Engflow Design

Develop a coherent proposal that solves the user's problem and gives implementation a reliable direction. Choose the strategy and document structure to fit the task; no Spec, Feature or other Skill is required.

Engflow is installed as a complete group; this remains an independently usable, explicit entrypoint. Read and apply the shared design method before technical selection or material revision. Plan reads that reference directly within its own task; method reuse does not invoke this Skill or grant its writes.

Invocation and participation

An explicit request starts or resumes Design; follow-up answers continue within the same authority until the user pauses, ends or redirects it. Keep host invocation guards intact. An explicitly requested support/preview can return a focused design to a caller without saving a separate file. Independent proposal writes still need their actual authorization. Human participation follows decision significance and authority, not whether the result is conversational or persisted.

Feature context

In independent use, use the explicit feature ID/path or established conversation target. For an unspecified continuation, verify the current-feature link in specs/README.md (or the project equivalent). Do not infer focus from the largest number or most recent file; resolve a missing, stale or conflicting target before affected work. Reading another feature as a dependency does not switch the target, and a later change to the link does not redirect an already scoped session.

Reuse existing paths. Otherwise, authorized new features default to specs/NNN-short-name/: use the next number above existing directories and retained index identities, starting at 001 with at least three digits; preserve IDs and recheck collisions before writing. Create only this capability's requested document (design.md), without requiring other Skills or creating placeholder artifacts. Authorized creation or selection may maintain feature links and Current feature in the same resolved project index (default specs/README.md) unless writes are restricted. This is navigation, not progress or approval. Creating future/deferred features alone does not change established focus; preview/view requests change neither files nor focus.

For an explicitly requested support/preview, inherit the caller's selected feature; do not allocate a feature or update navigation through support alone.

Investigation and readiness

Use the shared design method's evidence, decision and readiness standards. For source investigation and separately authorized experiments, read the evidence collaboration contract. Apply these methods directly in the current Design task; do not automatically invoke Research or PoC, create reports or start workers. Keep unsupported routes conditional.

Proposal and continuity

In independent use, writing the proposal is part of Design. Maintain one authorized draft at meaningful decisions, discoveries and pauses, using an appropriate existing document and user/project location or the numbered-feature default above. Authorized feature navigation writes are in scope. An explicitly requested support/preview returns findings to its caller instead. Preserve unrelated content. Preview and no-write requests stay conversational.

Keep the current route, rationale, evidence, unresolved dependencies and next useful action sufficient for continuation, not a discussion transcript or second progress ledger. Split documents only when independently maintaining them materially helps, within write authority. On resume, reconcile the draft with current source, instructions and outstanding experiment state; missing context remains a limitation.

Self-check and document scope

Before delivery, perform a proportionate author self-check against effective requirements, actual architecture and available evidence:

• Trace the chosen mechanism to the required behavior; check that interfaces, ownership, data/control flow and invariants are coherent.
• Cover material lifecycle and failure behavior, including retries, rollback, concurrency, compatibility, security, resource and operational concerns where relevant to the design.
• Check consequential alternatives and tradeoffs are explained, assumptions have evidence or remain conditional, and no hidden dependency or unsupported premise is presented as established.
• Ensure the verification basis exercises important success, failure and boundary behavior, not merely the proposed implementation shape. Resolve supported gaps; surface missing private facts or consequential decisions rather than guessing. This is author self-check, not independent review or approval. Research supplies evidence; it does not approve the design.

Reuse a suitable design for the current independently evolving objective. Use feature detail for this delivery and reference shared architecture and constraints. Cross-module work does not automatically require a global document. When changing a shared mechanism or contract, update its authorized source and link affected features; do not maintain competing copies or require fixed document layers. For accepted material changes, track affected requirement, shared-contract and Plan paths, supplied approval evidence and pending sync actions in the existing draft. Update only authorized design sources; report other needed revisions without silently rewriting them or invoking another stage. Recheck source consistency before closing pending updates; a revised proposal alone does not synchronize its consumers. Preserve confirmed deferred scope without designing it prematurely.

Boundaries

Read-only investigation and authorized document writes are in scope. Experiments need separately bounded execution authority. Do not initiate production implementation, modify production configuration, commit, push, publish or manage branches/worktrees.

Honor effective requirements and ADRs; do not silently supersede them. New proposals are drafts, and substantive revisions do not inherit prior approval. Preserve its provenance and report the resulting proposal, readiness limits and remaining decisions.