Superbuild: Plan Execution Engine

Execute implementation plans one phase at a time with strict quality enforcement, test verification, and conventional commit generation.

Overview

Superbuild is a rigid execution engine for implementation plans. It enforces:

• Phase-by-phase execution (no skipping ahead)
• Definition of Done verification before phase completion
• Test presence and passing verification
• Linter/formatter/typechecker enforcement
• Conventional commit message generation per phase

This is NOT a planning skill. Use superplan to create plans, then superbuild to execute them.

Critical Workflow

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                      SUPERBUILD EXECUTION FLOW                       │
│                     (REPEAT FOR EACH PHASE)                          │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│                                                                     │
│  1. INGEST PLAN    │  User provides plan document path              │
│         ↓          │  NO PLAN = EXIT (ask user, then exit if none)  │
│  2. READ PHASES    │  Output ALL phases with estimates              │
│         ↓          │  IF context high → suggest compact first       │
│  3. EXECUTE PHASE  │  One phase at a time (or parallel if marked)   │
│         ↓          │  USE SUB-AGENTS for parallel phases            │
│  4. ENFORCE DOD    │  Tests exist? Tests pass? Linter? Formatter?   │
│         ↓          │  ALL must pass → continue. ANY fail → STOP     │
│  5. UPDATE PLAN    │  Check off tasks, update status in plan file   │
│         ↓          │  ⚠️  THIS HAPPENS AFTER EVERY PHASE            │
│  6. COMMIT MSG     │  Generate conventional commit (NEVER git ops)  │
│         ↓          │  User handles all git operations               │
│  7. FUNCTIONAL TEST│  Explain how to test. Offer integration script │
│         ↓          │  NEVER auto-create scripts. ALWAYS ask first   │
│  8. STOP           │  Full stop. Suggest compact. Wait for user.    │
│                    │  OVERRIDE: --build-all flag continues          │
│                                                                     │
│  ════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════   │
│  Steps 3-8 repeat for EACH PHASE. Plan updates after EVERY phase.  │
│  ════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════   │
│                                                                     │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Step 1: Ingest Plan

REQUIRED: Plan document must be provided.

I'll help you execute your implementation plan.

Please provide the plan document:
1. Path to plan file (e.g., docs/feature-plan.md)
2. Paste the plan content directly

Which would you prefer?

If no plan provided after asking: EXIT immediately.

I cannot execute without a plan document.

To create a plan, use the `superplan` skill first:
  /superplan

Then come back with the completed plan.

[EXIT - No further action]

NO EXCEPTIONS. Do not improvise. Do not create plans on the fly. Do not proceed without a plan document.

Step 2: Read All Phases

After ingesting the plan:

1. Output all phases with their estimates and dependencies
2. Check context usage – if high, suggest compacting first

PLAN LOADED: [Feature Name]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

| Phase | Name | Est. | Depends On | Parallel With | Status |
|-------|------|------|------------|---------------|--------|
| 0 | Bootstrap | 5 | - | - | ⬜ |
| 1 | Setup | 3 | 0 | - | ⬜ |
| 2A | Backend | 8 | 1 | 2B, 2C | ⬜ |
| 2B | Frontend | 5 | 1 | 2A, 2C | ⬜ |
| 2C | Tests | 3 | 1 | 2A, 2B | ⬜ |
| 3 | Integration | 5 | 2A,2B,2C | - | ⬜ |

Total: 29 points | Parallel phases: 2A, 2B, 2C

⚠️  Context Usage Advisory
If context is high, consider compacting before continuing.
Large plans consume significant context per phase.

Ready to execute Phase 0?

Step 3: Execute Phase

Sequential Phases

Execute one at a time. Do not proceed to next phase until current is COMPLETE.

Parallel Phases

For phases marked “Parallel With”, MUST use sub-agents or parallel Task tool calls.

EXECUTING PARALLEL PHASES: 2A, 2B, 2C
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Launching 3 parallel sub-agents...

