GAD is planning + evaluation for AI coding agents.

>- Capture a reusable pattern, recipe, or failure-mode fix as a skill document so future agents (including you after a context reset) can apply it without rediscovering it. Use this skill whenever you solve a non-obvious problem, discover a working pattern after two or more failed attempts, hit a bug whose fix isn't self-evident from the code, or finish a piece of work that future runs will likely repeat. Write the skill the moment you learn the lesson — not at the end. In bare/emergent eval conditions this is the primary mechanism for agent-authored methodology. The agent IS the workflow author, and skills are how that authorship persists.

inherited by: escape-the-dungeon, escape-the-dungeon-bare, escape-the-dungeon-emergent, escape-the-dungeon-gad-emergent, escape-the-dungeon-planning-only

Systematic debugging using the scientific method — form hypotheses, test them, eliminate dead ends, and find root causes. Use this skill whenever the user reports a bug, unexpected behavior, test failure, build error, or anything that "should work but doesn't." Also use it when execution hits an unexpected blocker mid-phase, when a verification command produces confusing output, or when multiple debugging attempts have failed and you need a structured approach. Maintains a persistent debug session file so investigation survives context resets.

inherited by: escape-the-dungeon, escape-the-dungeon-gad-emergent

Execute a planned phase by following PLAN.md tasks atomically — commit after each task, update planning docs, and run verify commands at each step. Use this skill when the user wants to execute a phase, start working on planned tasks, run through a phase autonomously, or continue execution of an in-progress phase. This is the autonomous execution skill — if the plan is solid and requirements are clear, Claude should be able to run this to completion without interruption. Requires gad:plan-phase to have been run first to produce a PLAN.md.

inherited by: escape-the-dungeon, escape-the-dungeon-gad-emergent

Source visual assets (sprites, icons, tilesets, portraits) for a game or UI-heavy build in a way that yields a coherent, intentional look instead of a debug-console aesthetic. Use this skill when you need art for rooms, entities, UI controls, HP bars, spell icons, status effects, or any other visual element; when the build is failing its UI-quality gate because it looks unintentional; or when you're about to fall back to raw ASCII/text UI. The goal is "looks like someone designed it" — not photorealism, not 1:1 with AAA games, but internally consistent and readable.

inherited by: escape-the-dungeon, escape-the-dungeon-bare, escape-the-dungeon-emergent, escape-the-dungeon-gad-emergent, escape-the-dungeon-planning-only

Analyze an existing codebase and produce structured documents capturing stack, architecture, conventions, and concerns — used before planning phases in a brownfield project. Use this skill when the user wants to understand an unfamiliar codebase, when starting to plan work in an existing project that has no planning docs, when onboarding to a repo, or when beginning any phase that touches code you haven't read yet. Produces .planning/codebase/ documents that feed directly into gad:new-project and gad:plan-phase. Run once per project or when architecture changes significantly.

inherited by: escape-the-dungeon, escape-the-dungeon-gad-emergent

>- Fuse two or more existing skills into a single tailored skill. Use when you discover overlapping skills in the catalog (same trigger keywords, same target workflow, same failure modes being addressed) or when you want to take a fundamental skill like scientific-method or debug and attune it to a specific project domain (e.g. merging scientific-method into a kaplay rune-spellcrafting workflow produces a scientific-method-for-kaplay-forge variant). Merging is the preferred response to skill collision — do not let duplicate skills accumulate in the catalog. Merge them, deprecate the originals in CHANGELOG, and update any inheriting runs. Per decision gad-73 this is one of the three fundamental skills (find-skills + merge-skill + create-skill) that together enable the emergent-evolution hypothesis to be tested in practice.

inherited by: escape-the-dungeon, escape-the-dungeon-gad-emergent

Plan a phase using the GAD methodology — creates a KICKOFF.md with goal/scope/DoD and a PLAN.md with concrete tasks. Use this skill when the user wants to plan the next phase, start planning a feature or milestone, create a task list for a phase, run a kickoff before implementation, or see what tasks are needed to achieve a phase goal. Also use it when a phase exists in the roadmap but has no tasks yet, or when a phase has been idle and assumptions may be stale. Requires repo-planner skill for the full methodology context.

inherited by: escape-the-dungeon, escape-the-dungeon-gad-emergent

Verify planning doc updates before proceeding to the next task. Called between tasks during execute-phase to enforce per-task tracking. Checks TASK-REGISTRY.xml and STATE.xml are current.

inherited by: escape-the-dungeon, escape-the-dungeon-gad-emergent

Verify a completed phase achieved its goals. Runs build checks, validates deliverables exist, checks planning doc state, produces VERIFICATION.md. Works automated (eval agents) or interactive (human review). Use after completing a phase, before marking it done in ROADMAP.xml.

inherited by: escape-the-dungeon, escape-the-dungeon-gad-emergent

Produce a feature documentation MDX file into the docs sink. Use when a project feature needs clear human-readable documentation that persists across sessions.

inherited by: escape-the-dungeon, escape-the-dungeon-gad-emergent