Writing Plans

Structure

A good plan has:

1. Goal — what are we building and why
2. Constraints — technical limitations, dependencies, requirements
3. Tasks — ordered, independent, testable units of work
4. Task block — machine-parseable task list for automation

Task Block Format

Include a

superteam-tasks

fenced block for automated task tracking:

```superteam-tasks
- title: Create data models
  description: Define TypeScript types and validation for User and Post entities
  files: [src/models/user.ts, src/models/post.ts]
- title: Implement API endpoints
  description: REST endpoints for CRUD operations on User and Post
  files: [src/routes/users.ts, src/routes/posts.ts]
- title: Add authentication middleware
  description: JWT validation middleware for protected routes
  files: [src/middleware/auth.ts]
```

Task Properties

• title: Short, action-oriented (verb + noun)
• description: What to implement and any key decisions
• files: Expected files to create or modify

Task Guidelines

Good Tasks

• ✅ "Create user model with email validation" — clear, testable, small
• ✅ "Add JWT authentication middleware" — focused, independent
• ✅ "Implement pagination for list endpoints" — specific feature

Bad Tasks

• ❌ "Set up the project" — too vague
• ❌ "Implement the entire backend" — too large
• ❌ "Fix bugs" — not specific enough

Task Ordering

1. Data models and types first (foundation)
2. Core business logic (depends on models)
3. API/UI layer (depends on business logic)
4. Integration and cross-cutting concerns (auth, logging, etc.)
5. Polish and optimization (last)

Size Guidelines

• Ideal task: 1-3 files, 50-200 lines of code + tests
• Too small: Renaming a variable (just do it)
• Too large: "Implement the auth system" (break into subtasks)
• Splitting rule: If you can't describe it in one sentence, split it