Workflow Overview

7-Step Workflow Overview

The antidote to vibe coding. Each step is a Claude Code skill, maps to one of Covey's 8 Habits, and has an explicit handoff contract with the next step.

The 7 steps (+ Step 0)

 0 Research  →  1 Requirements  →  2 Design  →  3 Breakdown
                                                     ↓
 7 Monitor  ←  6 Deploy  ←  5 Review AI  ←  4 Build Brief

Step	Skill	Habit	Output	Human checkpoint?
0	/research	H5 Understand First	Research brief	Optional
1	/requirements	H2 Begin with End	PRD summary	✅ Yes
2	/design	H8 Find Your Voice	Architecture decisions (ADR)	✅ Required
3	/breakdown	H3 First Things First	Atomic task list	Optional
4	/build-brief	H5 Understand First	Implementation brief per task	Optional
5	/review-ai	H4 Win-Win	Code review findings	✅ Required
6	/deploy-guide	H1 Be Proactive	Deploy plan + rollback	✅ Required
7	/monitor-setup	H7 Sharpen the Saw	Observability config	Optional

Handoff contracts

Each skill declares prev-skill and next-skill in its frontmatter and explicitly documents:

• Expects from predecessor: what input the skill needs
• Produces for successor: what output the next step will consume

This prevents context loss between steps and makes the workflow composable. Standalone skills (/cross-verify, /whole-person-check, /security-check) use any for both and can run at any point.

When to skip

Change type	Steps to run
Single-line bug fix (obvious root cause)	5
Formatting / linting	5
Dependency version bump	5, 6
New feature (small, <3 files)	1, 3, 4, 5, 6
New feature (medium)	1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
New feature (complex / unclear domain)	0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
Refactor (no behavior change)	2, 3, 4, 5
Architecture change	0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

Rule of thumb: never skip /review-ai (Step 5). Every other step has legitimate skip cases; review does not.

Standalone skills

These complement the pipeline and can run any time:

• /cross-verify — 17-question 8-Habit checklist
• /whole-person-check — Body/Mind/Heart/Spirit balance
• /security-check — OWASP Top 10 focused review
• /reflect — post-task 5-question retrospective
• /workflow — interactive guided walkthrough

See also

• Skills Catalog
• Habits Reference
• Vibe Coding vs Structured