executing-phases

<user_command>/kata:execute-phase</user_command>

Orchestrator stays lean: discover plans, analyze dependencies, group into waves, spawn subagents, collect results. Each subagent loads the full execute-plan context and handles its own plan.

Context budget: ~15% orchestrator, 100% fresh per subagent.

<execution_context> @./references/ui-brand.md @./references/planning-config.md @./references/phase-execute.md </execution_context>

Flags:

• --gaps-only — Execute only gap closure plans (plans with gap_closure: true in frontmatter). Use after phase-verify creates fix plans.

@.planning/ROADMAP.md @.planning/STATE.md

Read model profile for agent spawning:

MODEL_PROFILE=$(cat .planning/config.json 2>/dev/null | grep -o '"model_profile"[[:space:]]*:[[:space:]]*"[^"]*"' | grep -o '"[^"]*"$' | tr -d '"' || echo "balanced")

Default to "balanced" if not set.

Model lookup table:

Note: Review agents (kata-code-reviewer, kata--analyzer) are spawned by the kata-reviewing-pull-requests skill, which handles its own model selection based on the agents' frontmatter. The table above documents expected model usage for cost planning.*

Store resolved models for use in Task calls below.

1. Validate phase exists
   • Find phase directory matching argument
   • Count PLAN.md files
   • Error if no plans found

1.5. Create Phase Branch (pr_workflow only)

Read pr_workflow config:

PR_WORKFLOW=$(cat .planning/config.json 2>/dev/null | grep -o '"pr_workflow"[[:space:]]*:[[:space:]]*[^,}]*' | grep -o 'true\|false' || echo "false")

If PR_WORKFLOW=false: Skip to step 2.

If PR_WORKFLOW=true:

1. Get milestone version from ROADMAP.md:
   bashCopy

   MILESTONE=$(grep -oE 'v[0-9]+\.[0-9]+(\.[0-9]+)?' .planning/ROADMAP.md | head -1 | tr -d 'v')
   

2. Get phase number and slug from PHASE_DIR:
   bashCopy

   PHASE_NUM=$(basename "$PHASE_DIR" | sed -E 's/^([0-9]+)-.*/\1/')
   SLUG=$(basename "$PHASE_DIR" | sed -E 's/^[0-9]+-//')
   

3. Infer branch type from phase goal (feat/fix/docs/refactor/chore, default feat):
   bashCopy

   PHASE_GOAL=$(grep -A 5 "Phase ${PHASE_NUM}:" .planning/ROADMAP.md | grep "Goal:" | head -1 || echo "")
   if echo "$PHASE_GOAL" | grep -qi "fix\|bug\|patch"; then
     BRANCH_TYPE="fix"
   elif echo "$PHASE_GOAL" | grep -qi "doc\|readme\|comment"; then
     BRANCH_TYPE="docs"
   elif echo "$PHASE_GOAL" | grep -qi "refactor\|restructure\|reorganize"; then
     BRANCH_TYPE="refactor"
   elif echo "$PHASE_GOAL" | grep -qi "chore\|config\|setup"; then
     BRANCH_TYPE="chore"
   else
     BRANCH_TYPE="feat"
   fi
   

4. Create branch with re-run protection:
   bashCopy

   BRANCH="${BRANCH_TYPE}/v${MILESTONE}-${PHASE_NUM}-${SLUG}"
   if git show-ref --verify --quiet refs/heads/"$BRANCH"; then
     git checkout "$BRANCH"
     echo "Branch $BRANCH exists, resuming on it"
   else
     git checkout -b "$BRANCH"
     echo "Created branch $BRANCH"
   fi
   

Store BRANCH variable for use in step 4.5 and step 10.5.

