Prd To Goal

prd-to-goal — PRD → /goal Decomposition

Converts a PRD / issue / spec into a single copy-pasteable /goal line. The hard part of /goal is not running it — it is writing an until clause that is convergent (terminates), falsifiable (testable boolean), and observable (the agent can actually check it without subjective judgement). This skill makes that decomposition reproducible.

1. When to use

Use it when:

• You have a written PRD, GitHub issue, or spec and want to run /goal against it.
• Past /goal runs drifted, looped, or burned tokens because the until clause was vague (until tests pass, until done, until design is good).
• You need to justify the abort budget — turns, tokens, no-progress threshold.

Skip it when:

• One-shot bug fix where the failing test is the acceptance criterion. Just run /goal until pnpm test -- auth.spec.ts passes.
• No written PRD exists. Run write-prd first — vibes do not decompose.
• The work is destructive or irreversible (DB migrations, mass file deletes). /goal retries; you do not want retries on DROP TABLE.

2. Inputs the skill accepts

3. The decomposition algorithm

1. Extract acceptance criteria. Pull every MUST, SHOULD, Definition of Done, Acceptance Criteria, and checkbox-style line. If the doc has none, stop and tell the user to run write-prd first — there is nothing to converge on.

2. Map each criterion to an observable boolean. Each criterion must reduce to a single shell-checkable assertion. Examples of observable state:

   • test -f path/to/file (file exists)
   • pnpm test -- pattern passes (test command exits 0)
   • gh pr view <N> --json state | jq -r .state == "MERGED"
   • wc -l < src/auth.ts returns a number within bound
   • pnpm lint exits 0
   • curl -sf $URL returns 2xx

3. Reject non-observable criteria. Drop or rewrite criteria that depend on subjective judgement (code is clean, design feels right, users are happy). Either find a proxy (lint exits 0, Lighthouse score > 90, NPS survey ID exists) or surface the criterion back to the user as out of scope for /goal.

4. Compose the until clause. AND-join the observable assertions in priority order — the cheapest, most likely-to-fail check first so the loop short-circuits early. Three to five assertions is the sweet spot; more than seven usually means the PRD is two PRDs.

5. Fold the budget INTO the same condition. Claude Code accepts one goal per session, replace-on-set, and the bound is written inside that single condition (…, or stop after 15 turns). It is not a second command. Sensible turn caps:

   • 15 for a single feature, 30 for a refactor, 5 for a bug fix.

   Never emit a second /goal line. A second line does not add a rail — it parses as a fresh condition, REPLACES the first, and leaves the session goaled on the budget alone with every acceptance assertion discarded. The abort-if form this skill used to emit was never Claude Code syntax at all: grep -c -a -F 'abort-if' against the 2.1.226 binary returns 0, and it appears in none of the 357 archived changelogs. Verified 2026-08-08 (#3312).

4. Output template

The skill emits exactly ONE line, ready to paste:

/goal until <assertion_1> AND <assertion_2> AND <assertion_3>, or stop after <N> turns

Emit the line first, on its own. A fenced code block around it is fine, since the user copies it out. Any notes (assertion ordering, what a grep cannot prove) go after the line and stay short. Never emit a second /goal line, and never emit a goal line at all when the input has no observable acceptance criteria (step 1 of the algorithm): say so and point at write-prd instead.

Optional: rubric emission (.claude/rubric.json)

When the user wants graded feedback beyond pass/fail booleans, the skill MAY also emit .claude/rubric.json conforming to ork-rubric/1.0 (schema: ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/shared/rubric.schema.json), mapping each acceptance criterion to one dimension:

{
  "rubric": "ork-rubric/1.0",
  "skill": "prd-to-goal",
  "dimensions": [
    { "name": "regression_test_added", "weight": 0.4, "min_pass": 8, "min_blocker": 3 },
    { "name": "auth_suite_green",      "weight": 0.4, "min_pass": 10, "min_blocker": 5 },
    { "name": "lint_clean",            "weight": 0.2, "min_pass": 10, "min_blocker": 0 }
  ]
}

Scores are 0–10 (min_pass = soft floor, min_blocker = hard blocker regardless of composite); dimension weights MUST sum to 1.0 — see the schema for the full contract.

The file is deliberately user-editable before the /goal run — that is the point. Adjusting weights and min_pass thresholds is how the user injects judgement into the loop without rewriting assertions (rubric-as-environment-feedback, Lance Martin 2026-06-09). The post-timeout grader (§8) treats the rubric, if present, as the user's intent — senior to the literal assertion text.

5. Worked examples

Example A — Bug fix PRD

Input (issue body):

Title: Login fails on emails containing "+"
Acceptance Criteria:
- New regression test in tests/auth/test_login.py covers email with "+"
- The new test passes
- All existing auth tests still pass

Output:

/goal until test -f tests/auth/test_login.py AND pnpm test -- tests/auth/test_login.py passes AND pnpm test -- tests/auth passes, or stop after 5 turns

Rationale: file existence is the cheapest check; the targeted test is the regression gate; the broad auth suite catches collateral damage.

Example B — Feature PRD

Input (PRD excerpt):

Feature: User Avatar Endpoint
MUST:
- New route GET /users/:id/avatar registered
- Returns 200 with { url: string, updatedAt: ISO8601 } for known user
- Returns 404 for unknown user
- Integration test covers both cases
- OpenAPI spec updated

Output:

/goal until grep -q "users/:id/avatar" src/routes/users.ts AND pnpm test -- tests/integration/users.avatar.spec.ts passes AND grep -q "/users/{id}/avatar" openapi.yaml AND pnpm lint passes, or stop after 15 turns

Rationale: route grep catches a handler that was stubbed but never wired; the integration spec encodes both 200 and 404; OpenAPI grep enforces the docs MUST; lint guards against half-typed code shipping.