planning-with-files

You can maintain task plan state across sessions by using persistent on-disk planning files like task_plan.md, findings.md, and progress.md to track phases, decisions, and logs. This file-based planning approach automatically reloads context before tool calls and offers session recovery after clearing.

File-based planning is a method using persistent markdown documents to structure complex work into phases. You need it for multi-step work involving over five tool calls, research sprints, or multi-department projects where tracking decisions and findings continuously is critical.

To start planning complex tasks, initialize the planning files in your project directory and outline your phases in task_plan.md. As you execute the workflow, continuously capture discoveries in findings.md and log updates in progress.md to validate your advancement.

Yes, file-based planning works for recovering context after a session clear by automatically reloading state from persistent on-disk files. The system enforces a phase-based workflow and uses scripts to validate progress, ensuring seamless cross-session resume capabilities.

Yes, you can use phase-based workflows for research sprints requiring multiple tool calls. The planning system enforces structured phases and auto-refreshes context before each tool use, ensuring findings and progress are accurately tracked throughout the research duration.

Multi-step project planning loses track without persistent files because session memory resets interrupt context continuity. By maintaining task_plan.md, findings.md, and progress.md on disk, the workflow enforces phase tracking and auto-reloads necessary state before subsequent tool execution.