Create optimized prompts for Claude-to-Claude pipelines with research, planning, and execution stages.
Every execution produces a SUMMARY.md for quick human scanning without reading full outputs.
Each prompt gets its own folder in .prompts/ with its output artifacts, enabling clear provenance and chain detection.
IF no context provided (skill invoked without description): → IMMEDIATELY use AskUserQuestion with:
After selection, ask: "Describe what you want to accomplish" (they select "Other" to provide free text).
IF context was provided: → Check if purpose is inferable from keywords:
implement, build, create, fix, add, refactor → Doplan, roadmap, approach, strategy, decide, phases → Planresearch, understand, learn, gather, analyze, explore → Researchrefine, improve, deepen, expand, iterate, update → Refine→ If unclear, ask the Purpose question above as first contextual question → If clear, proceed to adaptive_analysis with inferred purpose
auth, stripe-payments)If topic identifier not obvious, ask:
For Refine purpose, also identify target output from .prompts/*/ to improve.
If found:
Match by topic keyword when possible (e.g., "auth plan" → suggest auth-research.md).
Load questions from: references/question-bank.md
Route by purpose:
Loop until "Proceed" selected.
"Creating a {purpose} prompt for: {topic} Folder: .prompts/{number}-{topic}-{purpose}/ References: {list any chained files}"
Then proceed to generation.
Load purpose-specific patterns:
Load intelligence rules: references/intelligence-rules.md
For Research and Plan prompts, output must include:
<confidence> - How confident in findings<dependencies> - What's needed to proceed<open_questions> - What remains uncertain<assumptions> - What was assumedAll prompts must create SUMMARY.md with:
After saving prompt(s), present inline (not AskUserQuestion):
What's next?
Choose (1-4): _
</single_prompt_presentation>
<multi_prompt_presentation>
Prompts created:
Detected execution order: Sequential (002 references 001 output, 003 references 002 output)
What's next?
Choose (1-4): _
</multi_prompt_presentation>
</step_2_present>
<step_3_execute>
<title>Execution Engine</title>
<execution_modes>
<single_prompt>
Straightforward execution of one prompt.
1. Read prompt file contents
2. Spawn Task agent with subagent_type="general-purpose"
3. Include in task prompt:
- The complete prompt contents
- Output location: `.prompts/{number}-{topic}-{purpose}/{topic}-{purpose}.md`
4. Wait for completion
5. Validate output (see validation section)
6. Archive prompt to `completed/` subfolder
7. Report results with next-step options
</single_prompt>
<sequential_execution>
For chained prompts where each depends on previous output.
1. Build execution queue from dependency order
2. For each prompt in queue:
a. Read prompt file
b. Spawn Task agent
c. Wait for completion
d. Validate output
e. If validation fails → stop, report failure, offer recovery options
f. If success → archive prompt, continue to next
3. Report consolidated results
<progress_reporting>
Show progress during execution:
Executing 1/3: 001-auth-research... ✓ Executing 2/3: 002-auth-plan... ✓ Executing 3/3: 003-auth-implement... (running)
</progress_reporting>
</sequential_execution>
<parallel_execution>
For independent prompts with no dependencies.
1. Read all prompt files
2. **CRITICAL**: Spawn ALL Task agents in a SINGLE message
- This is required for true parallel execution
- Each task includes its output location
3. Wait for all to complete
4. Validate all outputs
5. Archive all prompts
6. Report consolidated results (successes and failures)
<failure_handling>
Unlike sequential, parallel continues even if some fail:
- Collect all results
- Archive successful prompts
- Report failures with details
- Offer to retry failed prompts
</failure_handling>
</parallel_execution>
<mixed_dependencies>
For complex DAGs (e.g., two parallel research → one plan).
1. Analyze dependency graph from @ references
2. Group into execution layers:
- Layer 1: No dependencies (run parallel)
- Layer 2: Depends only on layer 1 (run after layer 1 completes)
- Layer 3: Depends on layer 2, etc.
3. Execute each layer:
- Parallel within layer
- Sequential between layers
4. Stop if any dependency fails (downstream prompts can't run)
<example>
Layer 1 (parallel): 001-api-research, 002-db-research Layer 2 (after layer 1): 003-architecture-plan Layer 3 (after layer 2): 004-implement
</example>
</mixed_dependencies>
</execution_modes>
<dependency_detection>
<automatic_detection>
Scan prompt contents for @ references to determine dependencies:
1. Parse each prompt for `@.prompts/{number}-{topic}/` patterns
2. Build dependency graph
3. Detect cycles (error if found)
4. Determine execution order
<inference_rules>
If no explicit @ references found, infer from purpose:
- Research prompts: No dependencies (can parallel)
- Plan prompts: Depend on same-topic research
- Do prompts: Depend on same-topic plan
Override with explicit references when present.
</inference_rules>
</automatic_detection>
<missing_dependencies>
If a prompt references output that doesn't exist:
1. Check if it's another prompt in this session (will be created)
2. Check if it exists in `.prompts/*/` (already completed)
3. If truly missing:
- Warn user: "002-auth-plan references auth-research.md which doesn't exist"
- Offer: Create the missing research prompt first? / Continue anyway? / Cancel?