[Sub-agent 2A: Backend implementation]
[Sub-agent 2B: Frontend implementation]
[Sub-agent 2C: Test implementation]

Each sub-agent MUST return:
- Implementation status
- Definition of Done checklist status
- Conventional commit message

CRITICAL: Each sub-agent returns its commit message. Main agent MUST bubble up ALL commit messages to user.

Step 4: Enforce Definition of Done

EVERY phase must pass ALL quality gates before completion.

Quality Gate Checklist

DEFINITION OF DONE - Phase [X]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[ ] Tests exist for new code
[ ] All tests pass (new AND existing)
[ ] Linter passes ([detected linter])
[ ] Formatter passes ([detected formatter])
[ ] Type checker passes ([detected checker])
[ ] No new warnings introduced
[ ] Plan document updated (checkboxes, status)  ← BEFORE commit message

Enforcement Rules

STOP means STOP. Do not proceed. Do not offer to fix automatically. Ask user to fix and re-run.

Failure Output Format

When any check fails, output:

⛔ DEFINITION OF DONE FAILED
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Issue: [Missing tests | Tests failing | Linter errors | etc.]
[Details of what failed]
Please fix, then tell me to continue.
[EXECUTION HALTED]

See references/ENFORCEMENT-GUIDE.md for detailed failure message templates and output parsing patterns.

Step 5: Update Plan Document (EVERY PHASE)

⚠️ MANDATORY: This step executes after EVERY phase, not just at the end.

After ALL quality gates pass, BEFORE generating commit message, UPDATE THE PLAN FILE:

1. Check off completed tasks (- [ ] → - [x])
2. Update phase status in overview table (⬜ → ✅)
3. Mark DoD items complete (- [ ] → - [x])

PLAN DOCUMENT UPDATED - Phase [X]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

File: [plan-file-path]

Updates applied:
- Tasks: X/X items checked [x]
- DoD: X/X items checked [x]
- Status: ⬜ → ✅

The plan now reflects Phase [X] completion.

See references/PLAN-UPDATES.md for detailed patterns and error handling.

WHY EVERY PHASE:

• Plan survives context compaction (conversation may not)
• Progress visible to anyone reading the plan
• Enables clean handoff between sessions
• Creates audit trail in git history

DO NOT SKIP THIS STEP. If you find yourself generating a commit message without updating the plan first, STOP and update the plan.

Step 6: Generate Conventional Commit

After Definition of Done passes, generate commit message.

CRITICAL: OUTPUT ONLY. NEVER run git commands.

PHASE [X] COMPLETE - Conventional Commit Message
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

<type>(<scope>): <short summary>

<body - detailed description of changes>

Files changed:
- path/to/file1.ts (CREATE)
- path/to/file2.ts (MODIFY)
- path/to/file3.ts (DELETE)

<footer - issue refs, breaking changes>

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

⚠️  DO NOT COMMIT - Copy this message and run:
    git add . && git commit -m "..."

User handles all git operations.

Commit Types

Git CLI Safe Commit Messages

CRITICAL: Commit messages must be safe for direct use with git commit -m.

AVOID: Double quotes, backticks, dollar signs, exclamation marks, backslashes, hash at line start SAFE: Letters, numbers, spaces, -, _, ., ,, :, (, ), /, '

See references/COMMIT-FORMAT.md for full character table and HEREDOC format for multi-line messages.

Parallel Phase Commits

When parallel phases complete, output ALL commit messages:

PARALLEL PHASES COMPLETE (2A, 2B, 2C)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

PHASE 2A - Commit Message:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
feat(api): implement user authentication endpoints
...

PHASE 2B - Commit Message:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
feat(ui): create login form component
...

PHASE 2C - Commit Message:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
test(auth): add authentication test coverage
...

⚠️  Create separate commits for each phase, or squash as appropriate.
    User handles all git operations.

Step 7: Functional Testing Instructions

After commit message, explain how to functionally test the phase.

