> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.zerooperators.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# zo draft

> Launch the Plan Architect + scouts to draft plan.md against the schema. Confirms each section before writing.

`zo draft` is how you go from an empty `plans/<project>.md` skeleton to a fully-populated, schema-valid plan ready for `zo build`.

## Synopsis

```bash theme={null}
zo draft -p PROJECT_NAME [OPTIONS]
```

## What it does

The **Plan Architect** (Opus, lead) coordinates with the **Data Scout** (Sonnet) and **Research Scout** (Sonnet) to populate every section of the plan against [`specs/plan.md`](https://github.com/SamPlvs/zero-operators/blob/main/specs/plan.md):

<Steps>
  <Step title="Inspect inputs">
    Reads any source documents you provide (`--docs`), inspects data samples (`--data`), or asks you for a description (`--description`). All optional — the agent can also work conversationally with no inputs.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Research">
    Research Scout surfaces relevant prior art: published benchmarks, baseline ranges, open-source implementations of analogous problems. For domain-specific projects, finds relevant techniques.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Data understanding">
    Data Scout characterises the dataset: schema, class distribution, splits, known issues, scale. For remote data, reads a YAML manifest if provided.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Draft">
    Plan Architect drafts every section: objective, oracle (with must/should/could tiers), workflow mode, data sources, domain priors, agents (with adaptations and custom agents if relevant), constraints, milestones, delivery, environment.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Confirm and write">
    Each section is presented for your approval. Validates against the schema as it generates. The agent runs `--dry-run` first; you see exactly what will land. Then writes to the main repo (not worktrees — see [PR-013](https://github.com/SamPlvs/zero-operators/blob/main/memory/zo-platform/PRIORS.md)).
  </Step>

  <Step title="Wrap-up">
    Asks "anything else?", then tells you to `/exit` and run `zo build`.
  </Step>
</Steps>

## Inputs (all optional)

<Tabs>
  <Tab title="Documents">
    ```bash theme={null}
    zo draft -p my-project --docs ./scope-doc.pdf --docs ./domain-handbook.md
    ```

    Repeatable. Plan Architect indexes documents into a project-scoped semantic index for grounding. Useful for projects with a written scope or domain documentation.
  </Tab>

  <Tab title="Data samples">
    ```bash theme={null}
    zo draft -p my-project --data data/raw/sample.csv --data data/raw/manifest.yaml
    ```

    Repeatable. Data Scout characterises the data layout. For remote data, point at a YAML manifest describing the dataset structure.
  </Tab>

  <Tab title="Description">
    ```bash theme={null}
    zo draft -p my-project -d "Build a fault classifier for rotating-machinery vibration data, target >=80% AUC on a 6-class problem"
    ```

    One-line description. The agent expands this into a full plan, asking clarifying questions where needed.
  </Tab>

  <Tab title="Conversational (no inputs)">
    ```bash theme={null}
    zo draft -p my-project
    ```

    The agent interviews you from scratch. Best when you want guidance through every section.
  </Tab>
</Tabs>

## Custom agents and adaptations

Two of the most powerful plan features are populated during draft:

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="Custom agents" icon="user-plus">
    Project-specific specialists not in the standard roster. The Plan Architect proposes them based on Research Scout findings. Example: for vibration-signal analysis, a `signal-analyst: Sonnet — frequency-domain reasoning, BPFO/BPFI fault frequencies, envelope demodulation` block lands in the plan, and the orchestrator auto-creates `.claude/agents/custom/signal-analyst.md` at build start.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Agent adaptations" icon="sliders">
    Per-project tuning of generic agents. The Plan Architect drafts adaptations for `xai-agent` and `domain-evaluator` (which are generic shells by design — see [PR-020](https://github.com/SamPlvs/zero-operators/blob/main/memory/zo-platform/PRIORS.md)). Adaptations are appended to the spawn prompt at build time; the agent's `.md` file stays unchanged and reusable.
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>

## Options

| Option                | Purpose                                                                  |
| --------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| `-p`, `--project`     | Project name. Required.                                                  |
| `--docs PATH`         | Source document (PDF, MD, TXT). Repeatable.                              |
| `--data PATH`         | Data file or manifest. Repeatable.                                       |
| `-d`, `--description` | One-line description of the project.                                     |
| `--no-tmux`           | Disable conversational mode. Headless run with single best-effort draft. |

## Examples

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="Conversational, no inputs">
    ```bash theme={null}
    zo draft -p mnist-demo
    ```
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="With a scope document">
    ```bash theme={null}
    zo draft -p customer-churn --docs ./scope-2024Q3.pdf
    ```
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="With data and description">
    ```bash theme={null}
    zo draft -p sensor-faults \
      --data ./manifest.yaml \
      -d "Multi-sensor fault classification across 6 classes, target AUC >= 0.80"
    ```
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>

## Output

After a successful draft, the plan at `plans/<project>.md` is fully populated and ready for preflight:

```bash theme={null}
zo preflight plans/<project>.md
```

If preflight passes, you're ready for `zo build`.

## Important notes

<Warning>
  **Drafts always write to the main repo, never worktrees.** ZO uses `git worktree list` to find the main repo. If you ran `zo draft` from a worktree, the plan still lands at `<main-repo>/plans/<project>.md`, and ZO tells you so. See [PR-013](https://github.com/SamPlvs/zero-operators/blob/main/memory/zo-platform/PRIORS.md).
</Warning>

<Tip>
  **The Plan Architect is conversational, not encyclopedic.** It won't research everything in the world for you. Provide grounding via `--docs` for projects with a defined scope, or `-d` for projects you can summarise in one sentence. The richer the input, the sharper the plan.
</Tip>

## Next

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="zo preflight" icon="circle-check">
    Validate the drafted plan before spending compute.
  </Card>

  <Card title="zo build" icon="rocket" href="/cli/build">
    Launch the agent team against the validated plan.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>