Start a new milestone through unified flow: questioning → research (optional) → requirements → roadmap.

This is the brownfield equivalent of new-project. The project exists, PROJECT.md has history. This command gathers "what's next" and takes you through the full cycle.

Creates/Updates:

•.planning/PROJECT.md — updated with new milestone goals
•.planning/research/ — domain research (optional)
•.planning/REQUIREMENTS.md — scoped requirements
•.planning/ROADMAP.md — phase structure
•.planning/STATE.md — updated project memory

After this command: Run $gsd-plan-phase [N] to start execution.

</objective>

<execution_context>

@.codex/get-shit-done/references/questioning.md @.codex/get-shit-done/references/ui-brand.md @.codex/get-shit-done/templates/project.md @.codex/get-shit-done/templates/requirements.md

</execution_context>

Milestone name: $ARGUMENTS (optional - will prompt if not provided)

Load project context: @.planning/PROJECT.md @.planning/STATE.md @.planning/MILESTONES.md @.planning/config.json

</context> <process>

Phase 1: Validate

MANDATORY FIRST STEP — Execute these checks before ANY user interaction:

•

Verify project exists:

bash

[ -f .planning/PROJECT.md ] || { echo "ERROR: No PROJECT.md. Run $gsd-new-project first."; exit 1; }

•
Check for active milestone (ROADMAP.md exists):
bash
```
[ -f .planning/ROADMAP.md ] && echo "ACTIVE_MILESTONE" || echo "READY_FOR_NEW"
```
If ACTIVE_MILESTONE: Use AskUserQuestion:
- •header: "Active Milestone"
- •question: "A milestone is in progress. What would you like to do?"
- •
  options:
  - •"Complete current first" — Run $gsd-complete-milestone
  - •"Continue anyway" — Start new milestone (will archive current)
If "Complete current first": Exit with routing to $gsd-complete-milestone If "Continue anyway": Continue to Phase 2

•

Load previous milestone context:

bash

cat .planning/MILESTONES.md 2>/dev/null || echo "NO_MILESTONES"
cat .planning/STATE.md

Phase 2: Present Context

Display stage banner:

code

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
 GSD ► NEW MILESTONE
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Present what shipped:

code

Last milestone: v[X.Y] [Name] (shipped [DATE])

Key accomplishments:
- [From MILESTONES.md]
- [From MILESTONES.md]
- [From MILESTONES.md]

Validated requirements:
- [From PROJECT.md Validated section]

Pending todos:
- [From STATE.md if any]

Phase 3: Deep Questioning

Display stage banner:

code

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
 GSD ► QUESTIONING
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Open the conversation:

Ask inline (freeform, NOT AskUserQuestion):

"What do you want to build next?"

Wait for their response. This gives you the context needed to ask intelligent follow-up questions.

Follow the thread:

Based on what they said, ask follow-up questions that dig into their response. Use AskUserQuestion with options that probe what they mentioned — interpretations, clarifications, concrete examples.

Keep following threads. Each answer opens new threads to explore. Ask about:

•What excited them
•What problem sparked this
•What they mean by vague terms
•What it would actually look like
•What's already decided

Consult questioning.md for techniques:

•Challenge vagueness
•Make abstract concrete
•Surface assumptions
•Find edges
•Reveal motivation

Decision gate:

When you could update PROJECT.md with clear new goals, use AskUserQuestion:

•header: "Ready?"
•question: "I think I understand what you're after. Ready to update PROJECT.md?"
•
options:
- •"Update PROJECT.md" — Let's move forward
- •"Keep exploring" — I want to share more / ask me more

If "Keep exploring" — ask what they want to add, or identify gaps and probe naturally.

Loop until "Update PROJECT.md" selected.

Phase 4: Determine Milestone Version

Parse last version from MILESTONES.md and suggest next:

Use AskUserQuestion:

•header: "Version"
•question: "What version is this milestone?"
•
options:
- •"v[X.Y+0.1] (patch)" — Minor update: [suggested name]
- •"v[X+1].0 (major)" — Major release
- •"Custom" — I'll specify

Phase 5: Update PROJECT.md

Update .planning/PROJECT.md with new milestone section:

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 with new goals (keep Validated section intact).

Update "Last updated" footer.

Commit PROJECT.md:

bash

git add .planning/PROJECT.md
git commit -m "$(cat <<'EOF'
docs: start milestone v[X.Y] [Name]

[One-liner describing milestone focus]
EOF
)"

Phase 6: Research Decision

Use AskUserQuestion:

•header: "Research"
•question: "Research the domain ecosystem before defining requirements?"
•
options:
- •"Research first (Recommended)" — Discover patterns, expected features, architecture
- •"Skip research" — I know this domain well, go straight to requirements

If "Research first":

Display stage banner:

code

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
 GSD ► RESEARCHING
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Researching [domain] ecosystem...

Create research directory:

bash

mkdir -p .planning/research

Milestone context is "subsequent" — Research focuses on new features, not re-researching validated requirements.

