Start a new milestone cycle for an existing project. Loads project context, gathers milestone goals (from MILESTONE-CONTEXT.md or conversation), updates PROJECT.md and STATE.md, optionally runs parallel research, defines scoped requirements with REQ-IDs, spawns the roadmapper to create phased execution plan, and commits all artifacts. Brownfield equivalent of new-project.
Read all files referenced by the invoking prompt's execution_context before starting.
## 1. Load Context
- Read PROJECT.md (existing project, validated requirements, decisions)
- Read MILESTONES.md (what shipped previously)
- Read STATE.md (pending todos, blockers)
- Check for MILESTONE-CONTEXT.md (from /gsd:discuss-milestone)
## 2. Gather Milestone Goals
**If MILESTONE-CONTEXT.md exists:**
- Use features and scope from discuss-milestone
- Present summary for confirmation
**If no context file:**
- Present what shipped in last milestone
- Ask inline (freeform, NOT AskUserQuestion): "What do you want to build next?"
- Wait for their response, then use AskUserQuestion to probe specifics
- If user selects "Other" at any point to provide freeform input, ask follow-up as plain text — not another AskUserQuestion
## 3. Determine Milestone Version
- Parse last version from MILESTONES.md
- Suggest next version (v1.0 → v1.1, or v2.0 for major)
- Confirm with user
## 4. Update PROJECT.md
Add/update:
```markdown
## Current Milestone: v[X.Y] [Name]
**Goal:** [One sentence describing milestone focus]
**Target features:**
- [Feature 1]
- [Feature 2]
- [Feature 3]
```
Update Active requirements section and "Last updated" footer.
## 5. Update STATE.md
```markdown
## Current Position
Phase: Not started (defining requirements)
Plan: —
Status: Defining requirements
Last activity: [today] — Milestone v[X.Y] started
```
Keep Accumulated Context section from previous milestone.
## 6. Cleanup and Commit
Delete MILESTONE-CONTEXT.md if exists (consumed).
```bash
node "C:/Users/yaoji/.claude/get-shit-done/bin/gsd-tools.cjs" commit "docs: start milestone v[X.Y] [Name]" --files .planning/PROJECT.md .planning/STATE.md
```
## 7. Load Context and Resolve Models
```bash
INIT=$(node "C:/Users/yaoji/.claude/get-shit-done/bin/gsd-tools.cjs" init new-milestone)
if [[ "$INIT" == @file:* ]]; then INIT=$(cat "${INIT#@file:}"); fi
```
Extract from init JSON: `researcher_model`, `synthesizer_model`, `roadmapper_model`, `commit_docs`, `research_enabled`, `current_milestone`, `project_exists`, `roadmap_exists`.
## 8. Research Decision
Check `research_enabled` from init JSON (loaded from config).
**If `research_enabled` is `true`:**
AskUserQuestion: "Research the domain ecosystem for new features before defining requirements?"
- "Research first (Recommended)" — Discover patterns, features, architecture for NEW capabilities
- "Skip research for this milestone" — Go straight to requirements (does not change your default)
**If `research_enabled` is `false`:**
AskUserQuestion: "Research the domain ecosystem for new features before defining requirements?"
- "Skip research (current default)" — Go straight to requirements
- "Research first" — Discover patterns, features, architecture for NEW capabilities
**IMPORTANT:** Do NOT persist this choice to config.json. The `workflow.research` setting is a persistent user preference that controls plan-phase behavior across the project. Changing it here would silently alter future `/gsd:plan-phase` behavior. To change the default, use `/gsd:settings`.
**If user chose "Research first":**
```
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
GSD ► RESEARCHING
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
◆ Spawning 4 researchers in parallel...
→ Stack, Features, Architecture, Pitfalls
```
```bash
mkdir -p .planning/research
```
Spawn 4 parallel gsd-project-researcher agents. Each uses this template with dimension-specific fields:
**Common structure for all 4 researchers:**
```
Task(prompt="
Project Research — {DIMENSION} for [new features].
SUBSEQUENT MILESTONE — Adding [target features] to existing app.
{EXISTING_CONTEXT}
Focus ONLY on what's needed for the NEW features.
