Recipe: Surgical Fix

The micro-lane fast path for a pre-diagnosed surgical fix — a change whose root cause is already known, whose exact edit is already known, that touches ≤~2 files / ~50 LOC, and that carries no cross-module behavioral delta. This recipe is a phase-3-outline surrogate: it takes the pre-diagnosed request as its contract, composes a deterministic scope_estimate: surgical outline with no discovery pass beyond the named files, and hands off to phase-4-plan, whose surgical + {change_type} cascade collapses Phase 5 verification and Phase 6 finalize to the minimum safe set.

The recipe introduces no new lane tier and no new dispatch machinery — it is a composition of already-shipped parts. Its lane: seed recommends profile: minimal (every element at the minimal floor) with one force-keep — automated-review held at minimal so structural review stays in the loop even on the leanest posture. The seed is the lowest-precedence lane input (recipe seed < operator posture < coverage-cell floor); the operator posture always overrides it. The minimal floor semantics and the adversarial-review class are owned by `../extension-api/standards/ext-point-lane-element.md` — this recipe cross-references them rather than restating the lattice.

Foundational Practices

Skill: plan-marshall:persona-plan-marshall-agent

Enforcement

Execution mode: Walk the three phase-aligned steps below in order — resolve the pre-diagnosed inputs and verify surgical fit, compose the deterministic outline, hand off to Phase 4. Each step has a single explicit job — no improvisation, no extra discovery passes.

Prohibited actions:

• Never run a discovery pass beyond the affected files named in the pre-diagnosed request. The request IS the contract — this recipe does not re-derive scope, hunt for additional call sites, or expand the footprint.
• Never set scope_estimate to anything other than surgical. This recipe exists specifically to drive the surgical + {change_type} cascade rules in the manifest composer; a non-surgical request does not belong on this path.
• Never proceed when the fit gate (Step 1) fails. A request that crosses a module boundary, or whose fix is not already diagnosed, MUST abort with the redirect error — the recipe never silently widens scope to make a non-surgical request fit.
• Never call Q-Gate validation from within this recipe. The recipe path is its own gate (see phase-3-outline § Recipe Path).

Constraints:

• Strictly comply with all rules from persona-plan-marshall-agent, especially tool usage and workflow step discipline.
• One deliverable per affected file, or a single deliverable covering the whole surgical change when it is one cohesive edit — never invent deliverables beyond the pre-diagnosed change.

Input

Parameter	Type	Required	Description
plan_id	string	Yes	Plan identifier. The pre-diagnosed request — root cause, exact change, affected files — is read from the plan's request.md, already populated by phase-1-init / phase-2-refine's recipe shortcut (confidence forced to 100).

Note: This recipe takes no recipe_domain / recipe_profile / recipe_package_source parameters. The pre-diagnosed request.md is the sole input; the affected module is derived from the named files in Step 1.

When to use it — and when NOT to

Use the surgical-fix micro-lane when ALL of the following hold:

• The root cause is already known and the exact change is already diagnosed — this is not an investigation.
• The change touches ≤~2 files / ~50 LOC.
• The change carries no cross-module behavioral delta — every affected file resolves to a single module, and no consumer contract changes.

Do NOT use it — route to the standard planning path instead — when ANY of the following hold:

• The fix crosses a module boundary, or changes a contract other consumers depend on.
• The fix is not already diagnosed (the request describes a symptom to investigate, not a change to apply).
• The change is broad, fans out across many files, or needs a discovery pass to bound its scope.

The Step 1 fit gate enforces this contract deterministically; a request that fails it aborts with a redirect rather than being force-fit onto the micro-lane.

---

Step 1: Resolve the Pre-Diagnosed Inputs and Verify Surgical Fit (Phase 2 surrogate)

The recipe replaces the iterative phase-2-refine loop — confidence is forced to 100 because the pre-diagnosed request is the contract.

1a. Read the pre-diagnosed request copied into the plan directory:

python3 .plan/execute-script.py plan-marshall:manage-plan-documents:manage-plan-documents \
  request path --plan-id {plan_id}

Read the resolved path with the Read tool and extract the three pre-diagnosed inputs:

• root_cause — the diagnosed cause of the defect / the reason for the change.
• exact_change — the specific edit to apply (the "what to change" the request already names).
• affected_files[] — the explicit file paths the change touches (≤~2 expected).

1b. Verify surgical fit (the gate). Resolve the owning module of every affected file:

python3 .plan/execute-script.py plan-marshall:manage-architecture:architecture \
  which-module --path {affected_file}

Collect the distinct module values. The request passes the fit gate only when ALL hold:

• Every affected file resolves to the same single module (no cross-module boundary).
• The affected-file count is ≤~2 and the change is a single cohesive edit (no fan-out).
• The request names a concrete diagnosed change (root cause + exact change are both present), not an investigation.

1c. Abort on fit failure. When the gate fails, do NOT compose an outline and do NOT widen scope to force a fit. Return the redirect error and stop:

status: error
error: not_surgical
plan_id: {plan_id}
reason: "{cross_module | not_pre_diagnosed | too_broad}"
message: "Request does not fit the surgical micro-lane: {specific reason}."
recovery: "Re-run without recipe=surgical-fix to route through the standard planning path (phase-2-refine → phase-3-outline)."