2. Discover plans

   • List all *-PLAN.md files in phase directory
   • Check which have *-SUMMARY.md (already complete)
   • If --gaps-only: filter to only plans with gap_closure: true
   • Build list of incomplete plans

3. Group by wave

   • Read wave from each plan's frontmatter
   • Group plans by wave number
   • Report wave structure to user

4. Execute waves For each wave in order:

   • Spawn kata-executor for each plan in wave (parallel Task calls)

   • Wait for completion (Task blocks)

   • Verify SUMMARYs created

   • Update GitHub issue checkboxes (if enabled):

     Build COMPLETED_PLANS_IN_WAVE from SUMMARY.md files created this wave:

     bashCopy

     # Get plan numbers from SUMMARYs that exist after this wave
     COMPLETED_PLANS_IN_WAVE=""
     for summary in ${PHASE_DIR}/*-SUMMARY.md; do
       # Extract plan number from filename (e.g., 04-01-SUMMARY.md -> 01)
       plan_num=$(basename "$summary" | sed -E 's/^[0-9]+-([0-9]+)-SUMMARY\.md$/\1/')
       # Check if this plan was in the current wave (from frontmatter we read earlier)
       if echo "${WAVE_PLANS}" | grep -q "plan-${plan_num}"; then
         COMPLETED_PLANS_IN_WAVE="${COMPLETED_PLANS_IN_WAVE} ${plan_num}"
       fi
     done
     

     Check github.enabled and issueMode:

     bashCopy

     GITHUB_ENABLED=$(cat .planning/config.json 2>/dev/null | grep -o '"enabled"[[:space:]]*:[[:space:]]*[^,}]*' | grep -o 'true\|false' || echo "false")
     ISSUE_MODE=$(cat .planning/config.json 2>/dev/null | grep -o '"issueMode"[[:space:]]*:[[:space:]]*"[^"]*"' | grep -o '"[^"]*"$' | tr -d '"' || echo "never")
     

     If GITHUB_ENABLED != true OR ISSUE_MODE = never: Skip GitHub update.

     Otherwise:

     1. Find phase issue number:
     bashCopy

     VERSION=$(grep -oE 'v[0-9]+\.[0-9]+(\.[0-9]+)?' .planning/ROADMAP.md | head -1 | tr -d 'v')
     ISSUE_NUMBER=$(gh issue list \
       --label "phase" \
       --milestone "v${VERSION}" \
       --json number,title \
       --jq ".[] | select(.title | startswith(\"Phase ${PHASE}:\")) | .number" \
       2>/dev/null)
     

     If issue not found: Warn and skip (non-blocking).

     2. Read current issue body:
     bashCopy

     ISSUE_BODY=$(gh issue view "$ISSUE_NUMBER" --json body --jq '.body' 2>/dev/null)
     

     3. For each completed plan in this wave, update checkbox:
     bashCopy

     for plan_num in ${COMPLETED_PLANS_IN_WAVE}; do
       # Format: Plan 01, Plan 02, etc.
       PLAN_ID="Plan $(printf "%02d" $plan_num):"
       # Update checkbox: - [ ] -> - [x]
       ISSUE_BODY=$(echo "$ISSUE_BODY" | sed "s/^- \[ \] ${PLAN_ID}/- [x] ${PLAN_ID}/")
     done
     

     4. Write and update:
     bashCopy

     printf '%s\n' "$ISSUE_BODY" > /tmp/phase-issue-body.md
     gh issue edit "$ISSUE_NUMBER" --body-file /tmp/phase-issue-body.md 2>/dev/null \
       && echo "Updated issue #${ISSUE_NUMBER}: checked off Wave ${WAVE_NUM} plans" \
       || echo "Warning: Failed to update issue #${ISSUE_NUMBER}"
     

     This update happens ONCE per wave (after all plans in wave complete), not per-plan, avoiding race conditions.

