Adversarial Plan

Spec → implementation plan. Two-role adversarial pipeline that takes a spec.md (from adversarial-spec) and optionally review findings (from adversarial-code-review), and produces a plan.md with ordered steps. To implement it with adversarial-code-loop, convert each step to a focused spec and run the steps in dependency order; adversarial-code-loop has no functional --plan mode.

Installation

Requires the adversarial-common sibling repo (shared engine). One-line install:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/chpomob/adversarial-plan/main/scripts/install.sh | bash

or, from an existing checkout:

bash scripts/install.sh

Both place adversarial-plan and adversarial-common side by side under ~/.hermes/skills (override the target with $1 or $HERMES_HOME).

Workflow

PREFLIGHT ──→ optional DEEP RESEARCH ──→ GIT SETUP
                                           │
                                           ├─ delegated success ──→ FINALIZE
                                           │
                                           └─ direct/fallback ──→ PLAN ──→ CHALLENGE
                                                                          │
                                               APPROVE + no findings ──────┤
                                                                          │
                                               otherwise ──→ REVISE ──→ VERIFY
                                                                  ↑          │
                                                                  └──────────┘ up to --max-loops
                                                                          │
                                                                      FINALIZE

There is one CHALLENGE phase and no CROSS_2 phase. A successful delegated run bypasses PLAN/CHALLENGE/REVISE/VERIFY; a delegated fallback enters the normal adversarial loop. FINALIZE squash-merges an approved plan unless --no-merge is set, or records a rejection marker when findings remain.

Prompt design

The CHALLENGE prompt references plan.md and spec.md on disk and instructs the challenger to read them from the current working directory (the phase workdir). No document text is embedded in the prompt; the provider runs with the phase workdir as its cwd, so filesystem-capable providers inspect both files and the cumulative branch diff directly.

CLI

<!-- CLI-FLAG-TABLE:START -->

Flag	Value/default	Purpose
--help	-h alias	Show command help and exit.
--spec	path; <workdir>/spec.md	Specification to plan.
--findings	path; optional	JSON array, or object containing a findings array, to incorporate into the plan.
--dev-cmd	command; $APLAN_DEV_CMD or built-in default	Explicit plan-writer command; with a provider registry, bypasses registry selection for writer phases.
--review-cmd	command; $APLAN_REVIEW_CMD or built-in default	Explicit challenger/verifier command; with a provider registry, bypasses registry selection for those phases.
--provider-config	path; $ADVERSARIAL_PROVIDER_CONFIG	Provider registry YAML.
--force	off	Skip quota checks and select each registry role's primary provider.
--force-provider	ROLE:ALIAS; repeatable	Force one provider alias for writer, challenger, or verify.
--workdir	directory; .	Target Git repository and phase working directory.
--max-loops	positive integer; 2	Maximum REVISE/VERIFY rounds after CHALLENGE.
--feature	name; derived from spec	Branch and artifact name.
--timeout	positive seconds; 600	Timeout for each planner/challenger subprocess.
--out	directory; .adversarial-plan	Artifact base directory; relative paths resolve under --workdir.
--no-merge	off	On approval, leave the plan branch unmerged.
--show-costs	off	Print a per-phase cost breakdown to stderr.
--retries	positive integer; 3	Maximum CLI retries for each phase call.
--max-input-chars	positive integer; unlimited	Cap prompt input characters for each phase call.
--max-output-chars	positive integer; unlimited	Cap provider output characters for each phase call.
--html	off; optional mode	Render an HTML report after final.json. This does not change the adversarial flow.
--ci	off; optional mode	Suppress banners, use plain stderr, and return stable CI exit codes.
--fail-on	selector; optional CI mode	Set CI failure conditions, for example findings,severity:blocker; used when --ci is active.
--deep-research	off; optional mode	Run bounded external research after preflight and merge its findings before planning.
--research-cmd	command; research env/dev/default fallback	Provider command used by --deep-research.
--research-max-queries	positive integer; 5	Maximum research queries.
--research-max-results	positive integer; 5	Maximum results retained per research query.
--research-timeout	positive seconds; 60	Timeout for each research query.
--delegated	off; optional mode	Decompose high-complexity work among workers. A successful delegated run bypasses the adversarial PLAN/CHALLENGE/REVISE/VERIFY loop; a direct fallback resumes it.
--delegated-concurrency	positive integer; complexity recommendation	Maximum concurrent delegated workers.

