docs(specs): SDD plan-scoped workspace design

The .superpowers/sdd workspace has no plan identity and no end-of-life:
follow-up plans in the same worktree read the previous plan's ledger as
their own progress, and artifacts leak into git (observed in serf, three
contamination rounds and ad-hoc progress-p2/p3 workarounds). Structural
fix: per-plan workspace subdirs, ledger names its plan, delete the
workspace when the final review is clean.
This commit is contained in:
Jesse Vincent
2026-07-06 11:06:10 -07:00
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# SDD plan-scoped workspace — design
- **Date:** 2026-07-06
- **Status:** approved direction (Jesse, 2026-07-06); this spec captures the investigation's recommended fix
- **Problem owner:** subagent-driven-development skill (`skills/subagent-driven-development/`)
## Problem
SDD's durable-progress workspace (`.superpowers/sdd/`, introduced v6.0.0/v6.0.3) has
no plan identity and no end-of-life. Every artifact is keyed by bare task number
(`progress.md`, `task-N-brief.md`, `task-N-report.md`), and SKILL.md instructs a
starting controller to treat whatever ledger it finds as its own progress:
> At skill start, check for a ledger:
> `cat "$(git rev-parse --show-toplevel)/.superpowers/sdd/progress.md"`. Tasks listed there
> as complete are DONE — do not re-dispatch them; resume at the first task
> not marked complete.
A fresh session executing a **follow-up plan** in the same worktree reads the
previous plan's ledger as its own. A straight-line reading of the skill tells it
to skip tasks. Nothing ever deletes the workspace, so the stale state persists
indefinitely and accumulates.
### Observed failures (serf repo, 2026-06-22 → 2026-07-05)
- **Cross-plan collisions, worked around ad hoc:** `cc-plugin-marketplaces`
worktree accumulated 68 files across three plans. The P2 controller had to
invent `progress-p2.md` and `p2-task-N-report.md` to dodge P1's ledger; P2's
briefs silently overwrote P1's at the default paths; an abandoned
`progress-p3.md` stub remains.
- **Git contamination, three times over:** SDD scratch was committed and needed
two cleanup commits (`8305e340d`, `c966261a5`); three artifacts are tracked on
serf main today, including a report authored on a different machine that now
materializes in every fresh worktree. A follow-up plan's task-1 report
overwrote an unrelated tracked one, leaving permanent `git status` noise.
- The self-ignoring `.gitignore` is written only when a script runs. Controllers
that hand-append the ledger (observed) never create it, and gitignore is
powerless once a file is tracked.
### Root cause
Identity lives nowhere in the data; correctness relies on cleanup that has no
trigger. Any fix that relies on end-of-plan cleanup alone fails exactly in the
crash/compaction cases the ledger exists to survive. Identity must be
structural.
## Design
### 1. Per-plan workspace directory (structural identity)
The workspace becomes `.superpowers/sdd/<plan-slug>/`, where `<plan-slug>` is
the plan file's basename without its `.md` extension (plan filenames are
already dated kebab-case, e.g. `2026-07-04-plugin-marketplaces-p1-backend-core`).
Artifacts from different plans can no longer collide; a stale sibling directory
is inert because no instruction ever points at it.
Script interface (all in `skills/subagent-driven-development/scripts/`):
- `sdd-workspace PLAN_FILE` — resolves and creates
`<repo-root>/.superpowers/sdd/<plan-slug>/`, maintains the self-ignoring
`.gitignore` at `.superpowers/sdd/.gitignore` (parent level, content `*`),
prints the plan directory's absolute path. Errors (exit 2) on missing
argument or nonexistent plan file. Slug must be non-empty after stripping.
- `task-brief PLAN_FILE N [OUTFILE]` — signature unchanged; default OUTFILE
moves to `<workspace>/task-N-brief.md` via `sdd-workspace PLAN_FILE`.
- `review-package PLAN_FILE BASE HEAD [OUTFILE]` — gains PLAN_FILE as first
argument; default OUTFILE moves to `<workspace>/review-<base7>..<head7>.diff`.
No compatibility path for the old flat layout: the scripts and SKILL.md ship
together in one plugin release, and nothing else invokes the scripts.
(Explicitly confirmed: no backward-compatibility handling.)
### 2. Ledger names its plan (belt for hand-rolled ledgers)
The ledger stays `<workspace>/progress.md`. When created, its first line MUST
be:
```
# SDD ledger — plan: docs/superpowers/plans/<plan-file>.md
```
SKILL.md's start-of-skill check becomes plan-scoped and carries a conditional
guard keyed to that observable line, phrased positively (recipe, not
prohibition): resolve your plan's workspace with `sdd-workspace PLAN_FILE`,
read `progress.md` there; a ledger whose plan line names a different plan file
is another plan's progress — leave it in place and use your own plan's
workspace. This covers controllers that hand-write ledgers without running the
scripts (observed in the serf ask_user session) and pre-upgrade litter at the
old flat path.
