# composer

Discovery-phase companion. Composer interviews you from "I want an app that…"
to a tree of stories in your issue tracker, producing reviewable artifacts in
`docs/planning/` along the way. Pairs with **Symphony** — Composer's output
(stories in the tracker) is Symphony's input (work to dispatch).

Like Symphony, Composer is **tracker-agnostic**. The project's `CLAUDE.md`
documents how to write to the tracker; Composer's load phase reads those
instructions.

## Phase order

| # | Phase | Artifact(s) | Skill |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Concept | `docs/planning/concept.md` | `composer` |
| 2 | Users & workflows | `docs/planning/users.md` | `composer` |
| 3 | Requirements | `docs/planning/{requirements,nfr,ia}.md` | `composer` |
| 4 | Design system | `.claude/skills/<slug>-design-system/` (project skill) | `ui-system` (placeholder) |
| 5 | Interaction design | `.claude/skills/<slug>-interaction-design/` (project skill) | `ui-system` (placeholder) |
| 6 | Flows | `docs/planning/flows.md` | `composer` |
| 7 | Mocks | `docs/planning/mocks/*.tsx` | `composer-mocks` |
| 8 | Architecture | `docs/planning/architecture.md` + `adr/NNNN-*.md` | `composer` |
| 9 | Stories | `docs/planning/stories.md` | `composer` |
| 10 | Roadmap | `docs/planning/roadmap.md` | `composer` |
| 11 | Load | (project's tracker) | `composer` |

**Phases 4 and 5 do not write to `docs/planning/`.** The design-system and
interaction-design artifacts are *project-local skills* in `.claude/skills/`
because they need to auto-load via description matching whenever UI work
is happening. A reference doc gets read once and drifts out of context as
the conversation grows; a skill loads on demand every time the trigger
matches. `docs/planning/` gets pointer files so the planning index stays
discoverable.

**Phase 7 imports tokens directly from the skill**, not from a copy:

```tsx
import { color, spacing, fontSize } from
  "../../.claude/skills/<slug>-design-system/tokens";
```

Single source of truth across mocks, real components, themes, and any
future visual code in the project.

**Architecture is last on purpose.** It's a *response* to a complete spec,
not a setting picked at the start. Stack choices made before the design
system, interaction model, and mocks lock you into shapes that don't fit
the problem.

## Note on templates

`templates/design-system/SKILL.md` and `templates/interaction-design/SKILL.md`
are **templates**, not actual skills of this plugin. The plugin's auto-loaded
skills live in `skills/` (`composer`, `composer-mocks`, `ui-system`); the
templates under `templates/` are skeletons that the `ui-system` skill copies
into a *consuming project's* `.claude/skills/<slug>-design-system/` and
`.claude/skills/<slug>-interaction-design/` directories.

Per Claude Code's plugin auto-discovery, only `SKILL.md` files under `skills/`
are loaded as plugin skills — `templates/` is a regular subdirectory and is
ignored by discovery.

## Layout

- `commands/composer.md` — main entry, state-aware. Continues from the first
  missing artifact in `docs/planning/`.
- `commands/composer-review.md` — summon a council on the current artifact.
- `commands/composer-mock.md` — generate or revise a mock for a named flow.
- `commands/composer-load.md` — push stories to the project's tracker.
- `commands/composer-status.md` — show what's done, missing, and stale.
- `skills/composer/SKILL.md` — orchestrator: phase detection + interview.
- `skills/composer-mocks/SKILL.md` — JSX/TSX mock generation + text feasibility audit.
- `skills/ui-system/SKILL.md` — design + interaction system interview *(placeholder; to be fleshed out)*.
- `templates/*` — starter skeletons for each artifact.

## Council touchpoints

Composer auto-suggests councils at phase boundaries; users can also invoke
`/composer-review` at any time.

| After phase | Default council |
|---|---|
| Requirements | Lena (PM), Vera (skeptic), Marge (end-user) |
| Mocks | Marge (end-user), Maya (a11y) |
| Architecture | Tomás (architect), Gerald (sr engineer), Priya (DBA), Aisha (DevOps) |
| Pre-load | Marcus (eng manager), Vera (skeptic) — sanity-check scope honesty |

Composer scans content and adds:
- **Femi (legal-triage)** when it spots regulated jurisdictions, third-party data flows, or licensing questions
- **Camila (privacy-advocate)** when it spots PII, multi-user data, or DNA/health data
- **Ingrid (finance-controller)** when it spots money flows, billing, refunds, or subscriptions

## Three things Composer doesn't do

1. **Invent users.** The interview probes for hidden actors (agents, integrations, future-self) by asking about workflows, not by drafting speculative personas.
2. **Lie in mocks.** Every visible string in a mock is annotated as static / computed / authored, with the source data and transform named. Strings that imply unspecified features get flagged before the mock is committed.
3. **Push to the tracker without confirmation.** Always shows a dry run before creating issues.

## Handoff to Symphony

After load, the project has stories in its tracker. Run `/symphony-init` to
set up the orchestrator that will execute them.