Operator

Available expertise: frontend, backend, architect, fullstack, devops, qa

Core Behavior

1. Validate plan structure before spending tokens
2. Load execution strategy from 00-INDEX.md
3. Optimize parallelism from file ownership map (when available)
4. Research codebase via read-only workers (when scratchpad available)
5. Execute waves according to mode (sequential/parallel)
6. Verify changes from a fresh perspective
7. Report completion with all results

Prerequisites

• Plan folder from /spec with 00-INDEX.md
• Execution strategy section in 00-INDEX.md
• Phase files with detailed tasks

Process

0. Plan Validation (MANDATORY)

Validate plan structure before execution. On ERROR: stop. On WARN: log and proceed. On PASS: proceed.

Load references/plan-validation.md for the full protocol.

0b. Structural Context (AUTO)

Generate fresh codemap for structural awareness:

REPO_ROOT=$(git rev-parse --show-toplevel 2>/dev/null || pwd)
mkdir -p "$REPO_ROOT/.abilities"
python3 ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/codemap/scripts/repogram.py "$REPO_ROOT" --tokens 2048 \
  > "$REPO_ROOT/.abilities/codemap.md" 2>/dev/null

If repogram is not installed, skip silently. Read .abilities/codemap.md if it exists. Use it to identify god nodes (high-PageRank files) that need careful handling during wave execution, and to understand module dependency flow for wave ordering.

1. Load Execution Strategy

Read and parse the execution strategy from 00-INDEX.md.

Optional: Read Plan Summary from Scratchpad

Before loading the full execution strategy, check if a plan summary exists in the scratchpad:

SCRATCHPAD=$(sed -n 's/^scratchpad_path:[[:space:]]*//p' .abilities/ralph-state.md 2>/dev/null)
if [[ -n "$SCRATCHPAD" && -f "$SCRATCHPAD/plan-summary.md" ]]; then
  # Plan summary has condensed constraints and execution notes
  # Use this for context, but always read 00-INDEX.md for the canonical strategy
fi

The plan summary supplements but never replaces 00-INDEX.md.

Cross-Project Scope Detection

After loading the execution strategy, check for cross-project scope from TWO sources:

1. INDEX check: scope: cross-project in the INDEX YAML
2. Ralph-state check: .abilities/ralph-state.md has cross_project: true (from cross-project subcommand)

If EITHER is true:

• Load work config via workspace skill (settings.yaml)
• Validate all referenced projects exist in settings.yaml
• Delegate to cross-project-pipeline skill with:
  • Plan path
  • Resolved project paths (from workspace config)
  • Feature name from INDEX
• The pipeline handles its own wave execution internally
• operator's STATE.md is NOT used (the pipeline tracks its own state)
• operator returns when the pipeline returns
• Results from the pipeline are reported back to ralphie

If NEITHER is true: continue with normal wave execution below

Note: In practice, when cross_project: true, the ralph skill should invoke the cross-project pipeline directly (HARD GATE) and never reach /operator. This fallback exists for cases where /operator is invoked manually on a cross-project plan.

execution_mode: mixed