Theory is the artifact
Writing a gameplan is a process of collaboration with an
LLM; not a prompt to be one-shotted.
Using the /write-gameplan prompt, the engineer
works with the model to hammer out a concrete shared
understanding of the work to be done and how to do it.
This is the opportunity to eliminate open questions and
ambiguity. The engineer walks away with a solid
understanding of the solution, at an appropriate
(architectural) level of abstraction. And the gameplan
contains enough detail for a fleet of agents to execute it
independently.
Structure for parallelism
Armed with a concrete understanding of the work to be done,
the LLM can break it up into a set of well-defined patches,
each with its own changes, each making a single
well-formed commit.
The LLM will analyze the patches for dependency, and
include a dependency graph within the gameplan. This will
describe the set of patches that can be executed
independently at any point in time.
Structure for mergeability
Let us define mergeability as the ability of a
patch to be merged without human review.
Organize patches to front-load and separate out the most
mergeable code.
Ensure that patches requiring human review
contain minimal noise and maximal context.
Structure for correctness
In addition to the workstream
specification, the LLM will construct type-checked,
model-checked Pantagruel
specifications for the gameplan and for each patch.
Coding agents and reviewers alike can use these as unambiguous
specifications of implementation correctness.