schedule-burn Skill | Agent Skills

GOAL Create a Mermaid flowchart implementation plan for delegating a single burn to a sub-agent. The plan must include clear decision points with "exit ramps" - paths where the sub-agent should STOP and report back to the captain rather than attempting to solve unexpected issues on its own.

IMPORTANT: The sub-agent (pilot) does NOT know about orbit, waypoints, or burns. Your diagram must use plain implementation language only. Describe what to do, not which burn it is.

WHEN TO USE

Before delegating a burn to the pilot agent
For any burn that has potential failure modes or requires specific conditions to be met
When you want the sub-agent to abort early if assumptions don't hold

SCOPE CHECK - BEFORE BUILDING THE DIAGRAM

One burn = one narrow behavior slice with 3-8 action steps.

When in doubt, make the burn smaller. A too-small burn has zero cost. A too-large burn causes repeated aborts and wasted cycles.

A burn should do one thing — e.g., extract one piece of shared logic, migrate one caller, add tests for one behavior, or fix one defect — not combinations of these.

If the description uses "and" between independent actions, split it.

Each implementation burn follows TDD: write tests before the code they test, not after. A burn may contain multiple red → green cycles. Tests and the implementation they verify must be in the same burn — never split across separate burns.

MERMAID SYNTAX

flowchart TD
    Start[Start: Brief description of what to implement] --> Step1[First action step]
    Step1 --> Check1{Step 1 successful?}
    Check1 -->|yes| Step2[Second action step]
    Check1 -->|no| Abort1[[ABORT: Report - step 1 failed because X]]
    Step2 --> Check2{Step 2 successful?}
    Check2 -->|yes| Step3[Third action step]
    Check2 -->|no| Abort2[[ABORT: Report - step 2 failed because Y]]
    Step3 --> Check3{Step 3 successful?}
    Check3 -->|yes| End[End: Expected outcome]
    Check3 -->|no| Abort3[[ABORT: Report - step 3 failed because Z]]

NODE SHAPES

Actions/steps: [square brackets]
Decisions/conditions: {curly braces}
ABORT points: [[double brackets]] - sub-agent must stop and report back
End states: [square brackets]

CRITICAL RULES

EVERY action step MUST be followed by a decision diamond with success/failure paths
- BAD: Step1 --> Step2 --> Step3 (no verification)
- GOOD: Step1 --> Check1{OK?} --> Step2 --> Check2{OK?} --> Step3
Every decision diamond has two paths:
- -->|yes| continues to next step
- -->|no| leads to [[ABORT: Report - <specific reason>]]
NO orbit terminology in the diagram (no "burn", "waypoint", "orbit", "trajectory")
- Use plain implementation language: "step", "action", "task"

OUTPUT FORMAT After creating the mermaid diagram, schedule the burn by passing the diagram via stdin using heredoc syntax (do NOT save to a file first):

orbit burn schedule <orbit-id> <waypoint> <description> <instructions> [--context "..."] <<'EOF'

[your diagram]

EOF

Where <description> is a concise summary (1-2 sentences), <instructions> are detailed steps, or a bulleted list for the implementation, and --context should contain e.g. related files, files to create, rationales, background.

Then delegate to the pilot agent with YAML front-matter only:

---
orbit-id: MED-7620
burn-number: 3
---

The pilot will automatically fetch the burn plan and mark it as initiated using orbit burn initiate.

AFTER DELEGATION

When the sub-agent returns:

On success: orbit burn complete
On abort: analyze reason, then orbit burn abort and schedule a corrected burn, or consult user if fundamental

EXAMPLE - Adding an API endpoint

flowchart TD
    Start[Start: Add CSV export endpoint to PatientController] --> S1[Find existing controller and identify endpoint patterns]
    S1 --> C1{Controller found with consistent patterns?}
    C1 -->|yes| S2[Write integration test for GET /patients/export endpoint]
    C1 -->|no| Abort1[[ABORT: Report - controller not found or inconsistent patterns]]
    S2 --> C2{Test written and fails as expected?}
    C2 -->|yes| S3[Implement export endpoint following existing patterns]
    C2 -->|no| Abort2[[ABORT: Report - test does not compile or does not fail as expected]]
    S3 --> C3{Test passes?}
    C3 -->|yes| S4[Run full test suite to verify no regressions]
    C3 -->|no| Abort3[[ABORT: Report - implementation does not make test pass, describe errors]]
    S4 --> C4{All tests pass?}
    C4 -->|yes| End[End: Export endpoint added with passing test]
    C4 -->|no| Abort4[[ABORT: Report - existing tests failing, describe failures]]

Agent Skills: schedule-burn

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