shared/core code
• Scope is growing beyond original item
• Conflict with existing behavior
• User says "whatever you think" (get explicit confirmation)

Plan Quality Check

Before finalizing, verify:

• Each requirement maps to ≥1 step
• Each step has specific files
• Acceptance criteria are testable
• No orphan steps
• Open questions captured
• User approved each major decision