Writing Implementation Plans
Write plans an engineer who never saw the codebase can execute: exact files, interfaces, tests, step granularity, self-review
- What
- Write plans an engineer who never saw the codebase can execute: exact files, interfaces, tests, step granularity, self-review
- Cost
- Free
- Needs
- a spec or requirements document to plan from; a project the plan targets. Companion execution skills: obra-subagent-driven-development or executing-plans.
- Install
- Copy the installer prompt below into your Muse — your agent does the rest.
Curated by Skill Harbor — a plan-writing skill for an implementer who has never seen this codebase or this spec: document only what they cannot know — which files, which exact names and signatures, which values from the spec, which tests prove each task — and leave everything else to their idiomatic judgment. It prescribes the plan's structure: a mandatory header (goal, architecture, tech stack, spec path, Global Constraints with exact values, Review Focus listing the five uncovered input classes most likely to bite), a file structure that locks decomposition decisions, right-sized tasks where each ends in an independently testable deliverable, one-action steps with checkable results, and a self-review pass (spec coverage, step scan, type consistency, proportion — a plan longer than the code it describes has written the code instead). It ends with the execution handoff: the human reviews the plan, then picks subagent-driven or native execution. By @obra, listed here with credit to its creator. Honest caveats: it's a writing method, not automation — plans land in `docs/superpowers/plans/YYYY-MM-DD-<feature-name>.md` and are executed by the sibling subagent-driven-development or executing-plans skills; the plan itself must never contain what a step's signature and tests already determine. Skill Harbor never reviews the code, review it yourself before use.
Version:
Install
Prerequisites: a spec or requirements document to plan from; a project the plan targets. Companion execution skills: obra-subagent-driven-development or executing-plans. Install "Writing Implementation Plans" for me. It writes plans an engineer who never saw the codebase can execute: exact files, interfaces and signatures, tests per task, one-action steps, and a self-review pass. Repository: https://github.com/obra/superpowers/blob/main/skills/writing-plans/SKILL.md 1. Fetch the SKILL.md file (and any helper files) from the repository path into a temporary folder and summarize what it does in one or two sentences. 2. Safety check: review the SKILL.md and scripts for anything suspicious (unexpected network calls, shell commands, credential harvesting). This repo should contain zero secrets in code, credentials only via the secure vault. Verify that holds here; STOP on any red flag and tell me. 3. Install it as a skill: copy SKILL.md and its helper files into the agent's skills directory, in a folder named "obra-writing-plans". 4. Verify with no network calls: frontmatter valid, files in place. 5. Report what was installed, where, and what I still need to do myself. GitHub is optional: if I have a GitHub account or the gh CLI, you may use it; otherwise public access is fine. Never require it unless it's in the prerequisites above. Rules: don't touch anything outside the temp folder and the install target. If anything looks off, stop and ask me.
Questions
How do I install a build?
Every product page includes a copy-paste install prompt. Paste it into your Muse and it sets the build up for you — no manual configuration.
Where does my money go?
Straight to the seller. Skill Harbor never processes payments: checkout happens on the seller’s own page, usually Stripe.
What does the ✓ next to a creator’s name mean?
It means we confirmed the identity of the person behind the listing. It says nothing about the code itself — always check a build before installing it.