The Complete Production SOP: How to Deploy and Run Plan-and-Solve Hierarchical Task Decomposition in Autonomous AI Agents

---
name: "plan-and-solve-decomposition"
description: "Decompose large, complex engineering goals into subtasks before executing single steps."
metadata:
  author: "Wang et al."
  version: "1.0.0"
  runtime_compatibility:
    - "codex"
    - "claude-code"
    - "cursor"
    - "windsurf"
triggers:
  - "create execution plan"
  - "decompose large task"
  - "plan and solve engineering request"
permissions:
  fs_read: true
  fs_write: "workspace"
  shell_exec: false
  net_access: false
---

# Plan-and-Solve Hierarchical Task Decomposition

Separates the planning phase from the execution phase: generating a dependency-ordered directed acyclic graph (DAG) of subtasks, tracking completion state, and dynamically replanning on failures.

## Execution SOP & Rules
1. Always draft the complete numbered plan before modifying any workspace files.
2. Order subtasks based on strict dependency requirements (e.g. schema migration before API handler).
3. Check off completed items incrementally as progress is made.
4. If a subtask fails or hits a blocker, pause to revise the remaining steps rather than blindly forging ahead.

{
  "skills": [
    {
      "name": "plan-and-solve-decomposition",
      "path": ".agents/skills/plan-and-solve-decomposition/SKILL.md",
      "auto_invoke_triggers": [
        "create execution plan",
        "decompose large task",
        "plan and solve engineering request"
      ]
    }
  ]
}

### Hierarchical Execution Plan (DAG)
- [ ] 1. Define PostgreSQL schema migration for tenant-scoped billing tables
- [ ] 2. Generate Prisma/Drizzle schema definitions and validate TypeScript types
- [ ] 3. Implement Stripe webhook handler verifying signature and idempotent events
- [ ] 4. Wire webhook handler into Express router with middleware validation
- [ ] 5. Write end-to-end integration tests using Vitest
- [ ] 6. Execute full verification suite (lint, typecheck, tests)

#!/usr/bin/env bash
set -euo pipefail

echo "Validating plan completion..."
git diff --exit-code PLAN.md || echo "PLAN.md updated."

echo "Running lint and typecheck..."
pnpm lint
pnpm typecheck

echo "Running isolated test suite..."
pnpm test --run