sdd-plan
Plan-first development methodology that creates detailed specifications before coding. Use when building features, refactoring code, or implementing complex changes. Creates structured plans with phases, file-level details, and verification steps to prevent drift and ensure production-ready code.
Security Assessment
About sdd-plan
The `sdd-plan` skill implements a plan-first development methodology that emphasizes creating detailed specifications before writing any code. It addresses the common challenge of AI-generated code drifting from intended functionality by establishing a structured, verifiable plan for each development task. By formalizing the planning phase, this skill reduces errors, prevents misinterpretation of requirements, and ensures that all changes are production-ready before implementation begins.
Key features include staged planning, which allows complex projects to be broken into high-level phases for early review and approval, followed by detailed task breakdowns. Tasks are designed to be atomic, focusing on single-file changes with clear dependencies and verification criteria. This approach enables precise dependency tracking, parallel development, granular progress monitoring, straightforward verification, and easy rollback of individual changes. Overall, it promotes a disciplined, auditable, and reliable development process that minimizes risk and supports confident iteration.
The skill is particularly suited for developers working on large codebases, complex feature implementations, multi-file refactorings, API integrations, or system redesigns. Target users include software engineers, technical leads, and teams aiming to maintain high code quality and prevent context drift in projects where precision and reliability are critical. It is not intended for trivial changes, quick experiments, or one-file bug fixes, ensuring that its methodology is applied where it provides the most value.
FAQ
When should I use the sdd-plan skill?
Use sdd-plan for new features, complex refactoring, API integrations, architecture changes, or any task where precision and reliability are critical. Avoid using it for simple, single-file changes, quick experiments, or trivial modifications.
Does sdd-plan support incremental or staged planning?
Yes, for complex features, sdd-plan recommends a staged approach: first create a high-level phase plan for review and approval, then break it down into detailed tasks with atomic, file-level changes.
Can sdd-plan handle tasks that span multiple files?
Yes, but such tasks must be decomposed into multiple atomic tasks or subtasks, with explicit dependencies. Bundling multiple file changes into a single task is discouraged.
Is sdd-plan suitable for small or trivial code updates?
No, sdd-plan is not designed for trivial changes, bug fixes, or formatting adjustments. For those, other skills like sdd-update or sdd-next are more appropriate.
What benefits does using sdd-plan provide?
It reduces hallucinated APIs, prevents breaking existing functionality, provides clear verification criteria, enables confident iteration, creates an auditable development process, and allows early feedback to minimize rework.
Install sdd-plan
Quick Setup:
- Copy the skill folder to
.claude/skills/ - Claude will automatically detect and use the skill
Repository
tylerburleigh/claude-sdd-toolkit