Guide Execution

Use this skill as the execution-layer entrypoint when you need to decide the next step for one execution slice.

Responsibilities

1. Resolve or initialize the active slice.
2. Verify required files, registry state, and slice metadata.
3. Decide whether work belongs in the planning layer or the slice-scoped execution layer.
4. Route slice-scoped work to brief, blueprint, active repository implementation, review-execution, or close-slice.
5. Update slice readiness status when a phase is complete.

guide-execution owns orchestration and readiness only. It should not absorb artifact authoring that belongs to brief, blueprint, review-execution, or close-slice.

When .skills/execution.json sets auto_start_implementation to true, treat blueprint_ready as an automatic handoff into implementation: once blueprint.md is complete, update the slice through manage_execution.py set-status <slice> blueprint_ready, let the tooling advance the slice to execution_ready, and continue directly into code changes instead of stopping for a second manual handoff.

Entry Decision Guide

Use guide-execution when a slice already exists or you need to decide the next step for execution-layer work.

• If the work is still feature-scoped or story-scoped, send it back to guide-planning.
• If there is one execution-ready work item but no slice-scoped execution slice yet, route to slice after confirming the reviewed planning artifacts were approved and committed.
• If a slice exists or can be resolved, stay in guide-execution and route inside the execution layer.

Workflow Boundary

Typical handoff:

guide-planning -> discover -> design -> ui-flow -> breakdown -> review-planning -> human approval -> commit -> slice -> guide-execution

guide-execution owns slice/document readiness only:

• draft
• brief_ready
• blueprint_ready
• execution_ready
• closed

Do not duplicate day-to-day implementation states like implementing or blocked in the slice registry.

Preflight

1. Resolve .skills/execution.json and the configured slice registry.
2. Resolve the active slice using tooling or a user-provided ID/path.
3. Confirm the slice path represents one execution-ready work item.
4. Check brief.md, blueprint.md, optional legacy slices.md, and .slice-meta.json as appropriate for the current state.
5. Check whether auto_start_implementation is enabled so the blueprint handoff behavior matches repository config.
6. Repair registry inconsistencies before routing deeper into execution.

Tooling

Always use scripts/manage_execution.py in this skill directory for initialization, active-slice resolution, status updates, validation, registry synchronization, and relation management.