</missing_dependencies>
</dependency_detection>
<validation>
<output_validation>
After each prompt completes, verify success:
1. **File exists**: Check output file was created
2. **Not empty**: File has content (> 100 chars)
3. **Metadata present** (for research/plan): Check for required XML tags
- `<confidence>`
- `<dependencies>`
- `<open_questions>`
- `<assumptions>`
4. **SUMMARY.md exists**: Check SUMMARY.md was created
5. **SUMMARY.md complete**: Has required sections (Key Findings, Decisions Needed, Blockers, Next Step)
6. **One-liner is substantive**: Not generic like "Research completed"
<validation_failure>
If validation fails:
- Report what's missing
- Offer options:
- Retry the prompt
- Continue anyway (for non-critical issues)
- Stop and investigate
</validation_failure>
</output_validation>
</validation>
<failure_handling>
<sequential_failure>
Stop the chain immediately:
✗ Failed at 2/3: 002-auth-plan
Completed:
Failed:
Not started:
What's next?
</sequential_failure>
<parallel_failure>
Continue others, report all results:
Parallel execution completed with errors:
✓ 001-api-research (archived)
✗ 002-db-research: Validation failed - missing
What's next?
</parallel_failure>
</failure_handling>
<archiving>
<archive_timing>
- **Sequential**: Archive each prompt immediately after successful completion
- Provides clear state if execution stops mid-chain
- **Parallel**: Archive all at end after collecting results
- Keeps prompts available for potential retry
<archive_operation>
Move prompt file to completed subfolder:
```bash
mv .prompts/{number}-{topic}-{purpose}/{number}-{topic}-{purpose}.md \
.prompts/{number}-{topic}-{purpose}/completed/
Output file stays in place (not moved).
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
JWT with jose library and httpOnly cookies recommended
• jose outperforms jsonwebtoken with better TypeScript support • httpOnly cookies required (localStorage is XSS vulnerable) • Refresh rotation is OWASP standard
None - ready for planning
None
Create auth-plan.md ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
What's next?
Display the actual SUMMARY.md content inline so user sees findings without opening files.
</single_result>
<chain_result>
✓ Chain completed: auth workflow
Results: ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 001-auth-research JWT with jose library and httpOnly cookies recommended Decisions: None • Blockers: None
002-auth-plan 4-phase implementation: types → JWT core → refresh → tests Decisions: Approve 15-min token expiry • Blockers: None
003-auth-implement JWT middleware complete with 6 files created Decisions: Review before Phase 2 • Blockers: None ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
All prompts archived. Full summaries in .prompts/*/SUMMARY.md
What's next?
For chains, show condensed one-liner from each SUMMARY.md with decisions/blockers flagged.
</chain_result>
</result_presentation>
<special_cases>
<re_running_completed>
If user wants to re-run an already-completed prompt:
1. Check if prompt is in `completed/` subfolder
2. Move it back to parent folder
3. Optionally backup existing output: `{output}.bak`
4. Execute normally
</re_running_completed>
<output_conflicts>
If output file already exists:
1. For re-runs: Backup existing → `{filename}.bak`
2. For new runs: Should not happen (unique numbering)
3. If conflict detected: Ask user - Overwrite? / Rename? / Cancel?
</output_conflicts>
<commit_handling>
After successful execution:
1. Do NOT auto-commit (user controls git workflow)
2. Mention what files were created/modified
3. User can commit when ready
Exception: If user explicitly requests commit, stage and commit:
- Output files created
- Prompts archived
- Any implementation changes (for Do prompts)
</commit_handling>
<recursive_prompts>
If a prompt's output includes instructions to create more prompts:
1. This is advanced usage - don't auto-detect
2. Present the output to user
3. User can invoke skill again to create follow-up prompts
4. Maintains user control over prompt creation
</recursive_prompts>
</special_cases>
</step_3_execute>
</automated_workflow>
<reference_guides>
**Prompt patterns by purpose:**
- [references/do-patterns.md](references/do-patterns.md) - Execution prompts + output structure
- [references/plan-patterns.md](references/plan-patterns.md) - Planning prompts + plan.md structure
- [references/research-patterns.md](references/research-patterns.md) - Research prompts + research.md structure
- [references/refine-patterns.md](references/refine-patterns.md) - Iteration prompts + versioning
**Shared templates:**
- [references/summary-template.md](references/summary-template.md) - SUMMARY.md structure and field requirements
- [references/metadata-guidelines.md](references/metadata-guidelines.md) - Confidence, dependencies, open questions, assumptions
**Supporting references:**
- [references/question-bank.md](references/question-bank.md) - Intake questions by purpose
- [references/intelligence-rules.md](references/intelligence-rules.md) - Extended thinking, parallel tools, depth decisions
</reference_guides>
<success_criteria>
**Prompt Creation:**
- Intake gate completed with purpose and topic identified
- Chain detection performed, relevant files referenced
- Prompt generated with correct structure for purpose
- Folder created in `.prompts/` with correct naming
- Output file location specified in prompt
- SUMMARY.md requirement included in prompt
- Metadata requirements included for Research/Plan outputs
- Quality controls included for Research outputs (verification checklist, QA, pre-submission)
- Streaming write instructions included for Research outputs
- Decision tree presented
**Execution (if user chooses to run):**
- Dependencies correctly detected and ordered
- Prompts executed in correct order (sequential/parallel/mixed)
- Output validated after each completion
- SUMMARY.md created with all required sections
- One-liner is substantive (not generic)
- Failed prompts handled gracefully with recovery options
- Successful prompts archived to `completed/` subfolder
- SUMMARY.md displayed inline in results
- Results presented with decisions/blockers flagged
**Research Quality (for Research prompts):**
- Verification checklist completed
- Quality report distinguishes verified from assumed claims
- Sources consulted listed with URLs
- Confidence levels assigned to findings
- Critical claims verified with official documentation
</success_criteria>