   • Open Draft PR (first wave only, pr_workflow only):

     After first wave completion:

     bashCopy

     if [ "$PR_WORKFLOW" = "true" ] && [ "$WAVE_NUM" = "1" ]; then
       # Check if PR already exists (re-run protection)
       EXISTING_PR=$(gh pr list --head "$BRANCH" --json number --jq '.[0].number' 2>/dev/null)
       if [ -n "$EXISTING_PR" ]; then
         echo "PR #${EXISTING_PR} already exists, skipping creation"
         PR_NUMBER="$EXISTING_PR"
       else
         # Push branch and create draft PR
         git push -u origin "$BRANCH"
     
         # Get phase name from ROADMAP.md
         PHASE_NAME=$(grep -E "^Phase ${PHASE_NUM}:" .planning/ROADMAP.md | sed -E 's/^Phase [0-9]+: //' | cut -d'—' -f1 | xargs)
     
         # Build PR body
         PHASE_GOAL=$(grep -A 2 "^Phase ${PHASE_NUM}:" .planning/ROADMAP.md | grep "Goal:" | sed 's/.*Goal: //')
     
         # Get phase issue number for linking (if github.enabled)
         CLOSES_LINE=""
         if [ "$GITHUB_ENABLED" = "true" ] && [ "$ISSUE_MODE" != "never" ]; then
           PHASE_ISSUE=$(gh issue list --label phase --milestone "v${MILESTONE}" \
             --json number,title --jq ".[] | select(.title | startswith(\"Phase ${PHASE_NUM}:\")) | .number" 2>/dev/null)
           [ -n "$PHASE_ISSUE" ] && CLOSES_LINE="Closes #${PHASE_ISSUE}"
         fi
     
         # Build plans checklist (all unchecked initially)
         PLANS_CHECKLIST=""
         for plan in ${PHASE_DIR}/*-PLAN.md; do
           plan_name=$(grep -m1 "<name>" "$plan" | sed 's/.*<name>//;s/<\/name>.*//' || basename "$plan" | sed 's/-PLAN.md//')
           plan_num=$(basename "$plan" | sed -E 's/^[0-9]+-([0-9]+)-PLAN\.md$/\1/')
           PLANS_CHECKLIST="${PLANS_CHECKLIST}- [ ] Plan ${plan_num}: ${plan_name}\n"
         done
     
         cat > /tmp/pr-body.md << PR_EOF
     

Phase Goal

${PHASE_GOAL}

Plans

${PLANS_CHECKLIST} ${CLOSES_LINE} PR_EOF

     # Create draft PR
     gh pr create --draft \
       --base main \
       --title "v${MILESTONE} Phase ${PHASE_NUM}: ${PHASE_NAME}" \
       --body-file /tmp/pr-body.md

