swingerman/disciplined-agentic-engineering/feature-init

feature-init

Create a feature folder for the DAE pipeline — feature.md (the Ready contract), the folder, a branch, and a tracker entry. Checkpoint 1.5.

When to use

Five paths:

• From `discuss` — receives a feature_intake payload in context (park or promote outcome). No interview.
• Standalone — no payload; run the intake interview.
• From a tracker capture — promoting an untriaged row a human added directly to the tracker (no Slug; see Tracker-as-intake in references/tracker.md). Pre-fill intake from the row (its title → title/outcome, Type, any notes); confirm the rest. Reuse the row — don't create a new one (Step 9).
• From a roadmap item — promoting a strategic roadmap item (status planned) into a feature (typically from next's ON THE ROADMAP bucket, or discuss). Pre-fill intake from the item (title, area, notes). Signalled by a roadmap_ref (the item id) passed in — carry it onto feature.md and mark the item in-progress (Step 9). See the roadmap ↔ feature funnel in references/roadmap.md.
• Onboarding intake — invoked by onboard (or directly) to formalize work that already exists in the codebase. The feature folder is reverse-engineered from an existing spec / branch / implementation. Enters at status: in-progress or done, not ready.

Detect from-discuss vs standalone by whether a feature_intake payload is present; a tracker capture is signalled by a slug-less tracker_ref passed in (typically from next); a roadmap promotion is signalled by a roadmap_ref (item id) passed in; onboarding intake is signalled by onboard (or an explicit "formalize existing feature" request).

Not for: brand-new ideas worth exploring first (discuss), or editing an existing feature (feature-edit).

Workflow

Before the steps below, create one TodoWrite todo per workflow step (the full list up front, as a roadmap). After Step 6 creates the feature folder, show the pipeline breadcrumb: run ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/dae_progress.py <feature-dir> and present its output — for a just-initialized feature (no progress.md yet) it renders the pipeline ahead. The breadcrumb is advisory and never blocks. See ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/references/progress-indicator.md.