<!-- CLI-FLAG-TABLE:END -->

Output format

plan.md with YAML frontmatter + ordered steps:

---
spec: "feature-name"
version: "1.0"
author: "adversarial-plan"
based-on: "adversarial-spec"
findings-input: false
---

## Steps

### P1: First task
- **Files:** [path/to/file.rs]
- **Description:** What changes in this file
- **Dependencies:** []
- **Tests:** What tests to write
- **Risks:** What could go wrong

### P2: Second task
- **Files:** [path/to/another.rs]
- **Description:** What changes
- **Dependencies:** [P1]
- **Tests:** Integration test
- **Risks:** Deadlock risk

Personas

Loaded from adversarial-common/personas/:

• plan-writer.md — reads spec.md + optional findings, writes plan.md
• plan-challenger.md — reads plan.md, outputs JSON findings (risks, order, gaps)

Exit codes

Code	Meaning
0	APPROVED — plan squash-merged
1	Infrastructure failure
2	Usage error
3	REJECT

Integration with dev loop

IMPORTANT: --plan mode is not wired in adversarial-code-loop. Its parser accepts --spec, not a plan file.

Instead, execute each plan step as a separate code loop with a focused per-step spec. See Running plan steps without plan mode for the step-to-spec template, launch pattern, and pre-flight checklist.

# Example: running P1 of a plan
python3 ~/.hermes/skills/adversarial-code-loop/scripts/adversarial_loop.py \
  --spec /path/to/step-P1-spec.md \
  --workdir /path/to/target-repo \
  --dev-cmd "codex exec --dangerously-bypass-approvals-and-sandbox --skip-git-repo-check --sandbox workspace-write" \
  --review-cmd "python3 .../claude-tmux.py --timeout 900 --hard-timeout 1800 --cwd /path/to/target-repo" \
  --timeout 1800 --max-loops 3 --no-arbiter

Steps without dependencies targeting different repos can run in parallel (safe). Parallel on the same repo is forbidden (adversarial-code-loop pitfall #8).

Plan format constraints

• Plan validation is partial. It checks frontmatter, at least one step, contiguous step IDs, and requirement-ID coverage in the spec. It does NOT enforce step field schemas, parse dependency lists, detect cycles, topologically sort, validate file paths, or verify that review findings are addressed. Most semantic correctness is delegated to the challenger model.

Pitfalls

• The --findings flag does NOT accept adversarial-review's final.json as-is. That file contains finding counts ({blocker: 1, major: 2}), not finding objects. You must extract structured findings from the review synthesis report and craft a findings.json manually.
• Each step must have explicit dependencies (or empty list). Circular deps cause validation failure.
• If review findings are provided via --findings, the plan must address each finding in at least one step.
• Step order should respect dependencies (enforced manually; no automatic topological sort).
• The same code patterns as adversarial-code-loop v4: git branch isolation, phase modules, squash merge.
• For implementation, treat one plan step as one code-loop spec. Run steps in dependency order. Independent steps may run concurrently only when their code loops use different repositories.
• Plan parser is strict about bullet format. Files and Dependencies must be on a single line: - **Files:** /path1, /path2. Indented sub-lists are NOT parsed.
• CHALLENGE reads plan.md and spec.md from disk (provider file tools). The orchestrator validates both files are regular files and are UTF-8 decodable before running the phase (fail-fast on FIFOs, device nodes, or binary content).
• Stash pop may conflict if untracked files (e.g. findings.json) exist in the workdir at pipeline end. Fix: git add the file before launching, or pass --findings from outside the workdir.
• write_final_json() may crash if stash state is inconsistent at finish time. The squash-merge already succeeded; only the artifact write is lost.