     PR_NUMBER=$(gh pr list --head "$BRANCH" --json number --jq '.[0].number')
     echo "Created draft PR #${PR_NUMBER}"
   fi
 fi
 ```

 Store PR_NUMBER for step 10.5.

 **Note:** PR body checklist items remain unchecked throughout execution. The PR body is static after creation — it does NOT update as plans complete. The GitHub issue (updated after each wave above) is the source of truth for plan progress during execution.

• Proceed to next wave

5. Aggregate results

   • Collect summaries from all plans
   • Report phase completion status

6. Commit any orchestrator corrections Check for uncommitted changes before verification:

   bashCopy

   git status --porcelain
   

   If changes exist: Orchestrator made corrections between executor completions. Commit them:

   bashCopy

   git add -u && git commit -m "fix({phase}): orchestrator corrections"
   

   If clean: Continue to verification.

7. Verify phase goal Check config: WORKFLOW_VERIFIER=$(cat .planning/config.json 2>/dev/null | grep -o '"verifier"[[:space:]]*:[[:space:]]*[^,}]*' | grep -o 'true\|false' || echo "true")

   If workflow.verifier is false: Skip to step 8 (treat as passed).

   Otherwise:

   • Spawn kata-verifier subagent with phase directory and goal
   • Verifier checks must_haves against actual codebase (not SUMMARY claims)
   • Creates VERIFICATION.md with detailed report
   • Route by status:
     • passed → continue to step 8
     • human_needed → present items, get approval or feedback
     • gaps_found → present gaps, offer /kata:plan-phase {X} --gaps

8. Update roadmap and state

   • Update ROADMAP.md, STATE.md

9. Update requirements Mark phase requirements as Complete:

   • Read ROADMAP.md, find this phase's Requirements: line (e.g., "AUTH-01, AUTH-02")
   • Read REQUIREMENTS.md traceability table
   • For each REQ-ID in this phase: change Status from "Pending" to "Complete"
   • Write updated REQUIREMENTS.md
   • Skip if: REQUIREMENTS.md doesn't exist, or phase has no Requirements line

10. Commit phase completion Check COMMIT_PLANNING_DOCS from config.json (default: true). If false: Skip git operations for .planning/ files. If true: Bundle all phase metadata updates in one commit:

    • Stage: git add .planning/ROADMAP.md .planning/STATE.md
    • Stage REQUIREMENTS.md if updated: git add .planning/REQUIREMENTS.md
    • Commit: docs({phase}): complete {phase-name} phase

10.25. Review Documentation (Non-blocking, pr_workflow only)

If PR_WORKFLOW=true, before marking PR ready, offer README review:

Use AskUserQuestion:
- header: "README Review"
- question: "This phase may have added user-facing features. Review README before marking PR ready?"
- options:
  - "Yes, I'll update README" — Pause for user edits, wait for "continue"
  - "Skip" — Proceed to mark PR ready
  - "Show README" — Display current README, then ask if updates needed

**If user chooses "Yes, I'll update README":**
```
Update README.md with any documentation for this phase's features.
Say "continue" when ready to mark the PR ready.
```

**If user chooses "Show README":**
Display README.md content, then use AskUserQuestion:
- header: "README Updates"
- question: "Does the README need updates for this phase?"
- options:
  - "Yes, I'll update now" — Pause for user edits, wait for "continue"
  - "No, looks good" — Proceed to mark PR ready

After README updates (if any), stage and commit:
```bash
# Only if README was modified
if git diff --quiet README.md; then
  echo "No README changes"
else
  git add README.md
  git commit -m "docs({phase}): update README for phase features"
fi
```

*Non-blocking: phase completion continues regardless of choice.*

10.5. Mark PR Ready (pr_workflow only)

After phase completion commit:
```bash
if [ "$PR_WORKFLOW" = "true" ]; then
  # Push final commits
  git push origin "$BRANCH"