Display spawning indicator:

code

◆ Spawning 4 researchers in parallel...
  → Stack research
  → Features research
  → Architecture research
  → Pitfalls research

Spawn 4 parallel gsd-project-researcher agents with context:

code

Task(prompt="
<research_type>
Project Research — Stack dimension for [domain].
</research_type>

<milestone_context>
Subsequent milestone (v[X.Y]).

Research what's needed to add [target features] to an existing [domain] app. Don't re-research the existing system.
</milestone_context>

<question>
What's needed to add [target features] to [domain]?
</question>

<project_context>
[PROJECT.md summary - core value, validated requirements, new goals]
</project_context>

<downstream_consumer>
Your STACK.md feeds into roadmap creation. Be prescriptive:
- Specific libraries with versions
- Clear rationale for each choice
- What NOT to use and why
</downstream_consumer>

<output>
Write to: .planning/research/STACK.md
Use template: .codex/get-shit-done/templates/research-project/STACK.md
</output>
", subagent_type="gsd-project-researcher", description="Stack research")

Task(prompt="
<research_type>
Project Research — Features dimension for [domain].
</research_type>

<milestone_context>
Subsequent milestone (v[X.Y]).

How do [target features] typically work? What's expected behavior?
</milestone_context>

<question>
What features are expected for [target features]?
</question>

<project_context>
[PROJECT.md summary]
</project_context>

<downstream_consumer>
Your FEATURES.md feeds into requirements definition. Categorize clearly:
- Table stakes (must have)
- Differentiators (competitive advantage)
- Anti-features (things to deliberately NOT build)
</downstream_consumer>

<output>
Write to: .planning/research/FEATURES.md
Use template: .codex/get-shit-done/templates/research-project/FEATURES.md
</output>
", subagent_type="gsd-project-researcher", description="Features research")

Task(prompt="
<research_type>
Project Research — Architecture dimension for [domain].
</research_type>

<milestone_context>
Subsequent milestone (v[X.Y]).

How do [target features] integrate with existing [domain] architecture?
</milestone_context>

<question>
How should [target features] integrate with the existing system?
</question>

<project_context>
[PROJECT.md summary]
</project_context>

<downstream_consumer>
Your ARCHITECTURE.md informs phase structure in roadmap. Include:
- Component boundaries (what talks to what)
- Data flow (how information moves)
- Suggested build order (dependencies between components)
</downstream_consumer>

<output>
Write to: .planning/research/ARCHITECTURE.md
Use template: .codex/get-shit-done/templates/research-project/ARCHITECTURE.md
</output>
", subagent_type="gsd-project-researcher", description="Architecture research")

Task(prompt="
<research_type>
Project Research — Pitfalls dimension for [domain].
</research_type>

<milestone_context>
Subsequent milestone (v[X.Y]).

What are common mistakes when adding [target features] to [domain]?
</milestone_context>

<question>
What pitfalls should we avoid when adding [target features]?
</question>

<project_context>
[PROJECT.md summary]
</project_context>

<downstream_consumer>
Your PITFALLS.md prevents mistakes in roadmap/planning. For each pitfall:
- Warning signs (how to detect early)
- Prevention strategy (how to avoid)
- Which phase should address it
</downstream_consumer>

<output>
Write to: .planning/research/PITFALLS.md
Use template: .codex/get-shit-done/templates/research-project/PITFALLS.md
</output>
", subagent_type="gsd-project-researcher", description="Pitfalls research")

After all 4 agents complete, spawn synthesizer:

code

Task(prompt="
<task>
Synthesize research outputs into SUMMARY.md.
</task>

<research_files>
Read these files:
- .planning/research/STACK.md
- .planning/research/FEATURES.md
- .planning/research/ARCHITECTURE.md
- .planning/research/PITFALLS.md
</research_files>

<output>
Write to: .planning/research/SUMMARY.md
Use template: .codex/get-shit-done/templates/research-project/SUMMARY.md
Commit after writing.
</output>
", subagent_type="gsd-research-synthesizer", description="Synthesize research")

Display research complete:

code

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
 GSD ► RESEARCH COMPLETE ✓
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

## Key Findings

**Stack:** [from SUMMARY.md]
**Table Stakes:** [from SUMMARY.md]
**Watch Out For:** [from SUMMARY.md]

Files: `.planning/research/`

If "Skip research": Continue to Phase 7.

Phase 7: Define Requirements

Display stage banner:

code

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
 GSD ► DEFINING REQUIREMENTS
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Load context:

Read PROJECT.md and extract:

•Core value (the ONE thing that must work)
•New milestone goals
•Validated requirements (what already works)
•Stated constraints

If research exists: Read research/FEATURES.md and extract feature categories.

Present features by category:

code

Here are the features for [milestone focus]:

## [Category 1]
**Table stakes:**
- [Feature]
- [Feature]

**Differentiators:**
- [Feature]

**Research notes:** [any relevant notes]

---

## [Next Category]
...

If no research: Gather requirements through conversation instead.

Ask: "What are the main things users need to be able to do in this milestone?"

