Plot Idea

The entire skill is small-model capable except the soft duplicate warning (title similarity in step 2).

User interaction: Use AskUserQuestion (Claude Code) / ask_question (Cursor) for all questions, proposals, and confirmations.

1. Parse Input

If $ARGUMENTS is empty or missing:

• Look at the conversation context for clues about what the user wants to plan
• If obvious, propose: "It looks like you want to plan <slug>: <title>. Shall I proceed?"
• Otherwise ask: "What's the idea? Usage: /plot-idea <slug>: <title>"

Extract slug and title from $ARGUMENTS:

• Everything before the first : is the slug (trimmed)
• Everything after is the title (trimmed)
• If no : found, treat the entire input as the slug and ask for a title
• Slug must match [a-z0-9-]+ (lowercase letters, digits, hyphens only). If it doesn't, ask the user to fix it rather than silently normalizing

Batch Mode

If the user provides multiple slugs (comma-separated or as a list), or asks to create multiple plans "in batch" or "together":

1. Parse each <slug>: <title> pair
2. Create a single branch: idea/batch-<first-slug> (or a name the user provides)
3. Create all plan files on that branch, each with its own file and active symlink
4. Create a single PR titled "Plan: <title1>, <title2>, ..."

The plans are still independent after approval — /plot-approve processes each slug separately.

Detection: Multiple : entries in $ARGUMENTS, words like "batch"/"together"/"all at once" in conversation context, or an explicit list of slugs.

2. Pre-flight Checks

• Warn if working tree has uncommitted changes (offer to stash)
• Verify gh auth status has project scope
• Check that branch idea/<slug> does not already exist (if it does, ask whether to check it out or pick a new name)
• Duplicate detection:
  • ls docs/plans/active/ 2>/dev/null + gh pr list --json headRefName --jq '.[].headRefName' | grep '^idea/' to find existing plans and idea branches
  • Hard gate: if a plan with the identical slug already exists (file or branch), stop and ask the user to pick a different name
  • Soft warning: if any existing plan title shares 3+ significant words with the proposed title, warn the user and ask to confirm this is intentionally separate work (only check Draft/Approved plans, not Delivered ones)

Smaller models: Skip the title similarity check. Enforce the hard gate (identical slug) only. Ask the user: "Could not check for similar plan titles. Please verify manually that this doesn't overlap with existing plans."

3. Create Branch

Create a new branch from origin/main — this is worktree-safe (does not check out main):

git fetch origin main
git checkout -b idea/<slug> origin/main

4. Create Plan File

CREATE_DATE=$(date -u +%Y-%m-%d)

Write docs/plans/${CREATE_DATE}-<slug>.md using the template from skills/plot/templates/plan.md, substituting <title> and <slug>.

Ask the user what Type to use, presenting this reference:

Always ask — don't infer from the title.

5. Create Active Symlink and Commit

mkdir -p docs/plans/active docs/plans/delivered
ln -s ../${CREATE_DATE}-<slug>.md docs/plans/active/<slug>.md
git add docs/plans/${CREATE_DATE}-<slug>.md docs/plans/active/<slug>.md
git commit -m "plot: <title>"
git push -u origin idea/<slug>

6. Create PR

Create a draft PR (plan is still being written/refined):

gh pr create \
  --draft \
  --title "Plan: <title>" \
  --body "$(cat <<'EOF'
## Plan

See [`docs/plans/${CREATE_DATE}-<slug>.md`](../blob/idea/<slug>/docs/plans/${CREATE_DATE}-<slug>.md) on this branch.

Refine the plan, then mark ready for review with `gh pr ready`. Once reviewed, run `/plot-approve <slug>` to merge and start implementation.

---
*Created with `/plot-idea`*
EOF
)"

7. Update Board Status

If ## Plot Config includes a project board (owner/number), update the plan PR status:

../plot/scripts/plot-update-board.sh <pr-url> "Planning" <owner> <number>

If no project board is configured, skip this step.

8. Summary

Print:

• Branch: idea/<slug>
• Plan file: docs/plans/<CREATE_DATE>-<slug>.md
• Active index: docs/plans/active/<slug>.md (symlink)
• PR URL (draft)
• Progress: [x] Draft > [ ] Approved > [ ] Delivered > [ ] Released
• Suggested next actions:
  1. Refine the plan (especially Branches and Design sections)
  2. When ready for review: gh pr ready <number>
  3. After review: /plot-approve <slug>
  • Alternative: add to a sprint with /plot-sprint <sprint> then add [<slug>] as an item