FUNCTIONAL TESTING - Phase [X]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

To manually verify this phase works:

1. [Step 1 - e.g., Start the development server]
   $ npm run dev

2. [Step 2 - e.g., Navigate to the feature]
   Open http://localhost:3000/[feature]

3. [Step 3 - e.g., Test the happy path]
   - Fill in [field1] with "test value"
   - Click [button]
   - Verify [expected result]

4. [Step 4 - e.g., Test error handling]
   - Submit empty form
   - Verify error message appears

Expected Results:
- [Result 1]
- [Result 2]

Integration Test Script Offer

ONLY if applicable. ALWAYS ask. NEVER auto-create.

Would you like me to write an integration test script for this phase?

This would:
- Automate the manual verification steps above
- Be saved to scripts/test-phase-[X].sh (or .py)
- Be runnable for regression testing

Options:
1. Yes, write the integration test script
2. No, manual testing is sufficient

[WAIT FOR USER RESPONSE]

If user says yes: Write script to scripts/ directory. If user says no: Continue to Step 8.

Step 8: Stop Execution

FULL STOP after each phase (unless –build-all override).

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
PHASE [X] EXECUTION COMPLETE
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Summary:
- Definition of Done: ✅ All checks passed
- Plan Document: ✅ Updated (tasks and status checked off)
- Conventional Commit: ✅ Generated (user to commit)
- Functional Testing: ✅ Instructions provided

Progress:
| Phase | Status |
|-------|--------|
| 0 | ✅ Complete |
| 1 | ✅ Complete |
| 2A | ⬜ Next |
| 2B | ⬜ Pending |
| 2C | ⬜ Pending |
| 3 | ⬜ Pending |

💡 Context Management Suggestion
Consider compacting the conversation before the next phase
to preserve context for the remaining work.

[EXECUTION PAUSED]

To continue: "Continue to Phase 2A"
To compact first: Use /compact then return with "Resume superbuild"

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Context Compaction Behavior

CRITICAL: If this session resumes after context compaction:

1. Complete ONLY the phase that was in-progress
2. Output the commit message and functional test instructions
3. STOP – Do not auto-continue to next phase
4. Wait for explicit user instruction: “Continue to Phase X”

The todo list showing pending phases is NOT authorization to continue. Only explicit user instruction authorizes next phase execution.

POST-COMPACTION RESUME
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Detected: Session resumed after compaction
Phase in progress: [X]

Completing Phase [X]...
[finish work]

PHASE [X] COMPLETE
[commit message + functional test instructions]

[EXECUTION PAUSED]

Remaining phases: [list]
To continue: "Continue to Phase [Y]"

⚠️  I will NOT auto-continue. Awaiting your instruction.

Build-All Override

ONLY if user explicitly specifies.

⚠️  BUILD-ALL MODE DETECTED
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

You've requested to build the entire plan without stopping.

This is NOT RECOMMENDED because:
- Context may be exhausted mid-build
- Errors compound across phases
- You lose ability to commit incrementally

Are you sure you want to continue?
1. Yes, build all phases (override safety)
2. No, execute phase by phase (recommended)

Rationalizations to Reject

Red Flags – STOP Immediately

If you catch yourself thinking any of these, STOP:

• “This is taking too long, let me skip ahead”
• “The user seems impatient, let me batch phases”
• “Tests can come after the feature works”
• “Linting is just style, not critical”
• “I’ll generate all commit messages at the end”
• “The plan doesn’t explicitly require tests”

All of these = violation of superbuild protocol.

Quality Commands by Stack

See references/ENFORCEMENT-GUIDE.md for stack-specific commands (JS/TS, Python, Go, Rust).

Summary: The Iron Rules

1. No plan = No execution – Exit if plan not provided
2. One phase at a time – Unless parallel phases (use sub-agents)
3. All quality gates must pass – No exceptions
4. Update plan after EVERY phase – Check off tasks, update status
5. Generate commit message – Never run git commands
6. Explain functional testing – Ask before writing scripts
7. Full stop after phase – Unless –build-all override
8. Suggest compact – Context management is critical

Superbuild is rigid by design. The enforcement protects code quality. Do not rationalize around it.