Log the abort so the scope decision is auditable:

python3 .plan/execute-script.py plan-marshall:manage-logging:manage-logging \
  decision --plan-id {plan_id} --level INFO \
  --message "(plan-marshall:recipe-surgical-fix:fit-gate) Aborted — request does not fit the surgical class: {specific reason}"

When the gate passes, record the resolved module as {module} and continue to Step 2.

---

Step 2: Compose the Deterministic Surgical Outline (Phase 3 surrogate)

Emit one deliverable per affected file (or a single deliverable when the change is one cohesive edit across the ≤~2 files). The outline is purely structural — no LLM decomposition, no Q-Gate.

2a. Read the deliverable template:

Read: marketplace/bundles/plan-marshall/skills/manage-solution-outline/templates/deliverable-template.md

2b. Resolve the target outline path:

python3 .plan/execute-script.py plan-marshall:manage-solution-outline:manage-solution-outline \
  resolve-path --plan-id {plan_id}

2c. Resolve the verification command for the affected module (used as each deliverable's Verification Command):

python3 .plan/execute-script.py plan-marshall:manage-architecture:architecture \
  resolve --command compile --module {module} --audit-plan-id {plan_id}

2d. Compose the document. For the surgical change, emit deliverable(s) using the template structure from 2a:

• Title: Surgical fix: {short change summary}
• Description: the exact_change from the request, verbatim.
• Metadata:
  • change_type: the recipe default bug_fix, unless the request explicitly declares a different concrete change_type.
  • execution_mode: automated
  • domain: the affected module's domain.
  • module: {module} resolved in Step 1.
  • scope_estimate: surgical — REQUIRED. This drives the surgical + {change_type} cascade rule in the manifest composer.
• Affected files: the affected_files[] from the request, each with its (intent) marker (write-replace / write-new).
• Verification: the executable resolved in 2c, with a criteria line asserting the diagnosed change applied cleanly with no regressions.

The top-level outline metadata MUST also carry scope_estimate: surgical so phase-3-outline writes it into status metadata for the manifest composer.

2e. Write the outline with the Write tool to {resolved_path}. Sections in order:

• # Solution: Surgical Fix — {short change summary} header with plan_id, change_type, scope_estimate: surgical metadata.
• ## Summary — one sentence naming the diagnosed change and affected file count.
• ## Overview — the root cause and the exact change, one short paragraph.
• ## Deliverables — the deliverable(s) from 2d, using the template structure.

2f. Validate the written outline:

python3 .plan/execute-script.py plan-marshall:manage-solution-outline:manage-solution-outline \
  write --plan-id {plan_id}

2g. Skip Q-Gate — the recipe path is its own gate. Log the bypass:

python3 .plan/execute-script.py plan-marshall:manage-logging:manage-logging \
  decision --plan-id {plan_id} --level INFO \
  --message "(plan-marshall:recipe-surgical-fix) Skipped Q-Gate validation (recipe path)"

---

Step 3: Hand Off to Phase 4 (Surgical Cascade)

Phase-4-plan reads the outline, sees scope_estimate: surgical, and composes the execution manifest through two independent passes. (1) The surgical + {change_type} change-type cascade sets phase_5.verification_steps to the role-intersected core (for surgical + bug_fix, {quality-gate, module-tests}) and trims the phase_6 candidate set (dropping ci-wait) — per manage-execution-manifest/standards/decision-rules.md Row 5, this cascade NEVER silently suppresses sonar-roundtrip / automated-review. (2) The separate lane-resolution pass applies the recipe's minimal posture, and it is that pass which drops the prunable / tier:standard finalize elements such as sonar-roundtrip (per ext-point-lane-element.md). The recipe's lane: seed force-keeps automated-review in the loop so structural review still runs even on the minimal posture.

This recipe does not invoke phase-4-plan directly — phase-3-outline returns control to the orchestrator, which advances to phase-4-plan as usual. The manifest composer reads scope_estimate from the outline metadata.

---

Output

status: success
plan_id: {plan_id}
change_type: {derived}
scope_estimate: surgical
module: {module}
deliverables_count: {N}
outline_path: {resolved_path}
next_phase: 4-plan

On fit-gate failure, the recipe returns the not_surgical error TOON from Step 1c instead.

---

Related

• plan-marshall:extension-api standards/ext-point-recipe.md — the recipe extension point this skill implements, and the recipe lane: seed contract.
• plan-marshall:extension-api standards/ext-point-lane-element.md — the minimal floor lattice and the adversarial class that governs automated-review; the seed cross-references it rather than restating it.
• plan-marshall:phase-3-outline § Recipe Path — loads this skill with the input parameters and skips Q-Gate accordingly.
• plan-marshall:phase-4-plan § Manifest Composition — reads scope_estimate=surgical and applies the cascade rules.
• plan-marshall:recipe-lesson-cleanup — sister deterministic-outline recipe; same surgical-scope shape, different source (a single lesson vs. a pre-diagnosed request).