For each capability mentioned:

•Ask clarifying questions to make it specific
•Probe for related capabilities
•Group into categories

Scope each category:

For each category, use AskUserQuestion:

•header: "[Category name]"
•question: "Which [category] features are in this milestone?"
•multiSelect: true
•
options:
- •"[Feature 1]" — [brief description]
- •"[Feature 2]" — [brief description]
- •"None for this milestone" — Defer

Track responses:

•Selected features → v1 requirements
•Unselected table stakes → v2 (users expect these)
•Unselected differentiators → out of scope

Identify gaps:

Use AskUserQuestion:

•header: "Additions"
•question: "Any requirements research missed? (Features specific to your vision)"
•
options:
- •"No, research covered it" — Proceed
- •"Yes, let me add some" — Capture additions

Validate core value:

Cross-check requirements against Core Value from PROJECT.md. If gaps detected, surface them.

Generate REQUIREMENTS.md:

Create .planning/REQUIREMENTS.md with:

•v1 Requirements grouped by category (checkboxes, REQ-IDs)
•v2 Requirements (deferred)
•Out of Scope (explicit exclusions with reasoning)
•Traceability section (empty, filled by roadmap)

REQ-ID format: [CATEGORY]-[NUMBER] (AUTH-01, CONTENT-02)

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
•Independent: Minimal dependencies on other requirements

Present full requirements list for confirmation:

Show every requirement (not counts) for user confirmation:

code

## v1 Requirements

### [Category]
- [ ] **[CAT]-01**: [Requirement description]
- [ ] **[CAT]-02**: [Requirement description]

[... full list ...]

---

Does this capture what you're building? (yes / adjust)

If "adjust": Return to scoping.

Commit requirements:

bash

git add .planning/REQUIREMENTS.md
git commit -m "$(cat <<'EOF'
docs: define v[X.Y] requirements

[X] requirements across [N] categories
[Y] requirements deferred to v2
EOF
)"

Phase 8: Create Roadmap

Display stage banner:

code

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
 GSD ► CREATING ROADMAP
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

◆ Spawning roadmapper...

Calculate starting phase number:

bash

# Find highest existing phase number
ls -d .planning/phases/[0-9]*-* 2>/dev/null | sort -V | tail -1 | grep -oE '[0-9]+' | head -1

If phases exist: New phases start at last + 1 If no phases: Start at Phase 1

Spawn gsd-roadmapper agent with context:

code

Task(prompt="
<planning_context>

**Project:**
@.planning/PROJECT.md

**Requirements:**
@.planning/REQUIREMENTS.md

**Research (if exists):**
@.planning/research/SUMMARY.md

**Config:**
@.planning/config.json

**Starting phase number:** [N]

</planning_context>

<instructions>
Create roadmap:
1. Derive phases from requirements (don't impose structure)
2. Map every v1 requirement to exactly one phase
3. Derive 2-5 success criteria per phase (observable user behaviors)
4. Validate 100% coverage
5. Write files immediately (ROADMAP.md, STATE.md, update REQUIREMENTS.md traceability)
6. Return ROADMAP CREATED with summary

Write files first, then return.
</instructions>
", subagent_type="gsd-roadmapper", description="Create roadmap")

Handle roadmapper return:

If ## ROADMAP BLOCKED:

•Present blocker information
•Work with user to resolve
•Re-spawn when resolved

If ## ROADMAP CREATED:

Read the created ROADMAP.md and present it inline.

Ask for approval:

Use AskUserQuestion:

•header: "Roadmap"
•question: "Does this roadmap structure work for you?"
•
options:
- •"Approve" — Commit and continue
- •"Adjust phases" — Tell me what to change
- •"Review full file" — Show raw ROADMAP.md

If "Approve": Continue to commit.

If "Adjust phases":

•Get user's adjustment notes
•Re-spawn roadmapper with revision context
•Loop until approved

Commit roadmap:

bash

git add .planning/ROADMAP.md .planning/STATE.md .planning/REQUIREMENTS.md
git commit -m "$(cat <<'EOF'
docs: create v[X.Y] roadmap ([N] phases)

Phases:
1. [phase-name]: [requirements covered]
2. [phase-name]: [requirements covered]
...

All v1 requirements mapped to phases.
EOF
)"

Phase 9: Done

Present completion with next steps:

code

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
 GSD ► MILESTONE INITIALIZED ✓
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

**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 from ROADMAP.md]

`$gsd-discuss-phase [N]` — gather context and clarify approach

<sub>`/clear` first → fresh context window</sub>

---

**Also available:**
- `$gsd-plan-phase [N]` — skip discussion, plan directly

───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

</process> <output>

•.planning/PROJECT.md (updated)
•
.planning/research/ (if research selected)
- •STACK.md
- •FEATURES.md
- •ARCHITECTURE.md
- •PITFALLS.md
- •SUMMARY.md
•.planning/REQUIREMENTS.md
•.planning/ROADMAP.md
•.planning/STATE.md

</output>

<success_criteria>

</success_criteria>