Nav Workflow

Navigator Task Mode Skill

Unified workflow orchestration that coordinates between skills, loop mode, and direct execution based on task complexity and type.

Why This Exists

Navigator had three disconnected workflow systems:

1. Skills (frontend-component, etc.) - have mini-workflows (Step 1 → Step 7)
2. Loop Mode - separate phase system (INIT → COMPLETE)
3. CLAUDE.md - documents workflow nobody enforces

Result: Conflicts when multiple systems try to run.

Solution: Task Mode acts as a coordinator - detecting when skills should handle workflow vs when to provide standalone phase guidance.

How It Works

User Request
    ↓
TASK MODE (this skill)
    ├─ Simple task? → Direct execution (no overhead)
    ├─ Skill matches? → Let skill run (it has workflow)
    └─ Substantial, no skill? → Task Mode phases

When to Invoke

Auto-invoke when:

• User starts substantial work (3+ steps expected)
• No obvious skill match (not "create component", "add endpoint", etc.)
• Request involves planning, refactoring, or multi-file changes
• Loop mode is disabled but structured execution needed

DO NOT invoke if:

• Trivial task (typo fix, single line change)
• Skill will clearly handle it (component creation, endpoint, migration, etc.)
• User says "quick", "just do", "simple fix"
• Already in Task Mode or Loop Mode

Configuration

Task Mode settings in .agent/.nav-config.json:

{
  "task_mode": {
    "enabled": true,
    "auto_detect": true,
    "defer_to_skills": true,
    "complexity_threshold": 0.5,
    "show_phase_indicator": true
  }
}

Options:

• enabled: Master switch for Task Mode
• auto_detect: Auto-detect complexity (vs explicit invocation only)
• defer_to_skills: Let matching skills handle their own workflow
• complexity_threshold: Score (0-1) required to activate
• show_phase_indicator: Show phase banners during execution

Execution Steps

Step 1: Analyze Request

Run complexity detection:

python3 functions/complexity_detector.py \
  --request "{USER_REQUEST}" \
  --context "{RECENT_CONTEXT}"

Complexity signals:

• Multi-file changes expected (+0.3)
• Planning language ("implement", "refactor", "add feature") (+0.2)
• Vague requirements needing research (+0.2)
• Cross-system changes (frontend+backend) (+0.3)
• Testing requirements mentioned (+0.1)

Simple task signals:

• Single file mentioned (-0.3)
• Fix/typo/update language (-0.2)
• Specific location given (-0.2)
• "Quick" or "simple" mentioned (-0.3)

Decision:

IF complexity_score < threshold:
  → Direct execution (exit Task Mode)

Step 2: Check Skill Match

Run skill detection:

python3 functions/skill_detector.py \
  --request "{USER_REQUEST}" \
  --available-skills "{SKILLS_LIST}"

Skill matching rules:

• "create component" → frontend-component
• "add endpoint" → backend-endpoint
• "database migration" → database-migration
• "write test" → backend-test/frontend-test
• etc.

Decision:

IF matching_skill AND defer_to_skills:
  → Show: "Detected: {SKILL_NAME} skill will handle this"
  → Exit Task Mode (skill has workflow)

Step 3: Initialize Task Mode

If substantial task, no skill match:

Display activation:

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
TASK MODE ACTIVATED
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Task: {TASK_SUMMARY}
Complexity: {SCORE} (threshold: {THRESHOLD})
Skills matched: None (Task Mode will orchestrate)

Phases:
  ○ RESEARCH - Understand requirements
  ○ PLAN - Create implementation strategy
  ○ IMPL - Execute changes
  ○ VERIFY - Test and validate
  ○ COMPLETE - Commit and document

Starting RESEARCH phase...
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Step 4: Execute Phases

RESEARCH Phase:

• Use Task agent for codebase exploration
• State the Ideal Final Result (the no-new-code version) and the reuse inventory (what already does ≥80% of this)
• If the brief declared a Contradiction, query prior resolutions (graph_manager.py --action contradictions --filter "<terms>") and run the nav-triz divergence step: three candidates from different separation modes, one recommended, before PLAN
• Identify affected files
• Find existing patterns
• Document unknowns

Show phase transition:

python3 functions/phase_indicator.py \
  --phase "RESEARCH" \
  --status "complete" \
  --next "PLAN"

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
PHASE: RESEARCH → PLAN
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Research completed:
  ✓ Found {N} related files
  ✓ Identified patterns in {LOCATION}
  ✓ Dependencies mapped

Moving to PLAN phase...
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

PLAN Phase:

• Create TodoWrite items
• Identify order of changes
• Document approach

IMPL Phase:

• Execute planned changes
• Follow project patterns
• Write tests as appropriate

VERIFY Phase:

• Run tests
• Type check
• Build validation
• Run nav-simplify (if enabled)

COMPLETE Phase:

• Commit changes
• Update documentation
• Close tickets (if PM configured)
• Suggest compact

Step 5: Complete Task Mode

Display completion:

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
TASK MODE COMPLETE
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Task: {TASK_SUMMARY}
Phases:
  ✓ RESEARCH - {DURATION}
  ✓ PLAN - {DURATION}
  ✓ IMPL - {DURATION}
  ✓ VERIFY - {DURATION}
  ✓ COMPLETE

Summary:
- {FILES_CHANGED} files changed
- {TESTS_ADDED} tests added
- Committed: {COMMIT_SHA}

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Predefined Functions

functions/complexity_detector.py

Analyzes request to determine complexity score.

Usage:

python3 functions/complexity_detector.py \
  --request "Refactor the auth system to use JWT" \
  --context "Working on user management"

Returns:

{
  "complexity_score": 0.7,
  "signals": {
    "multi_file": true,
    "planning_language": true,
    "cross_system": false
  },
  "recommendation": "task_mode",
  "reason": "Refactoring task with multi-file scope"
}

functions/skill_detector.py

Checks if a skill should handle this request.

Usage:

python3 functions/skill_detector.py \
  --request "Add a login component" \
  --available-skills '["frontend-component", "backend-endpoint", "database-migration"]'

Returns:

{
  "matching_skill": "frontend-component",
  "confidence": 0.95,
  "triggers": ["create component", "add component"],
  "defer": true,
  "reason": "Request matches frontend-component skill triggers"
}

functions/phase_indicator.py

Generates phase transition displays.

Usage:

python3 functions/phase_indicator.py \
  --phase "IMPL" \
  --status "in_progress" \
  --progress 60 \
  --details '{"files_changed": 3, "tests_written": 2}'

Returns: Formatted phase indicator block.

Integration with Navigator