What is Manus-style planning?

It is a workflow pattern that uses local markdown files as 'disk memory' to store plans, findings, and progress, preventing AI context loss during complex tasks.

Where are the planning files stored?

The files (task_plan.md, findings.md, and progress.md) are created in your project's root directory to ensure they remain accessible and project-specific.

When should I use the planning-with-files skill?

Use it for any task requiring more than 5 tool calls, research-heavy projects, or multi-step engineering tasks that span multiple sessions.

Can I use this for simple code edits?

It is not recommended for simple questions or single-file edits; the overhead of maintaining planning files is best suited for high-complexity, multi-phase work.

How does the 3-strike protocol work?

It forces the AI to diagnose, try an alternative approach, and then rethink assumptions before escalating to the user after three consecutive failures.

Manus-Style File-Based Planning

Name: Manus-Style File-Based Planning
Author: OthmanAdi

byOthmanAdi

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13,549

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Productivity & Workflow

Implements a persistent markdown-based workflow for Claude Code to manage complex, multi-step tasks through on-disk working memory.

This skill enhances Claude Code's reliability during complex projects by implementing a 'Manus-style' planning architecture. By maintaining dedicated markdown files like task_plan.md, findings.md, and progress.md, it transforms the ephemeral context window into a persistent 'disk-based' memory. This approach prevents information loss during multi-step browser or research tasks, enforces a rigorous 3-strike error protocol, and ensures goals remain central to the AI's decision-making process, making it indispensable for research-heavy or high-complexity engineering tasks that exceed the typical context window limits.

Key Features

0113,549 GitHub stars

02Context recovery scripts for resuming long-running sessions across gaps.

03The '2-Action Rule' for immediate data persistence after search or browser operations.

04Decision-making guardrails that require reading the plan before major actions.

05Rigorous 3-Strike Error Protocol for diagnosing, fixing, and escalating issues.

06Persistent working memory using task_plan.md, findings.md, and progress.md files.

Use Cases

01Executing complex research projects that require more than 5 tool calls.

02Building new software features from scratch with multiple dependencies.

03Managing long-running debugging sessions that involve multiple failed attempts.

What are Skills?·How to Install

Install with 🐟 Skill.Fish

npx skillfish add othmanadi/planning-with-files planning-with-files

For use in Claude.ai and ChatGPT

Download Skill