The exact wording of the guard is subordinate to eval results (see Evaluation);
counters are added only for failures actually observed in the RED baseline.
### 3. Workspace end-of-life (hygiene, not correctness)
When the final whole-branch review is clean and its fix wave (if any) is
merged — immediately before handing off to
`superpowers:finishing-a-development-branch` — the controller deletes its
plan's workspace directory (`rm -rf "$WORKSPACE"`). The record of the work is
the git history; the ledger's job (mid-plan compaction recovery) is over.
Sibling directories are never touched: crashed or parallel plans own their own
dirs, and deliberately parked cross-plan artifacts (observed pattern:
`WAVE1-HANDOFF.md`) live directly under `.superpowers/sdd/` untouched by any
plan's cleanup.
### 4. SKILL.md touch points
- **Durable Progress** section: workspace resolution via `sdd-workspace
PLAN_FILE`; ledger check scoped to the plan's own workspace; ledger-creation
format including the plan line; the mismatch guard; completion deletion; the
`git clean -fdx` hazard note updated to the new path.
- **Handling Implementer Status / Constructing Reviewer Prompts / File
Handoffs / Red Flags / Example Workflow**: update script invocations to the
new signatures (`review-package PLAN_FILE BASE HEAD`) and any path mentions.
`implementer-prompt.md` and `task-reviewer-prompt.md` contain no workspace
paths (verified) and need no changes.
- Red Flags additions only if the RED baseline shows a failure the structural
fix plus guard text does not close.
## Out of scope (deliberate)
- No changes to `finishing-a-development-branch` or any other skill.
- No git-level guards against committing `.superpowers/` beyond the existing
parent `.gitignore`.
- No retroactive cleanup of the serf repo (separate follow-up).
- No legacy-layout migration or fallback reads.
## Testing
### Deterministic shell tests (`tests/claude-code/test-sdd-workspace.sh`, extended)
- `sdd-workspace PLAN` prints `<root>/.superpowers/sdd/<slug>` and creates it;
errors without a plan arg; errors on missing plan file.
- Two different plan files resolve to two distinct directories; artifacts
written via `task-brief` land in their own plan's directory.
- `review-package PLAN BASE HEAD` writes under the plan's directory.
- Parent `.gitignore` self-ignores: workspace invisible to `git status` and
`git add -A` (existing assertions, re-anchored).
- Linked-worktree distinctness (existing assertion, re-anchored).
- Existing suites `test-subagent-driven-development.sh` /
`-integration.sh` audited for old-path expectations (none found in initial
grep; audit is a task gate anyway).
### Evaluation (writing-skills RED → GREEN, the "basic eval")
Pressure scenarios run as fresh subagent sessions against a fixture repo in a
temp directory (never inside this worktree). Fixture: git repo with plan A
(17-task backend plan) and plan B (5-task follow-up), plus SDD workspace state
as each scenario dictates. The agent under test is pointed at a specific
SKILL.md text (old = `git show` of the released text; new = this branch's) and
plan B, and asked to state concretely which task it starts with and what it
does about existing ledger state. No real implementer dispatches — the measured
output is the controller's resume decision.
- **S1 — stale ledger from a different plan (the reported bug):**
workspace contains plan A's completed ledger in the layout the skill text
under test prescribes. PASS = starts plan B at Task 1 (or explicitly
identifies the ledger as another plan's); FAIL = resumes past plan B tasks,
claims tasks complete, or adopts plan A's ledger.
- **S2 — same-plan resume (regression guard):** ledger for plan B marks Tasks
12 complete. PASS = resumes at Task 3 without re-dispatching 12. This
protects the ledger's original purpose; the fix must not break it.
Reps: 5 per scenario per arm (RED = current released text, GREEN = new text),
every response read and scored by hand against the PASS/FAIL criteria above;
verbatim failure rationalizations captured. Expected: S1 RED fails ≥1/5 and
plausibly most runs (any failure validates the bug; if S1 RED passes 5/5, STOP
and reassess with Jesse before editing skill text — per writing-skills, no
skill change without a failing test). S1 GREEN and S2 both arms must pass 5/5.
Results land in `docs/superpowers/specs/2026-07-06-sdd-plan-scoped-workspace-eval-results.md`
and are summarized in the PR.
## Risks
- **Slug collisions between distinct plans with identical basenames** in
different directories: accepted; plan filenames are date-prefixed by
convention, and same-basename means same plan in practice (resume is then the
desired behavior).
- **Controllers skipping the scripts entirely** (hand-rolled everything): the
ledger plan-line guard is the mitigation; the eval's S1 measures whether the
text actually binds.
- **Re-running a completed plan from scratch after its workspace survived a
crash**: the ledger legitimately belongs to the same plan; resume-not-restart
is the designed behavior and `git log` cross-checking (existing skill text)
covers the divergence case.