Grillcraft

GrillCraft

Core Contract

Turn resolved intent into a durable execution handoff. GrillCraft is a compiler from a Grill Me-style decision conversation into:

• .agent/work/<slug>/decision.md
• .agent/work/<slug>/meta.json
• .agent/work/<slug>/execplan.md
• an activated Goalcraft /goal that executes the work item until evidence says the ExecPlan and decisions are satisfied or honestly blocked.

GrillCraft owns setup and activation, not product implementation. After the Goalcraft goal is active, the goal is the persistent executor. The goal must absorb the implementation protocol that implement-execplan previously owned: set implementation state, execute milestones, keep the ExecPlan living sections current, validate after slices, revise the plan when evidence changes the path, and finish only after review evidence satisfies both decision.md and execplan.md.

Input Resolution

Resolve the source of intent in this order:

1. explicit Grill Me transcript, decision ledger, or work-item path from the user
2. the current conversation when it clearly contains a completed grill session
3. explicit decision.md or decisions.md supplied by the user
4. .agent/active when it points to a work item with a decision artifact

If the source is missing, obviously incomplete, or mostly a vague brief rather than resolved intent, stop and ask for the smallest missing artifact. Do not invent decisions to keep the pipeline moving.

Improvement Count

Default to 3 execplan-improve attempts.

If the user says N improvements, N improve passes, or equivalent, use that integer. 0 improvements means create the ExecPlan and skip improvement.

Treat the count as "up to N useful attempts." If execplan-improve returns exactly skip, or its own low-value short-circuit applies, stop improvement early and continue to Goalcraft with the current plan.

Workflow

Step 1: Create or reuse the work item

Prefer the work-item format:

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.agent/work/<slug>/
  meta.json
  decision.md
  execplan.md

If updating an existing work item, read meta.json, decision.md, and execplan.md if present before writing. Preserve unrelated artifacts and do not rename directories to represent lifecycle state.

Use .agent/active only as a convenience symlink. The authoritative lifecycle state lives in meta.json.

Step 2: Write decision.md

Distill the grill into a provenance-aware decision artifact. Use decision.md singular, even if the user says decisions.md, because downstream ExecPlan skills already prefer that path.

decision.md should contain:

• Objective
• Confirmed user decisions
• Agent-recommended defaults
• Assumptions
• Open questions or user judgments
• Accepted risks and failure modes
• Validation expectations
• Source notes naming the transcript, files, or conversation basis

Do not dump the whole transcript. Keep decisions compact enough that a future agent can recover intent quickly, while preserving whether each item is confirmed, inferred, assumed, or still open.

Step 3: Initialize metadata

Write or update meta.json with:

• stage="decision"
• state="completed"
• timestamps
• artifacts.decision="decision.md"

If the work item came from a parent meta-plan, preserve meta_plan_id and meta_plan_slice_id.

Step 4: Create the ExecPlan

Use the existing $execplan-create protocol on the work item. The resulting plan must live at .agent/work/<slug>/execplan.md and follow .agent/PLANS.md.

The ExecPlan must be self-contained per PLANS.md, but it may cite decision.md as the provenance record. Preserve hard constraints from confirmed decisions, clearly label assumptions and open judgments, and make the validation surface observable.

Step 5: Improve the ExecPlan

Run $execplan-improve up to the requested number of attempts, defaulting to 3. Each pass must be code-grounded. Do not ask for cosmetic rewrites.

After improvement, keep the work item at:

• stage="plan"
• state="completed"
• artifacts.execplan="execplan.md"

Step 6: Invoke Goalcraft

Use $goalcraft with a compact brief that references the work item and tells the goal to execute the ExecPlan lifecycle. Include this execution contract in the Goalcraft input:

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Operate the work item at .agent/work/<slug>. Treat decision.md as the
intent/provenance source and execplan.md as the executable contract governed by
.agent/PLANS.md. Before coding, set meta.json to stage="implementation" and
state="active". Execute execplan.md milestone by milestone. Keep Progress,
Surprises & Discoveries, Decision Log, and Outcomes & Retrospective current.
After each meaningful slice, run the plan's validation or the nearest targeted
check. If evidence changes the path, revise execplan.md before continuing. Do
not mark complete because of elapsed time, budget exhaustion, partial
implementation, or proxy checks alone. Done only after implementation,
validation, and a fresh review-style pass satisfy both decision.md and
execplan.md. If blocked, record the blocker in execplan.md and meta.json,
including what user input or external change would unblock progress.

If the user requested draft-only, planning-only, no-goal mode, or no activation, prepare the Goalcraft-ready objective but do not activate it.

If another unfinished goal already exists, do not silently replace it. Let Goalcraft handle the conflict, and return the validated goal text as the fallback artifact if activation cannot proceed.

Anti-Patterns

• implementing product code during GrillCraft setup
• flattening agent recommendations into confirmed user decisions
• dumping transcript history into decision.md
• creating a meta-plan unless the user explicitly asks for parent/child slices
• forcing all requested improvement passes after execplan-improve says skip
• treating the Goal as the plan instead of a compact execution loop around the work item
• marking the work item implementation-active before Goalcraft actually begins execution