1. Resolve — resolve the methodology root + manifest via ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/dae_resolve.py (see references/resolving.md). Exit 2 (no manifest) → point to /engineer.onboard.
2. Gather intake — from-discuss: read the payload. From an intent.md (async originator, ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/references/intent.md): read it as the seed, synthesize the required fields from it, and confirm with the human before creating. Standalone: first, project the path (${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/references/choice-points.md) — read the idea, project size + clarity, and present the two funnel decisions as a choice point (recommend one, marked "(Recommended)", alternatives listed, autonomy_level-dialed default), not open questions: (A) front half — unclear/fuzzy/UX-heavy → recommend the prototype-first path (${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/references/two-paths.md): hand to /engineer.prototype "<idea>", which iterates fast and converts to spec on convergence; shape known → spec-first. (B) weight — projected ~1-PR/low-risk → recommend express (XS) (${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/references/express-lane.md), else full DAE; charter-flagged path is never recommended express (safety wins). A feature_intake/handoff may already carry a projected size from discuss — use it, don't re-project. Only when the human takes the spec-first route, interview — required fields one per turn (title, slug, outcome, source_links, status, autonomy_level if status is ready/in-progress/done, scope), optional fields (target, owner, area, relevant_adrs, tags, size, validation_method, assignee) bundled at the end. `validation_method` is a one-line description of how this feature will be validated beyond the default (passing acceptance + unit + mutation); examples: "manual smoke in staging", "canary 5% prod for 24h, watch dashboard X", "feature flag new_checkout, internal users for 1 week". A high autonomy_level should be matched by an explicit non-default validation_method. `assignee` names who executes the next checkpoint — human | local | cloud (default local); it is orthogonal to owner (who is accountable). cloud requests cloud delegation, which the dispatch router still gates per-checkpoint via dae_delegable.py (see references/handoff-dispatch.md). Onboarding intake: reverse-engineer the fields from the existing spec / branch / commits; set status to in-progress or done per how complete the work is.
3. Validate — slug format (kebab-case, lowercase, ASCII, ≤50, leading letter); autonomy_level ∈ manifest.autonomy.allowed_levels and within path overrides; any status other than parked requires autonomy_level; relevant_adrs exist; assignee ∈ {human, local, cloud} if present. Slug collision: if existing feature is parked → offer promote-from-parked (flip status, keep handoffs); if ready/in-progress → redirect to feature-edit; if done → reject.
4. Decomposition check — if scope spans multiple competencies or sounds like several PRs, surface it; user proceeds as one feature or re-invokes per sub-feature with parent_feature set.
5. Allocate number — run ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/dae_feature_number.py <methodology_root> and use the number it prints. Don't scan features/ by hand — the script takes the max NNN across every git worktree (uncommitted folders included) and every local/remote branch, so numbers claimed on unmerged work don't collide. (Two inits running at the same moment can still race.) Onboarding intake exception: inherit the existing number — a feature migrated from a Speckit specs/NNN-slug/ keeps its NNN; do not renumber.
6. Create — features/NNN-<slug>/ with feature.md (per the Foundation Design feature.md schema), empty handoffs/, empty .build/. Add .build/ to .gitignore. Include created: <YYYY-MM-DD> (today) in feature.md frontmatter. dae_handoff.py uses it to decide whether CP7 needs real-app evidence. Include branch: <name> in feature.md frontmatter — the slug for greenfield; the adopted branch for onboarding intake. This is read by ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/dae_branch.py at every later checkpoint's Step 0 to enforce branch hygiene. If a validation_method was provided in the intake, include it in the frontmatter too — downstream skills (plan, consistency-check) consume it. If a `size` was provided, derive `gate_profile: {front, verify}` from the size→profile table in `${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/references/gate-profile.md` and include it in the frontmatter (this is what dials the front/verify human gates); a caller may pass an explicit gate_profile to override the size default. `size: XS` also sets `gate_profile.lane: express` — the one-pass express lane (${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/references/express-lane.md); its downstream is /engineer.express, not the CP2→CP8 chain. If the path is charter-flagged (payments/auth/migration/blast-radius), write charter_flagged: true; dae_diverse.py reads it to give the feature a second-model-family review. Do not derive lane: express for a charter-flagged path or autonomy_level: low — those fall back to the full pipeline even at size: XS (safety wins). If no size was given, omit gate_profile — its absence keeps today's per-checkpoint gating (not auto). If a roadmap_ref was passed in (roadmap promotion), include roadmap_ref: <item-id> in the frontmatter — the back-link from the feature to its strategic roadmap item. Do NOT create progress.md/acs.md/spec.md/plan.md/session-log.md — downstream skills produce those.
7. Branch — auto-create git checkout -b <slug> unless CHARTER.md declares a manual git policy. If the branch already exists (common in onboarding intake — the feature's work is already on a branch) → use it, don't recreate.
8. LSP language note — if the feature touches a language not present in manifest.validation.lsp.servers, surface a one-line note ("this feature is mostly Rust — no LSP server recorded for Rust; LSP-backed lookup will fall back to grep+AST"). Inform-only; never blocks. Skip if manifest.validation.lsp.servers is absent (the project hasn't done the LSP probe yet — onboard's gap-check will catch it).
9. Tracker (+ roadmap) — upsert a TrackedFeature via the driver per references/tracker.md (local = the dae_tracker_local.py no-op; notion = the connected Notion MCP); write the returned ref to feature.md tracker_ref. Promoting a tracker capture: upsert into the existing row (the slug-less tracker_ref passed in) — write the assigned Slug/Status back to it rather than creating a duplicate. Promoting a roadmap item: if a roadmap_ref was passed in, mark that item in-progress with the new slug via the roadmap driver (local = ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/dae_roadmap.py mark <ref> in-progress <slug>; MCP-backed = the connected channel) — the strategic layer now reflects that the feature is underway. See references/roadmap.md.
10. How to drive it — for a ready feature that is not express, render a choice point (${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/references/choice-points.md) with two options. Coordinated: /engineer.run <slug> drives CP2→CP8 and stops only at the front and back gates (${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/references/coordinator.md). Step by step: /engineer.prime-context, then /engineer.discover-acs, with each skill dispatching the next. Recommend coordinated at medium/high autonomy and step by step at low, where every checkpoint gets reviewed anyway. Default on silence follows autonomy_level. Record the pick as the handoff's recommended_next. This only names the next command; it never runs it.
11. Handoff — emit a summary.

Handoff

Emit per ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/references/handoff-summary.md. checkpoint: 1.5; recommended_next: ready → the step-10 pick ("/engineer.run <slug>" or "/engineer.prime-context then /engineer.discover-acs"), except `gate_profile.lane: express` → "/engineer.express" (the one-pass lane); parked → "resume via /engineer.discuss <slug>"; onboarding intake → "/engineer.discover-acs (reverse-engineer mode)".

If folder + feature.md succeed but branch or tracker fails, emit status: interrupted noting what's incomplete.

References

• Foundation Design — feature.md schema, storage layout, naming
• Discuss & Upstream Funnel — the feature_intake contract from discuss
• references/tracker.md — the tracker drivers (local + Notion)
• references/roadmap.md — the roadmap ↔ feature funnel (roadmap_ref back-link, promote)