Feature Lifecycle Skill

Phase-gated feature workflow: DESIGN > PLAN > IMPLEMENT > VALIDATE > RELEASE. Each phase must pass its gate before the next begins.

Phase Routing

Determine which phase to execute based on feature state:

1. If .feature/ exists, check current phase:

   bashCopy

   python3 ~/.claude/scripts/feature-state.py status
   

   Route to the phase indicated by the state machine.

2. If no feature state exists, determine entry point from user intent:

   • "design", "think through", "explore approaches" -> DESIGN
   • "plan", "break down", "create tasks" -> PLAN (requires completed design)
   • "implement", "execute plan", "start building" -> IMPLEMENT (requires completed plan)
   • "validate", "quality gates", "check feature" -> VALIDATE (requires completed implementation)
   • "release", "merge", "ship it" -> RELEASE (requires passed validation)
   • "end to end", "full lifecycle", "from scratch" -> DESIGN (start from beginning)

3. Load the phase reference for the current phase:

   • DESIGN: Read references/design.md
   • PLAN: Read references/plan.md
   • IMPLEMENT: Read references/implement.md
   • VALIDATE: Read references/validate.md
   • RELEASE: Read references/release.md
   • END-TO-END: Read references/pipeline.md

4. Follow the loaded reference exactly. Each reference contains the full phase instructions, gates, and checkpoints.

State Conventions

Read references/shared.md for directory structure, state management commands, context loading rules, and naming conventions. All state operations go through python3 ~/.claude/scripts/feature-state.py -- never manipulate state files directly.

Phase Ordering

DESIGN -> PLAN -> IMPLEMENT -> VALIDATE -> RELEASE
  |         |         |           |          |
  v         v         v           v          v
design.md plan.md  impl.md   report.md  PR merged

Each phase produces an artifact consumed by the next. Skipping phases is not supported because downstream phases depend on artifacts from earlier phases.

Error Handling

References

• references/design.md -- Design phase: explore requirements, discuss trade-offs
• references/plan.md -- Plan phase: break design into wave-ordered tasks
• references/implement.md -- Implement phase: dispatch tasks to domain agents
• references/validate.md -- Validate phase: run quality gates
• references/release.md -- Release phase: merge, tag, cleanup
• references/pipeline.md -- End-to-end orchestration across all phases
• references/shared.md -- State conventions shared across all phases