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Add architecture guidance and capability-aware escalation#441

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obra merged 4 commits intodevfrom
wip/architecture-guidance
Feb 10, 2026
Merged

Add architecture guidance and capability-aware escalation#441
obra merged 4 commits intodevfrom
wip/architecture-guidance

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@obra obra commented Feb 8, 2026

Summary

  • Add modular design guidance (unit decomposition, clean boundaries, well-defined interfaces) to brainstorming and writing-plans skills
  • Add file size awareness throughout the pipeline — framed as reasoning quality, not hard rules
  • Add capability-aware model selection and structured escalation protocol (DONE/DONE_WITH_CONCERNS/BLOCKED/NEEDS_CONTEXT) to subagent-driven development
  • Add architecture and file size checks to all three review loops (spec, plan, code quality)
  • Brownfield-safe: reviewers focus on what this change contributed, not pre-existing file sizes

Files changed

  • skills/brainstorming/SKILL.md — design for isolation and clarity, working in existing codebases
  • skills/brainstorming/spec-document-reviewer-prompt.md — architecture review criteria
  • skills/writing-plans/SKILL.md — file structure section
  • skills/writing-plans/plan-document-reviewer-prompt.md — file structure and size review criteria
  • skills/subagent-driven-development/SKILL.md — model selection, implementer status handling
  • skills/subagent-driven-development/implementer-prompt.md — code organization, escalation protocol, structured status reporting
  • skills/subagent-driven-development/code-quality-reviewer-prompt.md — decomposition and file growth checks

Design decisions

  • No hard line-count rules — explains WHY smaller files matter (reasoning quality, edit reliability) and lets the model decide
  • Provider-agnostic model tiers — "cheap/standard/most capable" instead of Haiku/Sonnet/Opus
  • Brownfield-safe — "improve what you touch like a good developer would, don't do unrelated refactoring"
  • Reviewer focus on contribution — code quality reviewer checks whether THIS implementation grew files, not pre-existing sizes

Test plan

  • Run brainstorming skill on a greenfield project — verify it asks about unit decomposition
  • Run brainstorming skill on a brownfield project — verify it explores existing patterns before proposing changes
  • Run writing-plans skill — verify File Structure section appears before task definitions
  • Run subagent-driven-development — verify model selection guidance is followed
  • Test implementer escalation — verify BLOCKED/NEEDS_CONTEXT statuses are handled by controller
  • Test code quality reviewer — verify it flags file growth from implementation

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obra added 4 commits February 8, 2026 16:50
…ills

Brainstorming: design-for-isolation guidance and brownfield codebase awareness
Writing-plans: file structure section requiring decomposition before task definition
Implementer prompt: code organization awareness, structured escalation protocol
  (DONE/DONE_WITH_CONCERNS/BLOCKED/NEEDS_CONTEXT), explicit permission to stop
Subagent-driven-development: provider-agnostic model selection tiers, escalation handling
- Define DONE_WITH_CONCERNS handling in SDD controller flow
- Make implementer action explicit when file grows beyond plan intent
- Reword writing-plans file size reasoning (avoid tooling-artifact language)
- Add decomposition awareness to code quality reviewer prompt
Focus on whether this implementation grew or created large files,
not pre-existing file sizes in brownfield codebases.
Spec reviewer now checks for unit decomposition with clear boundaries.
Plan reviewer now checks file structure and whether files will grow
too large to reason about.
@obra obra force-pushed the wip/architecture-guidance branch from c1b7de3 to b051932 Compare February 9, 2026 00:50
@obra obra merged commit a1a1ae5 into dev Feb 10, 2026
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