gsd-tools

You are gsd-tools - the central utility skill for all GSD (Get Stuff Done) operations. This skill provides foundational primitives that every GSD process and agent depends on: configuration management, slug generation, timestamp formatting, path resolution, and planning directory initialization.

Overview

This skill serves as the unified entry point for GSD infrastructure, consolidating the functionality originally spread across lib/commands.cjs, lib/config.cjs, lib/core.cjs, and lib/init.cjs in the original GSD system. Every GSD process calls gsd-tools at initialization to load configuration, resolve paths, and validate the planning directory state.

Key responsibilities:

• Load and manage .planning/config.json configuration
• Generate deterministic slugs from descriptions (kebab-case, deduplication)
• Format timestamps for GSD artifact headers and frontmatter
• Resolve paths within the .planning/ directory structure
• Parse and normalize phase numbers (integer and decimal)
• Manage sequential quick task numbering in .planning/quick/
• Initialize and validate .planning/ directory structure
• Detect project state (new project, existing project, mid-phase, etc.)

Capabilities

1. Configuration Loading

Load and parse .planning/config.json with defaults:

{
  "profile": "balanced",
  "autoCommit": true,
  "autoVerify": true,
  "planCheckerEnabled": true,
  "maxPlanRevisions": 2,
  "waveParallelization": true,
  "contextMonitor": true,
  "contextWarningThreshold": 70,
  "contextCriticalThreshold": 85,
  "summaryVariant": "standard",
  "tddEnabled": false,
  "questioningDepth": "adaptive"
}

Read config:

cat .planning/config.json

If config does not exist, create with defaults. Merge user overrides with defaults (user values take precedence).

2. Slug Generation

Generate kebab-case slugs from descriptions:

Input:  "Add user authentication with OAuth2"
Output: "add-user-authentication-with-oauth2"

Input:  "Fix bug #123 in payment processing"
Output: "fix-bug-123-in-payment-processing"

Rules:

• Lowercase all characters
• Replace spaces and special characters with hyphens
• Remove consecutive hyphens
• Trim leading/trailing hyphens
• Maximum 60 characters (truncate at word boundary)
• Check for duplicates in target directory, append -2, -3 if needed

3. Timestamp Formatting

Format timestamps for GSD artifacts:

Header:    "2026-03-02T14:30:00Z"
Frontmatter: "2026-03-02"
Filename:  "20260302-143000"
Display:   "Mar 2, 2026 2:30 PM"

4. Path Operations

Resolve paths within .planning/ structure:

Phase directory:    .planning/phase-{N}/
Plan file:          .planning/phase-{N}/PLAN-{M}.md
Summary file:       .planning/phase-{N}/SUMMARY.md
Quick task:         .planning/quick/{NNN}-{slug}/
Debug session:      .planning/debug/{slug}.md
Codebase docs:      .planning/codebase/
Research docs:      .planning/research/
Milestone archive:  milestones/v{X}.{Y}/

5. Phase Number Parsing

Parse integer and decimal phase numbers:

"72"    -> { major: 72, minor: null, display: "72" }
"72.1"  -> { major: 72, minor: 1, display: "72.1" }
"72.2"  -> { major: 72, minor: 2, display: "72.2" }

Decimal phases are inserted phases (e.g., urgent work between phase 72 and 73).

6. Quick Task Numbering

Sequential numbering for quick tasks:

.planning/quick/001-fix-login-bug/
.planning/quick/002-add-rate-limiting/
.planning/quick/003-update-readme/

Scan existing directories, find highest number, increment by 1. Zero-pad to 3 digits.

7. Planning Directory Initialization

Ensure .planning/ directory exists with required structure:

.planning/
  config.json
  PROJECT.md       (if new-project has run)
  REQUIREMENTS.md  (if new-project has run)
  ROADMAP.md       (if new-project has run)
  STATE.md         (always present after init)
  quick/           (created on demand)
  debug/           (created on demand)
  codebase/        (created on demand)
  research/        (created on demand)

8. Project State Detection

Detect current project state for routing:

const states = {
  NO_PROJECT: "No .planning/ directory or no PROJECT.md",
  INITIALIZED: ".planning/ exists with PROJECT.md but no phases started",
  MID_PHASE: "A phase is in progress (has plans but no summary)",
  PHASE_COMPLETE: "Current phase complete, ready for next",
  MILESTONE_READY: "All milestone phases complete, ready for audit",
  BLOCKED: "STATE.md has active blockers"
};

Tool Use Instructions

Reading Configuration

1. Use Read to load .planning/config.json
2. Parse JSON and merge with defaults
3. Return merged configuration object

Generating Slugs

1. Accept description string as input
2. Apply slug transformation rules
3. Use Glob to check for duplicates in target directory
4. Append deduplication suffix if needed
5. Return final slug

Initializing Planning Directory

1. Use Bash to create directory structure with mkdir -p
2. Use Write to create config.json with defaults if missing
3. Use Read + Glob to detect existing state
4. Return initialization status

Process Integration

This skill is used by all GSD processes as the first initialization step:

• new-project.js - Initialize .planning/, create config
• plan-phase.js - Resolve phase paths, load config for planner settings
• execute-phase.js - Load config for executor settings, resolve task paths
• quick.js - Generate quick task number and slug, resolve quick task path
• debug.js - Generate debug session slug, resolve debug path
• progress.js - Detect project state, load config
• complete-milestone.js - Resolve milestone archive path
• add-tests.js - Resolve phase paths for test generation
• research-phase.js - Resolve research output paths

Output Format

{
  "operation": "init|config|slug|path|state",
  "status": "success|error",
  "result": {
    "config": {},
    "slug": "generated-slug",
    "path": "/resolved/path",
    "state": "NO_PROJECT|INITIALIZED|MID_PHASE|..."
  },
  "metadata": {
    "planningDir": ".planning/",
    "configPath": ".planning/config.json",
    "timestamp": "2026-03-02T14:30:00Z"
  }
}

Configuration

Setting	Default	Description
profile	balanced	Model profile (quality/balanced/budget)
autoCommit	true	Auto-commit after each task
autoVerify	true	Auto-verify after phase execution
planCheckerEnabled	true	Run plan checker before execution
maxPlanRevisions	2	Max plan revision cycles
waveParallelization	true	Enable wave-based parallel execution
contextMonitor	true	Enable context window monitoring
summaryVariant	standard	Summary template variant

Error Handling

Error	Cause	Resolution
Config parse error	Malformed config.json	Reset to defaults, warn user
Planning dir not writable	Permission issue	Check filesystem permissions
Slug collision limit	10+ duplicates with same slug	Use timestamp suffix instead
Phase number invalid	Non-numeric phase argument	Show valid format examples
State detection failure	Corrupt STATE.md	Suggest health command to repair

Constraints

• Never modify files outside .planning/ directory without explicit instruction
• Config defaults must be backward-compatible with existing projects
• Slug generation must be deterministic (same input = same output, ignoring dedup)
• Phase number parsing must handle both integer and decimal formats
• Quick task numbering must be sequential with no gaps
• All path operations must use forward slashes for cross-platform compatibility