{QUESTION}
- .planning/PROJECT.md (Project context)
{CONSUMER}
{GATES}
", subagent_type="gsd-project-researcher", model="{researcher_model}", description="{DIMENSION} research")
```
**Dimension-specific fields:**
| Field | Stack | Features | Architecture | Pitfalls |
|-------|-------|----------|-------------|----------|
| EXISTING_CONTEXT | Existing validated capabilities (DO NOT re-research): [from PROJECT.md] | Existing features (already built): [from PROJECT.md] | Existing architecture: [from PROJECT.md or codebase map] | Focus on common mistakes when ADDING these features to existing system |
| QUESTION | What stack additions/changes are needed for [new features]? | How do [target features] typically work? Expected behavior? | How do [target features] integrate with existing architecture? | Common mistakes when adding [target features] to [domain]? |
| CONSUMER | Specific libraries with versions for NEW capabilities, integration points, what NOT to add | Table stakes vs differentiators vs anti-features, complexity noted, dependencies on existing | Integration points, new components, data flow changes, suggested build order | Warning signs, prevention strategy, which phase should address it |
| GATES | Versions current (verify with Context7), rationale explains WHY, integration considered | Categories clear, complexity noted, dependencies identified | Integration points identified, new vs modified explicit, build order considers deps | Pitfalls specific to adding these features, integration pitfalls covered, prevention actionable |
| FILE | STACK.md | FEATURES.md | ARCHITECTURE.md | PITFALLS.md |
After all 4 complete, spawn synthesizer:
```
Task(prompt="
Synthesize research outputs into SUMMARY.md.
- .planning/research/STACK.md
- .planning/research/FEATURES.md
- .planning/research/ARCHITECTURE.md
- .planning/research/PITFALLS.md
Write to: .planning/research/SUMMARY.md
Use template: C:/Users/yaoji/.claude/get-shit-done/templates/research-project/SUMMARY.md
Commit after writing.
", subagent_type="gsd-research-synthesizer", model="{synthesizer_model}", description="Synthesize research")
```
Display key findings from SUMMARY.md:
```
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
GSD ► RESEARCH COMPLETE ✓
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
**Stack additions:** [from SUMMARY.md]
**Feature table stakes:** [from SUMMARY.md]
**Watch Out For:** [from SUMMARY.md]
```
**If "Skip research":** Continue to Step 9.
## 9. Define Requirements
```
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
GSD ► DEFINING REQUIREMENTS
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
```
Read PROJECT.md: core value, current milestone goals, validated requirements (what exists).
**If research exists:** Read FEATURES.md, extract feature categories.
Present features by category:
```
## [Category 1]
**Table stakes:** Feature A, Feature B
**Differentiators:** Feature C, Feature D
**Research notes:** [any relevant notes]
```
**If no research:** Gather requirements through conversation. Ask: "What are the main things users need to do with [new features]?" Clarify, probe for related capabilities, group into categories.
**Scope each category** via AskUserQuestion (multiSelect: true, header max 12 chars):
- "[Feature 1]" — [brief description]
- "[Feature 2]" — [brief description]
- "None for this milestone" — Defer entire category
Track: Selected → this milestone. Unselected table stakes → future. Unselected differentiators → out of scope.
**Identify gaps** via AskUserQuestion:
- "No, research covered it" — Proceed
- "Yes, let me add some" — Capture additions
**Generate REQUIREMENTS.md:**
- v1 Requirements grouped by category (checkboxes, REQ-IDs)
- Future Requirements (deferred)
- Out of Scope (explicit exclusions with reasoning)
- Traceability section (empty, filled by roadmap)
**REQ-ID format:** `[CATEGORY]-[NUMBER]` (AUTH-01, NOTIF-02). Continue numbering from existing.
**Requirement quality criteria:**
Good requirements are:
- **Specific and testable:** "User can reset password via email link" (not "Handle password reset")
- **User-centric:** "User can X" (not "System does Y")
- **Atomic:** One capability per requirement (not "User can login and manage profile")
- **Independent:** Minimal dependencies on other requirements
Present FULL requirements list for confirmation:
```
## Milestone v[X.Y] Requirements
### [Category 1]
- [ ] **CAT1-01**: User can do X
- [ ] **CAT1-02**: User can do Y
### [Category 2]
- [ ] **CAT2-01**: User can do Z
Does this capture what you're building? (yes / adjust)
```
If "adjust": Return to scoping.
