PR Plan Skill

Strategic planning for open source contributions.

Overview

Create a contribution plan that bridges research and implementation. Takes $pr-research output and produces an actionable plan.

Output: .agents/plans/YYYY-MM-DD-pr-plan-{repo-slug}.md

When to Use:

• After completing $pr-research
• Planning contribution strategy
• Before starting implementation

When NOT to Use:

• Haven't researched the repo yet
• Trivial contributions (fix typos)
• Internal project planning (use $plan)

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Workflow

0.  Input Discovery     -> Find/load pr-research artifact
1.  Scope Definition    -> What exactly to contribute
2.  Target Selection    -> Which issues/areas to address
3.  Criteria Definition -> Acceptance criteria from research
4.  Risk Assessment     -> What could go wrong
5.  Strategy Formation  -> Implementation approach
6.  Output              -> Write plan artifact

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Phase 1: Scope Definition

Scope Questions

Question	Why It Matters
What specific functionality?	Clear deliverable
Which files/packages?	Limits impact surface
What's explicitly out of scope?	Prevents scope creep
Single PR or series?	Sets expectations

Scope Template

## Scope

**Contribution**: [1-2 sentences describing the change]

**Affected Areas**:
- `path/to/file.go` - [what changes]

**Out of Scope**:
- [Related but excluded work]

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Phase 3: Acceptance Criteria

Define success from maintainer perspective:

## Acceptance Criteria

### Code Quality
- [ ] Follows project coding style
- [ ] Passes existing tests
- [ ] Adds tests for new functionality
- [ ] No linting warnings

### PR Requirements
- [ ] Title follows convention
- [ ] Body uses project template
- [ ] Size within acceptable range
- [ ] Single logical change

### Project-Specific
- [ ] [Any project-specific requirements from research]

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Phase 4: Risk Assessment

Risk	Likelihood	Impact	Mitigation
PR review takes > 2 weeks	Medium	Medium	Start small, be responsive
Scope expands during review	Medium	High	Define scope clearly upfront
Breaking change discovered	Low	High	Test against multiple versions

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Phase 5: Implementation Strategy

## Implementation Strategy

### Approach

1. **Setup**: Fork repo, configure dev environment
2. **Understand**: Read existing code in affected area
3. **Implement**: Make changes following project patterns
4. **Test**: Run existing tests + add new tests
5. **Document**: Update any affected documentation
6. **Submit**: Create PR following project conventions

### Pre-Implementation Checklist

- [ ] Fork created and up-to-date with upstream
- [ ] Dev environment working
- [ ] Issue claimed or comment posted
- [ ] Recent repo activity reviewed

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Output Template

Write to .agents/plans/YYYY-MM-DD-pr-plan-{repo-slug}.md

# PR Plan: {repo-name}

## Executive Summary
{2-3 sentences: what you're contributing, why, expected outcome}

## Scope
**Contribution**: {description}
**Affected Areas**: [list]
**Out of Scope**: [list]

## Target
**Primary Issue**: #{N} - {title}

## Acceptance Criteria
[checklist]

## Risk Assessment
[table]

## Implementation Strategy
[numbered steps]

## Next Steps
1. Claim/comment on target issue
2. Fork and set up development environment
3. Implement following strategy
4. Run `$pr-prep` when ready

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Workflow Integration

$pr-research <repo> -> $pr-plan <research> -> implement -> $pr-prep

Examples

Plan a Focused External Contribution

User says: "Create a contribution plan from my PR research artifact."

What happens:

1. Extract accepted conventions and constraints.
2. Define scope boundaries and acceptance criteria.
3. Produce an implementation strategy with risks.

Tighten Scope Before Coding

User says: "Check if this PR plan is too large for one submission."

What happens:

1. Compare proposed changes to historical PR size patterns.
2. Split oversized scope into phased contributions.
3. Emit a revised plan and next-step checklist.

Troubleshooting

Problem	Cause	Solution
Plan has vague acceptance criteria	Criteria not measurable	Convert criteria to concrete behavioral checks
Scope too broad	Multiple concerns mixed	Split by user-visible change or subsystem boundary
Risk section is weak	Missing failure-mode analysis	Add integration, review, and rollback risks explicitly
Plan conflicts with repo norms	Research artifact incomplete	Re-run $pr-research and refresh constraints