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ab-ship-pipeline

Ships a feature end to end with no checkpoints, tracked in .agent-blueprint/run/state.json; the ship runner drives it unattended

/ab-ship-pipeline
Read SKILL.md on GitHub
Skill
ab-ship-pipeline
Phase
Pipelines, 1 of 9
Version
4.2.0
Arguments
<feature description> [--swarm] [--iterations N] [--convergence fast|deep|perfect] [--deploy] [--external]
Starts
When named, or on a matching request
Helpers
5 prompt files
File
skills/ab-ship-pipeline/SKILL.md

Use it when

  • When the user wants a well-defined feature built hands-off, fire and forget, through to a pull request

Pick another skill

Not for work the user approves stage by stage (ab-build-pipeline) or a change under three files (ab-quick-fix).

ab-build-pipelineRuns a feature through eight supervised stages (discuss, brainstorm, plan, execute, review, verify, optional deploy check, knowledge capture) with a checkpoint after eachab-quick-fixA small, well-understood change through a short test-first loop, then a commit on a branch

Name it in your tool

Every tool also picks a skill on its own when your request matches its description. Naming it picks it for sure.

Claude Code

in a session
/ab-ship-pipeline

What it does

Ships a feature end to end with no checkpoints: recorded assumptions, a verified and deepened plan, execution through ab-orchestrate, review until it converges, then commits and a PR body, tracked in .agent-blueprint/run/state.json.

  1. Initialize Loop & Detect Continuation

    Ship only a feature: route the request with references/stages.md § Intake, then run references/stages.md § Continuation checks, and skip to the stage that needs work.

  2. Requirements (Auto-Discuss)

    Lock clear requirements as decisions; where they are ambiguous, lock reasonable assumptions from docs/context/CONVENTIONS.md and docs/context/GOALS.md instead of asking.

  3. Plan

  4. Deepen Plan

    Invoke the ab-deepen-plan skill on the plan file.

  5. Execute

    Invoke the ab-orchestrate skill with the plan file, the --no-review flag and autonomous mode, in both modes (with or without --swarm).

  6. Iterative Review

    Invoke the ab-iterative-refinement skill (with --swarm, alongside browser testing: references/modes-and-reports.md § Swarm-mode review), passing max_iterations (--iterations, default 3), convergence (--convergence, default fast), scope (this branch against its merge base with the default branch, or in no-commit mode the working tree) and earlier rounds’ Skip and Defer decisions, so declined findings stay declined (ab-iterative-refinement Step 2a).

  7. Compound (Knowledge Capture)

    If the work solved a non-trivial problem, invoke the ab-knowledge-compounding skill to document it in docs/solutions/.

  8. Ship It

Helpers it starts

Each helper is a prompt file in references/agents/. Where the tool has subagents, the helper runs in its own context with only the inputs the file names; elsewhere the main session follows the file itself.

Main sessionab-ship-pipeline

Prompt files in references/agents/

SKILL.md

The instructions the agent follows, from skills/ab-ship-pipeline/SKILL.md.

Read SKILL.md on GitHubIts references/ folder

Ship Pipeline — Autonomous End-to-End

Run every stage below in order without stopping for the user, who asked not to be consulted: each decision is made here and recorded. The run ends when its state file (below) says done, or blocked or needs-human with a reason.

Announce at start: “Starting ship pipeline: autonomous, no checkpoints, a PR at the end.”

Working folder. Blueprint working files live under .agent-blueprint/ in the project root. Before the first write there, make sure .agent-blueprint/.gitignore exists and lists run/, team/, review-runs/, cache/ and .gitignore, so run state and the ignore file itself stay out of commits while plans and notes stay tracked.

Provenance record. Before any other work, run this as written from the project root: mkdir -p .agent-blueprint/run/provenance && date -u +'{"skill": "ab-ship-pipeline", "version": "4.2.0", "started_at": "%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ", "helper_steps": []}' > .agent-blueprint/run/provenance/ab-ship-pipeline.json. It replaces any older record, and the Working folder step above has already made sure of .agent-blueprint/.gitignore. Each Helper step adds {step, path: helper|inline} to helper_steps. The record tells a run, and the smoke test, which skill ran and how; it is not a security control.

Run state

references/run-state.md is the contract for .agent-blueprint/run/state.json. Write the file whole (a temporary file in the same folder, renamed over the old one) at start, once Stage 0 has read any earlier one, and at every stage change, with every field: status, stage, iteration, host, driver, session_id, decisions, provenance, reason, updated_at.

  • driver: runner when AGENT_BLUEPRINT_RUNNER is 1 or --external was passed, else interactive.
  • stage: continuation (Stage 0), plan (1–3), execute (4), review (5–6), verify (7 to its plan audit), ship (the rest).
  • decisions: each default taken without asking (assumptions, must-ask choices, danger-scan hits).
  • provenance: ab-ship-pipeline and this file’s metadata.version. session_id: the host’s, else the branch name fitted to the pattern.

