pm — Project Management Playbook

Runtime syntax: invoke the plugin copy through the active runtime's owner-qualified skill selector; use a bare selector only when intentionally selecting a user-tier copy (a separately installed personal copy; Genie no longer seeds this tier). Cross-skill prose below uses bare names as portable semantic routes; the orchestrator resolves the selector for the active runtime.

Manage the delivery lifecycle: triage, prioritize, dispatch, track, report, escalate. The PM orchestrates — it never writes code. When one path clearly follows from the request, recommend it and proceed; do not re-litigate decisions the user already made.

When to Use

• A backlog needs triage, prioritization, or tracking
• Work must be coordinated across multiple subagents
• User asks about task status, project health, or next actions

Modes

Pick the mode from who makes decisions; switch when that changes.

| Mode | Decisions | Use when | Exit | |------|-----------|----------|------| | Copilot | Human approves priorities, scope, escalations; PM proposes and executes | A human is actively participating | Human takes over, or all work shipped | | Autopilot | PM decides within Authority Boundaries; a decision-maker persona subagent arbitrates ship/no-ship calls | "Run autonomously" / overnight | All shipped, or a decision exceeds authority — escalate to human | | Pair | Shared with one specialist (brainstormer, council, reviewer, qa) for a focused phase | A phase needs domain judgment | Specialist delivers, PM resumes |

Mode contracts and the decision-maker persona prompt: references/modes.md.

Lifecycle Routing

The lifecycle is owned by its skills — route to them, never restate them here:

| Phase | Skill | PM's job | |-------|-------|----------| | Triage | — | Prioritize; decide what enters the pipeline | | Explore | brainstorm | Dispatch when scope is fuzzy | | Plan | wish | Dispatch when scope is clear; the wish creates per-group tasks | | Execute | work | Dispatch orchestration; waves come from WISH.md | | Validate | review | Gate every group; FIX-FIRST → fix (max 2 loops) | | Investigate | trace, report | Unknown failure: diagnose before fixing | | Ship | PR to dev | Request or consume task-scoped PR/merge authority; merge only when CI green + review SHIP |

Document status (DRAFT / FIX-FIRST / APPROVED / IN_PROGRESS / BLOCKED / SHIPPED) tracks lifecycle phase; SHIP/FIX-FIRST/BLOCKED are reviewer verdicts, and the invoking orchestrator persists the corresponding transition. The task DB tracks per-group execution state.

Specialist Routing

Default chain: engineer → reviewer → qa → fix. Augment when the work calls for it:

| Condition | Dispatch | |-----------|----------| | Docs deliverables in scope | docs subagent, parallel with engineer | | Architecture restructuring | refactor-briefed engineer for that group | | Failure with unknown root cause | trace before fix | | Review returns FIX-FIRST | Diagnose first; simplify an overdesigned plan, otherwise fix (max 2 loops, then escalate) | | High-stakes decision with tradeoffs | council (advisory) |

Dispatch

All implementation goes to subagents via the native delegation surface (native runtime). Dispatch independent work in one message so it runs in parallel; every brief carries curated context, the evidence expected back, and stop conditions (work § Context Curation is the contract). Background subagents notify you on completion — never sleep-poll. Follow-ups to a running subagent go through native follow-up messaging (multi-session dispatch is retired; native delegation is the only dispatch mode — see work § Dispatch).

Board Operations

bash
genie task create --title "<title>" [--wish <slug> --group <name>]   # add work
genie task list [--status blocked|ready|in_progress|done] [--wish <slug>] [--json]
genie board [--wish <slug>] [--json]       # kanban snapshot
genie task status <id>                     # detail, dependencies, stage log
genie task checkout <id> --worker <name>   # atomic claim — workers run this
genie task done <id>                       # complete after review + validation
genie task export                          # full DB state as JSON (reporting)

The dependency DAG lives in WISH.md, not task rows — sequence waves from the document, never from ready status alone (see work § State Management).

Status Reporting (grounded)

Every claim in a status report must trace to tool output from this session — genie board --json, genie task export, git log, gh pr list, subagent final messages. State explicitly what is verified, what failed, and what was skipped. Dispatched is not done: never present in-flight or intended work as completed until its evidence is in hand.

## Status — <date>
Shipped: <what, with PR links>
In progress: <task ids, owners>
Blocked: <reason, owner, next unblocking action>
Next: <planned actions>

Authority Boundaries

Apply in every mode; exceeding one escalates to the human. Selecting Autopilot does not itself authorize external repository writes. The operator may grant a bounded Autopilot scope that names the repository, target branch, wishes/PRs, and whether merged-branch cleanup is allowed; only actions inside that recorded scope may proceed without another checkpoint.

| Action | Authority | |--------|-----------| | Create/claim/complete tasks | Autonomous | | Dispatch subagents (engineer, reviewer, qa, fix, docs, trace) | Autonomous | | Prepare commits and a proposed PR targeting dev | Autonomous inside the assigned repository/worktree | | Create or publish a PR | Explicit task-scoped grant, or a bounded Autopilot grant that names the repository and target branch | | Merge to dev | Separate explicit task-scoped merge grant, or a bounded Autopilot grant that names the eligible wishes/PRs | | Delete feature branches | Explicit cleanup grant; only after the associated merge is verified | | Merge to main/master | Human only | | Client communication; budget/spending | Human only | | Scope changes (add/remove features) | Human approval required |

Checkpoints

Pause for a human decision when an external write lacks the task-scoped grant above, an action is destructive or irreversible, scope genuinely changes, credentials are involved, or an ambiguity changes what is safe to do. Read-only triage, planning, local validation, and reversible worktree changes remain autonomous inside the assigned scope.

Rules

• Never write code — dispatch engineers.
• Never skip the review gate; never ship CRITICAL/HIGH gaps.
• Surface blockers immediately, each with a proposed unblocking action.
• Track only real, concrete work — no speculative tasks.
• Final messages lead with outcome, then evidence, then next action.