name: choosing-a-workflow description: "Use at the start of new project onboarding, PR lifecycle work including PR checks, or any change to what the product does — a feature, a behavior change, or a bug fix. Not for continuing work already routed to a workflow, non-PR questions, checks, explanations, or edits that change no behavior."

Choosing a Workflow

The root router of the workflow family. It classifies new workflow-eligible work and names the workflow skill that governs it — nothing more. Work already routed resumes its active workflow instead. A routed skill's steps live in that skill alone; read it, don't run it from memory.

Classify

For a new piece of work, read the request and use what is already known to answer three questions:

1. Is this project onboarding? No spec graph yet — an empty or effectively empty workspace where the user brings a raw idea, or an existing codebase being set up or specced for the first time.
2. Is this the PR lifecycle? Finished work shipping as a pull request, or an existing PR being tended — created, brought up to date, given screenshots, its checks watched, or its review comments addressed. Fixes that flow from a PR's own review comments belong here.
3. Does the work change what the product does? A new feature, a change in behavior, or a bug fix — however small, and even when the request already spells out the design. A detailed request shortens the interview; it never skips it.

If none applies, no workflow is needed: proceed directly without a workflow announcement. Only work that changes no behavior belongs here: a non-PR question, explanation, or check; a typo, documentation, or configuration-only edit; a mechanical refactor such as a rename.

If the route is genuinely ambiguous from the request alone, ask one short clarifying question (ask_user_question, composed per the asking-user-questions concept skill) rather than guessing.

Route

| Classification | Route | |---|---| | Project onboarding — no spec graph yet | Read and follow setting-up-a-project | | PR lifecycle work | Read and follow shipping-a-pr | | A feature, behavior change, or bug fix | Read and follow brainstorming | | None of the above | No matching workflow; proceed directly without announcing the routing result |

One route per piece of work. If a request bundles unfinished implementation with PR work, route the implementation first and return to shipping-a-pr only after it lands.

Red flags — stop and re-route

• You started implementing a feature, behavior change, or bug fix without going through brainstorming.
• "It's small" or "the request is already specific" — neither is a reason to skip; the workflow scales down, it does not switch off.
• You loaded brainstorming for work that changes no behavior (a rename, a typo, a question).
• You re-entered this router while continuing work already assigned to a workflow.
• You are following a routed skill's steps from memory instead of reading that skill.

Handoff

This skill ends by naming exactly one of: setting-up-a-project, shipping-a-pr, brainstorming, or no matching workflow (proceed directly). Adding a workflow to the family adds a row to the table above — see the writing-workflow-skills skill.