  # Mark PR ready for review
  gh pr ready

  PR_URL=$(gh pr view --json url --jq '.url')
  echo "PR marked ready: $PR_URL"
fi
```

Store PR_URL for offer_next output.

10.6. Run PR Review (pr_workflow only, optional)

After marking PR ready, offer to run automated review:

Use AskUserQuestion:
- header: "PR Review"
- question: "Run automated PR review before team review?"
- options:
  - "Yes, run full review" — Run kata-reviewing-pull-requests with all aspects
  - "Quick review (code only)" — Run kata-reviewing-pull-requests with "code" aspect only
  - "Skip" — Proceed without review

**If user chooses review:**
1. Invoke skill: `Skill("kata:reviewing-pull-requests", "<aspect>")`
2. Display review summary with counts: {N} critical, {M} important, {P} suggestions
3. **STOP and ask what to do with findings** (see below)

**If user chooses "Skip":**
Continue to step 11 without review.

10.7. Handle Review Findings (required after review completes)

**STOP here. Do not proceed to step 11 until user chooses an action.**

Use AskUserQuestion with options based on what was found:
- header: "Review Findings"
- question: "How do you want to handle the review findings?"
- options (show only applicable ones):
  - "Fix critical issues" — (if critical > 0) Fix critical, then offer to add remaining to backlog
  - "Fix critical & important" — (if critical + important > 0) Fix both, then offer to add suggestions to backlog
  - "Fix all issues" — (if any issues) Fix everything
  - "Add to backlog" — Create todos for all issues without fixing
  - "Ignore and continue" — Skip all issues

**After user chooses:**

**Path A: "Fix critical issues"**
1. Fix each critical issue
2. If important or suggestions remain, ask: "Add remaining {N} issues to backlog?"
   - "Yes" → Create todos, store TODOS_CREATED count
   - "No" → Continue
3. Continue to step 11

**Path B: "Fix critical & important"**
1. Fix each critical and important issue
2. If suggestions remain, ask: "Add {N} suggestions to backlog?"
   - "Yes" → Create todos, store TODOS_CREATED count
   - "No" → Continue
3. Continue to step 11

**Path C: "Fix all issues"**
1. Fix all critical, important, and suggestion issues
2. Continue to step 11

**Path D: "Add to backlog"**
1. Create todos for all issues using `/kata:add-todo`
2. Store TODOS_CREATED count
3. Continue to step 11

**Path E: "Ignore and continue"**
1. Continue to step 11

Store REVIEW_SUMMARY and TODOS_CREATED for offer_next output.

11. Offer next steps
    • Route to next action (see <offer_next>)

<offer_next> Output this markdown directly (not as a code block). Route based on status:

Route A: Phase verified, more phases remain

Step 1: If PR_WORKFLOW=true, STOP and ask about merge BEFORE showing completion output.

Use AskUserQuestion:

• header: "PR Ready for Merge"
• question: "PR #{pr_number} is ready. Merge before continuing to next phase?"
• options:
  • "Yes, merge now" — merge PR, then show completion
  • "No, continue without merging" — show completion with PR status

Step 2: Handle merge response (if PR_WORKFLOW=true)

If user chose "Yes, merge now":

gh pr merge "$PR_NUMBER" --squash --delete-branch
git checkout main && git pull

Set MERGED=true for output below.

Step 3: Show completion output

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Kata ► PHASE {Z} COMPLETE ✓ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Phase {Z}: {Name}

{Y} plans executed Goal verified ✓ {If github.enabled: GitHub Issue: #{issue_number} ({checked}/{total} plans checked off)} {If PR_WORKFLOW and MERGED: PR: #{pr_number} — merged ✓} {If PR_WORKFLOW and not MERGED: PR: #{pr_number} ({pr_url}) — ready for review} {If REVIEW_SUMMARY: PR Review: {summary_stats}} {If TODOS_CREATED: Backlog: {N} todos created from review suggestions}

───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

▶ Next Up

Phase {Z+1}: {Name} — {Goal from ROADMAP.md}

/kata:discuss-phase {Z+1} — gather context and clarify approach

/clear first → fresh context window

───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

Also available:

• /kata:plan-phase {Z+1} — skip discussion, plan directly
• /kata:verify-work {Z} — manual acceptance testing before continuing {If PR_WORKFLOW and not MERGED: - gh pr view --web — review PR in browser before next phase}

───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

Route B: Phase verified, milestone complete

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Kata ► MILESTONE COMPLETE 🎉 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

v1.0

{N} phases completed All phase goals verified ✓ {If pr_workflow: Phase PRs ready — merge to prepare for release}

───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

