planning-with-files

Persistent planning files prevent context loss in long-running tasks by automatically creating and updating task_plan.md, findings.md, and progress.md to capture goals, decisions, and session logs across sessions.

The best way to manage complex multi-step workflows is using persistent planning artifacts that structure your work phases, track findings, and log progress, ensuring context is preserved throughout the project lifecycle.

Set up persistent planning files by creating task_plan.md, findings.md, and progress.md from dedicated templates in your project directory, then start your task by updating the plan and following its phases.

You need persistent memory for planning when work involves multi-step processes, research projects, or workflows requiring many tool calls where context must persist beyond a single session.

This planning workflow requires no external dependencies or components, only dedicated templates and hooks to auto-create and update task_plan.md, findings.md, and progress.md in your project directory.

Using Markdown files for task planning requires manual adherence to structured artifacts and phases, and relies on your project directory to store files, which may not scale for highly distributed or non-file-based workflows.