Phase Planning
A phase is a delivery unit — a set of related features to plan and build. Konductro supports three phase types to match every situation.
Full Phase
A full phase walks through three planning stages, each producing an artefact that feeds into the next. Nothing moves forward without explicit approval.
Requirements
The SDM opens a planning conversation with Conductor. Together they build out a requirements document — what needs to be built, for whom, and why. The SDM reviews the document, requests changes if needed, and approves it.
Technical Analysis
A Developer or Architect runs /technical-analysis in their IDE (Claude Code or Amazon Q). The AI explores the live codebase — real files, real dependencies, real patterns — and produces a technical analysis document. This is submitted back to Konductro and attached to the phase.
See CLI Overview for setup details.
Architecture
The Architect opens the architecture stage in Konductro. Conductor already has the approved requirements and technical analysis as context — no re-explaining. Together they produce the phase architecture: data models, API contracts, sequence diagrams, and deployment strategy.
After all three artefacts are approved, the phase is ready for story generation.
Light Phase
Light phases skip formal stages. The SDM has a quick scoping conversation with Conductor and moves directly to story generation. Use light phases when the scope is small enough that a full planning cycle would be overhead.
Ad-hoc Stories
For one-off work that does not warrant a phase at all — a bug fix, a small enhancement, a quick request. The SDM creates a story directly from the backlog. Conductor AI-refines it and auto-tags it to an Ad-hoc phase. No ceremony required.
The Planning Conversation
All planning stages use the same interface: a real-time conversation between the SDM (or Architect) and Conductor via WebSocket streaming. Conductor assembles its system prompt dynamically based on the project context, the current stage, and any previously approved artefacts.
Key behaviours:
- Context threading — Conductor includes all approved artefacts from earlier stages. The architecture conversation has requirements and tech analysis built in.
- Document extraction — when Conductor produces a document, it is automatically saved as an artefact. No copy-paste.
- Prompt caching — repeated context (project data, artefacts) is cached to reduce latency and cost on multi-turn conversations.
- Approval gates — each artefact must be explicitly approved before the next stage unlocks. The SDM controls the pace.