**Commit requirements:**
```bash
node "C:/Users/yaoji/.claude/get-shit-done/bin/gsd-tools.cjs" commit "docs: define milestone v[X.Y] requirements" --files .planning/REQUIREMENTS.md
```
## 10. Create Roadmap
```
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
GSD ► CREATING ROADMAP
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
◆ Spawning roadmapper...
```
**Starting phase number:** Read MILESTONES.md for last phase number. Continue from there (v1.0 ended at phase 5 → v1.1 starts at phase 6).
```
Task(prompt="
- .planning/PROJECT.md
- .planning/REQUIREMENTS.md
- .planning/research/SUMMARY.md (if exists)
- .planning/config.json
- .planning/MILESTONES.md
Create roadmap for milestone v[X.Y]:
1. Start phase numbering from [N]
2. Derive phases from THIS MILESTONE's requirements only
3. Map every requirement to exactly one phase
4. Derive 2-5 success criteria per phase (observable user behaviors)
5. Validate 100% coverage
6. Write files immediately (ROADMAP.md, STATE.md, update REQUIREMENTS.md traceability)
7. Return ROADMAP CREATED with summary
Write files first, then return.
", subagent_type="gsd-roadmapper", model="{roadmapper_model}", description="Create roadmap")
```
**Handle return:**
**If `## ROADMAP BLOCKED`:** Present blocker, work with user, re-spawn.
**If `## ROADMAP CREATED`:** Read ROADMAP.md, present inline:
```
## Proposed Roadmap
**[N] phases** | **[X] requirements mapped** | All covered ✓
| # | Phase | Goal | Requirements | Success Criteria |
|---|-------|------|--------------|------------------|
| [N] | [Name] | [Goal] | [REQ-IDs] | [count] |
### Phase Details
**Phase [N]: [Name]**
Goal: [goal]
Requirements: [REQ-IDs]
Success criteria:
1. [criterion]
2. [criterion]
```
**Ask for approval** via AskUserQuestion:
- "Approve" — Commit and continue
- "Adjust phases" — Tell me what to change
- "Review full file" — Show raw ROADMAP.md
**If "Adjust":** Get notes, re-spawn roadmapper with revision context, loop until approved.
**If "Review":** Display raw ROADMAP.md, re-ask.
**Commit roadmap** (after approval):
```bash
node "C:/Users/yaoji/.claude/get-shit-done/bin/gsd-tools.cjs" commit "docs: create milestone v[X.Y] roadmap ([N] phases)" --files .planning/ROADMAP.md .planning/STATE.md .planning/REQUIREMENTS.md
```
## 11. Done
```
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
GSD ► MILESTONE INITIALIZED ✓
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
**Milestone v[X.Y]: [Name]**
| Artifact | Location |
|----------------|-----------------------------|
| Project | `.planning/PROJECT.md` |
| Research | `.planning/research/` |
| Requirements | `.planning/REQUIREMENTS.md` |
| Roadmap | `.planning/ROADMAP.md` |
**[N] phases** | **[X] requirements** | Ready to build ✓
## ▶ Next Up
**Phase [N]: [Phase Name]** — [Goal]
`/gsd:discuss-phase [N]` — gather context and clarify approach
`/clear` first → fresh context window
Also: `/gsd:plan-phase [N]` — skip discussion, plan directly
```
- [ ] PROJECT.md updated with Current Milestone section
- [ ] STATE.md reset for new milestone
- [ ] MILESTONE-CONTEXT.md consumed and deleted (if existed)
- [ ] Research completed (if selected) — 4 parallel agents, milestone-aware
- [ ] Requirements gathered and scoped per category
- [ ] REQUIREMENTS.md created with REQ-IDs
- [ ] gsd-roadmapper spawned with phase numbering context
- [ ] Roadmap files written immediately (not draft)
- [ ] User feedback incorporated (if any)
- [ ] ROADMAP.md phases continue from previous milestone
- [ ] All commits made (if planning docs committed)
- [ ] User knows next step: `/gsd:discuss-phase [N]`
**Atomic commits:** Each phase commits its artifacts immediately.