Scalpel Plan

Evaluate existing .plan files and identify gaps. This skill does not implement anything.

Steps

1. Determine the Objective

Check whether $ARGUMENTS was provided.

Arguments	Result
provided	Arguments are the objective. Evaluate plans against them.
absent	No objective. Check existing plans for standards alignment only; skip alignment and gap detection.

2. Load Project Standards

Look for standards and architecture documentation in this order and read every file found:

1. AGENTS.md
2. CLAUDE.md
3. docs/ARCHITECTURE.md, docs/architecture.md, or any file matching docs/arch*

These files define the project's conventions, patterns, and constraints. If none exist, note that no standards were found and proceed without them.

Do not invent standards. Do not apply conventions from outside these files. Only enforce what is explicitly documented.

3. Gather and Normalize Plan Files

find . -name "*.plan" -not -path '*/.git/*' -not -path '*/node_modules/*' | sort

Read every plan file found. Before evaluating, normalize each one silently to the expected format:

Expected format:

---
file: <path to target file>
type: <add | modify | move | delete>
---

## Change

<description>

Normalization rules — apply automatically, no prompt:

• If the frontmatter is missing entirely, wrap the full file content in a ## Change section and infer file from the plan's own path (same directory, same base name, .plan removed). Set type: modify.
• If file is missing from frontmatter, infer it from the plan's path as above.
• If type is missing from frontmatter, set type: modify.
• If the body has no ## Change heading, treat the entire body as the change description and rewrite it under ## Change.
• If the body has a ## Change Description heading instead of ## Change, rename it to ## Change.

Write the normalized content back to the plan file before proceeding. Do not alter the meaning of the content — only fix the structure.

4. Evaluate Plans

Review each plan against the objective (if available) and the project standards (if available):

• Whether the plan's described change is sufficient, incomplete, or misaligned with the objective
• Whether the approach in the plan violates any standard or architectural constraint from step 2 — cite the specific rule when flagging a violation
• Whether any plans conflict with each other

Present findings as a concise list — one line per plan file. If no objective is available, summarize what each plan intends to do.

5. Suggest Missing Plans

If an objective is available or the standards are being violated, identify files that will likely need to change to fulfill the requirements or standards but have no corresponding .plan file. Use the scoped objective (arguments) when present, the standards documents, or use the broader objective. For each gap, name the file and briefly explain why a plan is needed there.

When suggesting what a missing plan should contain, only recommend approaches that are consistent with the standards loaded in step 2. Do not invent patterns.

Create the missing plan files — list them so the user can see what was added.

Rules

• No implementation — do not modify any source files
• Never invent standards — only apply what is explicitly written in the standards files
• When citing a standard violation, quote or reference the specific rule from the source file
• Be specific, brevity is important to not overwhelm the plans with too much information such that a user cannot quickly understand the plan.
• Use Code examples when possible to illustrate the plan, but do not include full implementations.
• Be sure to use Markdown formatting for code snippets, file paths, and filenames to make the plan easy to read.
• When multiple steps are required to implement a plan, break them down into a ordered numbered list for clarity.