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Why Plan Cascade?

Traditional AI coding assistants hit a wall with large, complex projects:

Challenge	Conventional AI	Plan Cascade
Complexity	Gets lost in large codebases	Decomposes into manageable units
Parallelism	Sequential, one-at-a-time	Independent tasks run in parallel
Context	Lost during long sessions	Design docs + durable context survive compaction
Quality	Manual verification needed	Automated testing & linting at each step
Control	Black box execution	Transparent, inspectable workflow

The Solution: Cascading Decomposition

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                        Your Project Goal                            │
│            "Build a REST API with authentication"                   │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
                                  │
                                  ▼
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  Level 1: Mega Plan                                                 │
│  ─────────────────────                                              │
│  Project-level orchestration → Manages multiple features in batches │
│  Output: mega-plan.json + design_doc.json                          │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
                                  │
              ┌───────────────────┼───────────────────┐
              ▼                   ▼                   ▼
┌─────────────────────┐ ┌─────────────────────┐ ┌─────────────────────┐
│ Feature: Auth       │ │ Feature: API        │ │ Feature: Database   │
│ ───────────────     │ │ ───────────────     │ │ ───────────────     │
│ PRD + Design Doc    │ │ PRD + Design Doc    │ │ PRD + Design Doc    │
└─────────────────────┘ └─────────────────────┘ └─────────────────────┘
              │                   │                   │
              ▼                   ▼                   ▼
┌─────────────────────┐ ┌─────────────────────┐ ┌─────────────────────┐
│ Stories (Parallel)  │ │ Stories (Parallel)  │ │ Stories (Parallel)  │
│ ─────────────────   │ │ ─────────────────   │ │ ─────────────────   │
│ □ JWT Implementation│ │ □ CRUD Endpoints    │ │ □ Schema Design     │
│ □ Password Hashing  │ │ □ Rate Limiting     │ │ □ Migrations        │
│ □ Session Management│ │ □ Input Validation  │ │ □ Connection Pool   │
└─────────────────────┘ └─────────────────────┘ └─────────────────────┘
                                  │
                                  ▼
                        ┌─────────────────┐
                        │ Quality Gates   │
                        │ ─────────────   │
                        │ ✓ DoR / DoD     │
                        │ ✓ Test Coverage │
                        │ ✓ Lint / Format │
                        └─────────────────┘

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Product Editions

Plan Cascade is available in three editions to suit different workflows:

Feature	Plugin	Desktop	CLI
Target User	Claude Code users	Multi-model teams	Automation/CI
LLM Backend	Claude Code only	7+ providers (Claude, OpenAI, DeepSeek, Ollama...)	7+ providers
Offline Use	❌	✅ (Ollama)	✅ (Ollama)
Installation	claude plugins install	Desktop app / pip install	pip install
UI	Slash commands	Full GUI with 4 workflow modes	Command-line
Quality Gates	✅ Standard	✅ Enterprise-grade with auto-retry	✅
Security Model	Basic	5-layer (Guardrail → Gate → Policy → Sandbox → Audit)	Basic
Worktree Integration	✅	✅ Visual diff viewer	✅
Visual Workflow	❌	✅ Real-time timeline + checkpoints	❌
MCP Stack	Client only	Full stack (Manager + Client + Server)	Client only
Knowledge System	❌	✅ Skills + Memory + RAG	❌
Remote Control	❌	✅ A2A protocol + Telegram bot	❌
Maturity	Stable	Alpha	Development

Which Edition Should I Choose?