Leave every run file in place, on failure too, and set status instead: only the ship runner cleans up.

Arguments

Everything that is not a flag is the feature description. The flags are in references/modes-and-reports.md § Flags Reference; --external equals AGENT_BLUEPRINT_RUNNER=1. The external loop is scripts/run.sh in this skill’s folder (references/modes-and-reports.md § External loop): when a feature may outgrow one context window, print bash <folder>/scripts/run.sh --host <host> "<feature>" with its absolute path.

Pipeline Stages

Stage 0: Initialize Loop & Detect Continuation

Ship only a feature: route the request with references/stages.md § Intake, then run references/stages.md § Continuation checks, and skip to the stage that needs work. At an iteration of 20 or more, stop before Stage 1 as blocked, the ceiling as reason; state.json keeps the count; only the runner or the user clears .agent-blueprint/run/ for a restart, never this skill.

Stage 1: Requirements (Auto-Discuss)

Lock clear requirements as decisions; where they are ambiguous, lock reasonable assumptions from docs/context/CONVENTIONS.md and docs/context/GOALS.md instead of asking. Other decisions follow the ab-executing-plans decision boundary: conservative defaults never authorize destruction, history rewriting or an unrequested push. Apply references/stages.md § Authorization. Append decisions to docs/context/DECISIONS.md (append, don’t overwrite) and score the requirements with references/stages.md § Ambiguity gate.

Stage 2: Plan
  • 2a. Research: references/stages.md § Research.
  • 2b. Invoke the ab-writing-plans skill with the findings; the plan goes to docs/plans/YYYY-MM-DD-<topic>.md.
  • 2c. Verify it: references/stages.md § Plan check. Blockers left after 3 passes stop the run as blocked, reported as that section says.
  • 2d. Danger scan: references/stages.md § Danger scan.
Stage 3: Deepen Plan

Invoke the ab-deepen-plan skill on the plan file.

Stage 4: Execute

Invoke the ab-orchestrate skill with the plan file, the --no-review flag and autonomous mode, in both modes (with or without --swarm). Plan-checker verified the plan; review is Stage 5’s job. If its report shows a task not done or a failed integration, stop as blocked naming them: partial work is not reviewed.

Stage 5: Iterative Review

No-commit mode. If the user says not to commit, AGENT_BLUEPRINT_GIT_WRITABLE is 0, or .git is read-only, make no commits: leave changes in the working tree and add the intended message to .agent-blueprint/run/commit-msg.md. With AGENT_BLUEPRINT_GIT_WRITABLE=0, the ship runner commits after the session, so it is not for work the user wants uncommitted. Reviews use the working tree and untracked files against the merge base instead of a commit range.

Invoke the ab-iterative-refinement skill (with --swarm, alongside browser testing: references/modes-and-reports.md § Swarm-mode review), passing max_iterations (--iterations, default 3), convergence (--convergence, default fast), scope (this branch against its merge base with the default branch, or in no-commit mode the working tree) and earlier rounds’ Skip and Defer decisions, so declined findings stay declined (ab-iterative-refinement Step 2a).

If it ends without converging (P1 > 0 for fast, P1+P2 > 0 for deep, any finding for perfect), stop as blocked: “Review found unresolved critical issues after [N] iterations. Use the ab-build-pipeline skill to address manually.” Write no PR body: a PR claims the work is ready.

Stage 6: Compound (Knowledge Capture)

If the work solved a non-trivial problem, invoke the ab-knowledge-compounding skill to document it in docs/solutions/.

Stage 7: Ship It
  1. Commit what is still uncommitted as feat(<scope>): <description> (in no-commit mode, into commit-msg.md).
  2. PR body. Write it to .agent-blueprint/run/pr-body.md, the one path the runner publishes, per references/stages.md § PR body. A blocking plan audit stops the run as blocked, with nothing published.
  3. Deploy check (with --deploy): references/stages.md § Deploy check.
  4. Finish. Driver runner: with the commits (or commit-msg.md) and pr-body.md in place, set done; the runner scans for secrets, pushes and opens the PR. Driver interactive: scan the outgoing range and pr-body.md for secrets, then publish, per references/stages.md § Publish; set done after.
  5. Report per references/modes-and-reports.md § Completion report, and stop.

Error Recovery

If a stage fails fatally, stop at once: report what was completed and what failed, and set blocked (or needs-human when only a person can unblock it) with a reason saying what would, so neither the runner nor the Stop hook restarts a broken pipeline. Do not skip a stage or work around a failure, because the PR would then claim checks that never ran; partial work (plan, branch, code) stays for the ab-build-pipeline skill. After a failed execution there is nothing to review.