Plan Readiness Review

Overview

Pressure test whether a plan is ready for implementation. Catches structural gaps, feasibility issues, and scope problems before committing to build.

Core principle: Find problems before implementation, not during.

Announce at start: "I'm using the plan-readiness-review skill to evaluate this plan."

Plan location: plans/active/{plan-name}/

The Process

Step 1: Load Plan

1. Read all files from plans/active/{plan-name}/design/
2. Read all files from plans/active/{plan-name}/implementation/ (if exists)
3. Note: Plan must be committed to repo before worktree creation

Step 2: Evaluate Against Criteria

Structure:

• All required sections present (problem, solution, tasks)?
• Steps specific enough to execute without interpretation?
• Success criteria defined?
• Dependencies between tasks identified?

Feasibility:

• Technical approach sound?
• Required APIs/libraries exist?
• No impossible constraints?

Scope:

• Right-sized for one branch?
• Should it be split into multiple plans?
• Over-engineered for the problem?
• Missing obvious requirements?

Clarity:

• Would a fresh agent understand every instruction?
• Any ambiguous instructions?
• Missing context that implementer would need?

Step 3: Cross-Reference Codebase

Check if plan accounts for:

• Existing patterns in the codebase
• Files that will be affected
• Test patterns to follow
• Related code that might need updates

Step 4: Produce Verdict

Output this format:

## Plan Readiness Review: {plan-name}

### Verdict: READY | NEEDS WORK | SPLIT RECOMMENDED

### Strengths
- [What's solid about this plan]

### Issues Found
- **[Category]**: [Issue description]
  - Suggested fix: [How to address]

### Questions to Resolve
- [Anything ambiguous that needs human input]

### Recommendation
[1-2 sentence summary of what to do next]

Verdict Meanings

Red Flags

Never:

• Rubber-stamp a plan without thorough review
• Skip codebase cross-reference
• Approve plans with ambiguous instructions

Always:

• Check every evaluation criterion
• Verify file paths exist or make sense
• Flag anything a fresh agent might misinterpret

Integration

Invoked by:

• gremlins:worktree-workflow (start phase) - First gate in workflow
• Standalone when reviewing any plan

Pairs with:

• gremlins:writing-plans - Reviews output of that skill
• gremlins:executing-plans - Feeds into that skill when READY