• Choose Plugin if you're a Claude Code power user who wants seamless integration
• Choose Desktop if you need multi-model support, visual workflows, or offline capability
• Choose CLI if you're building automation pipelines or CI/CD integration

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Core Capabilities

Unified Workflow Kernel

All modes share a common foundation:

• Unified lifecycle — Consistent state management across modes
• Event streaming — Real-time progress updates via typed events
• Mode handoff — Seamless switching between Chat → Plan → Task
• Checkpointing — Recovery from interruptions

Quality Gates Pipeline

Every Story passes through validation:

┌─────────┐   ┌─────────┐   ┌─────────────┐   ┌─────────────┐   ┌─────────┐
│   DoR   │ → │  Code   │ → │     DoD     │ → │ AI Verify   │ → │ Review  │
│ (Ready) │   │ (Write) │   │   (Done)    │   │ (No Stubs)  │   │ (Score) │
└─────────┘   └─────────┘   └─────────────┘   └─────────────┘   └─────────┘
     │             │               │                 │               │
     ▼             ▼               ▼                 ▼               ▼
  Validate      Implement      Verify all        Detect stub     Code quality
  requirements   solution       criteria          code & TODOs      scoring

Design Document Hierarchy

Two-level architecture ensures consistency:

• Project-level — Global patterns, shared decisions (ADR-001, ADR-002...)
• Feature-level — Component-specific decisions (ADR-F001, ADR-F002...)

External Framework Skills

Auto-injected best practices from Git submodules:

• React/Next.js — detected via package.json
• Vue/Nuxt — detected via package.json
• Rust — detected via Cargo.toml

---

Architecture

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                            Plan Cascade Core                               │
├────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  ┌─────────────┐  ┌─────────────┐  ┌─────────────┐  ┌─────────────┐      │
│  │  Strategy   │  │    PRD      │  │  Parallel   │  │   Quality   │      │
│  │  Selector   │  │  Generator  │  │  Executor   │  │    Gates    │      │
│  └─────────────┘  └─────────────┘  └─────────────┘  └─────────────┘      │
├────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│                         Agent Backend Layer                                 │
│  ┌────────────────────────────┐  ┌────────────────────────────┐           │
│  │   ClaudeCodeBackend        │  │     BuiltinBackend         │           │
│  │   (subprocess, no API)     │  │   (direct API, ReAct loop) │           │
│  └────────────────────────────┘  └────────────────────────────┘           │
├────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│                           LLM Provider Layer                                │
│    Anthropic │ OpenAI │ DeepSeek │ Ollama │ GLM │ Qwen │ MiniMax          │
└────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

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Quick Start

Plugin (Stable)

# Install in Claude Code
claude plugins install plan-cascade

# Use slash commands
/plan-cascade:auto "Implement user authentication"

CLI (Development)

# Requires Python 3.10+ and uv
git clone https://github.com/Taoidle/plan-cascade.git
cd plan-cascade
uv run pytest tests/  # Run tests

# CLI entry point
uv run plan-cascade --help

Desktop (Alpha)

See desktop/README.md for the full-featured desktop application.

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Documentation

Document	Description
Plugin Guide	Claude Code plugin usage
CLI Guide	Command-line interface
Mega Plan Guide	Multi-feature orchestration
Desktop README	Desktop application
PRD Template	PRD file format

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Project Structure

plan-cascade/
├── src/plan_cascade/          # Core Python library
│   ├── core/                  # Orchestration engines
│   ├── backends/              # Agent abstraction layer
│   ├── state/                 # Thread-safe state management
│   ├── llm/                   # LLM provider abstraction
│   └── tools/                 # ReAct tool implementations
├── desktop/                   # Tauri desktop application
│   ├── src/                   # React frontend
│   └── src-tauri/             # Rust backend
├── skills/                    # Plugin skills
│   ├── hybrid-ralph/          # PRD-driven execution
│   ├── mega-plan/             # Multi-feature orchestration
│   └── planning-with-files/   # File-based planning
├── commands/                  # Slash command definitions
└── mcp_server/               # FastMCP server

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Roadmap

Component	Current	Next Milestone
Plugin	4.4.0 Stable	5.0.0 - Enhanced CLI integration
Desktop	0.1.0 Alpha	0.2.0 - Beta with full workflow
CLI	Development	1.0.0 - Stable release
MCP Server	Stable	Enhanced tool support

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Contributing

We welcome contributions! Please see our contributing guidelines for details.

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License

MIT License - see LICENSE for details.