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Writing Plans

🔵 Stable🕐 updated 2026-10-06 ✅ 5/5 🔷 SkillSpec L3 pm-method

Write an executable work plan BEFORE starting a complex task — decomposed steps with verification points, risks pre-named, and explicit stop conditions — so execution becomes checking boxes instead of improvising. Use when a task will take many steps, when asked to plan before doing, when previous attempts sprawled or stalled, or before delegating work to subagents. Produces a plan document another agent (or future you) could execute without re-deriving the thinking. Pairs with executing-plans.

▶ Run it free — no key needed 📝 Grade your existing draft 📱 Use as an app View SKILL.md ↗ What changed

🗣 Say this to your agent

“Plan this before you start.”“Write a plan with checkpoints for this task.”“Break this into steps before doing anything.”“Write an execution plan with stop conditions.”

✅ The bar it holds itself to

Every skill in this library self-verifies — these are this skill's own quality checks, straight from its definition.

✓The goal is a testable outcome, not an activity
✓Every step has a concrete verification — no "then integrate it"
✓The riskiest unknown is in the first third of the plan
✓Stop conditions exist and include at least one "must not do"
✓Another agent could execute this without asking what you meant

⚠️ What it refuses to do

Do not plan happy-path-first when a hard unknown exists — sequence to kill the plan early if it's killable
Do not write steps without verifications — unverifiable steps are where sprawl enters
Do not bury discoveries — when execution reveals the plan is wrong, revise the PLAN visibly (see executing-plans), don't improvise around it
Do not gold-plate a checklist task into a project plan — ceremony must earn its cost
Do not treat the plan as the deliverable — a beautiful plan for the wrong goal fails the interview-me test; brief first, plan second

Install

npx pm-claude-skills add --agent claude   # or codex · cursor · gemini · hermes
# or one-line MCP (every skill, any client):
claude mcp add pm-skills -- npx -y -p pm-claude-skills pm-claude-skills-mcp

Related skills

🔌 Embed this skill

Drop this on your blog, docs, or site — it renders a "Run this skill" card:

<div data-pm-skill="writing-plans"></div>
<script src="https://mohitagw15856.github.io/pm-claude-skills/embed.js" async></script>

💬 Discussion

Writing Plans is one of 1307 open-source professional AI agent skills — all SkillSpec L3. Try them all in the browser · ⭐ Star on GitHub · Browse the full catalog