planning-with-files

To maintain task planning context across sessions, use on-disk planning files to persist goals, progress, and discoveries in markdown format. This approach prevents memory drift by storing durable artifacts like task_plan.md, findings.md, and progress.md inside a dedicated .pending folder.

The best way to plan complex multi-step tasks is enforcing a structured workflow that persists planning artifacts on disk. By maintaining task_plan.md, findings.md, and progress.md, you create durable memory and traceable decisions that survive across tool calls and evolving sessions.

To start a new workstream using on-disk planning files, create a .pending/NNN-description planning folder and initialize task_plan.md, findings.md, and progress.md using the provided scripts. This establishes a structured workflow from requirements through delivery.

Yes, you can reuse task planning templates for team collaboration on long-running projects. The provided templates and scripts enable teams to start new workstreams quickly while preserving context, ensuring structured phase tracking and decision logs remain consistent.

Persistent task planning works effectively for research tasks needing traceable decisions by applying on-disk planning files. It maintains a structured workflow that guides requirements, planning, implementation, testing, and delivery while logging discoveries in findings.md.

Complex task planning suffers from memory drift during long-running projects because session context is volatile. Persisting planning artifacts on disk in markdown files solves this by providing durable memory and traceable decisions that endure across sessions.