▶ Next Up

Audit milestone — verify requirements, cross-phase integration, E2E flows

/kata:audit-milestone

/clear first → fresh context window

───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

Also available:

• /kata:verify-work — manual acceptance testing
• /kata:complete-milestone — skip audit, archive directly

───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

Route C: Gaps found — need additional planning

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Kata ► PHASE {Z} GAPS FOUND ⚠ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Phase {Z}: {Name}

Score: {N}/{M} must-haves verified Report: .planning/phases/{phase_dir}/{phase}-VERIFICATION.md

What's Missing

{Extract gap summaries from VERIFICATION.md}

───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

▶ Next Up

Plan gap closure — create additional plans to complete the phase

/kata:plan-phase {Z} --gaps

/clear first → fresh context window

───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

Also available:

• cat .planning/phases/{phase_dir}/{phase}-VERIFICATION.md — see full report
• /kata:verify-work {Z} — manual testing before planning

───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

After user runs /kata:plan-phase {Z} --gaps:

1. Planner reads VERIFICATION.md gaps
2. Creates plans 04, 05, etc. to close gaps
3. User runs /kata:execute-phase {Z} again
4. phase-execute runs incomplete plans (04, 05...)
5. Verifier runs again → loop until passed </offer_next>

<wave_execution> Parallel spawning:

Before spawning, read file contents using Read tool. The @ syntax does not work across Task() boundaries - content must be inlined in the Task prompt.

Read these files:

• Each plan file in the wave (e.g., {plan_01_path}, {plan_02_path}, etc.)
• .planning/STATE.md

Spawn all plans in a wave with a single message containing multiple Task calls, with inlined content:

Task(prompt="Execute plan at {plan_01_path}\n\n<plan>\n{plan_01_content}\n</plan>\n\n<project_state>\n{state_content}\n</project_state>", subagent_type="kata-executor", model="{executor_model}")
Task(prompt="Execute plan at {plan_02_path}\n\n<plan>\n{plan_02_content}\n</plan>\n\n<project_state>\n{state_content}\n</project_state>", subagent_type="kata-executor", model="{executor_model}")
Task(prompt="Execute plan at {plan_03_path}\n\n<plan>\n{plan_03_content}\n</plan>\n\n<project_state>\n{state_content}\n</project_state>", subagent_type="kata-executor", model="{executor_model}")

All three run in parallel. Task tool blocks until all complete.

No polling. No background agents. No TaskOutput loops. </wave_execution>

<checkpoint_handling> Plans with autonomous: false have checkpoints. The phase-execute.md workflow handles the full checkpoint flow:

• Subagent pauses at checkpoint, returns structured state
• Orchestrator presents to user, collects response
• Spawns fresh continuation agent (not resume)

See @./references/phase-execute.md step checkpoint_handling for complete details. </checkpoint_handling>

<deviation_rules> During execution, handle discoveries automatically:

1. Auto-fix bugs - Fix immediately, document in Summary
2. Auto-add critical - Security/correctness gaps, add and document
3. Auto-fix blockers - Can't proceed without fix, do it and document
4. Ask about architectural - Major structural changes, stop and ask user

Only rule 4 requires user intervention. </deviation_rules>

<commit_rules> Per-Task Commits:

After each task completes:

1. Stage only files modified by that task
2. Commit with format: {type}({phase}-{plan}): {task-name}
3. Types: feat, fix, test, refactor, perf, chore
4. Record commit hash for SUMMARY.md

Plan Metadata Commit:

After all tasks in a plan complete:

1. Stage plan artifacts only: PLAN.md, SUMMARY.md
2. Commit with format: docs({phase}-{plan}): complete [plan-name] plan
3. NO code files (already committed per-task)

Phase Completion Commit:

After all plans in phase complete (step 7):

1. Stage: ROADMAP.md, STATE.md, REQUIREMENTS.md (if updated), VERIFICATION.md
2. Commit with format: docs({phase}): complete {phase-name} phase
3. Bundles all phase-level state updates in one commit

NEVER use:

• git add .
• git add -A
• git add src/ or any broad directory

Always stage files individually. </commit_rules>

<success_criteria>

• All incomplete plans in phase executed
• Each plan has SUMMARY.md
• Phase goal verified (must_haves checked against codebase)
• VERIFICATION.md created in phase directory
• STATE.md reflects phase completion
• ROADMAP.md updated
• REQUIREMENTS.md updated (phase requirements marked Complete)
• GitHub issue checkboxes updated per wave (if github.enabled)
• User informed of next steps </success_criteria>