Planning with Files

Manus-style file-based planning that tracks complex work in task_plan.md, findings.md and progress.md — and restores context after /clear.

AutomationIntermediate★ 26,060⑂ 2,177AI score 8/10Last updated: Aug 9, 2026

What it does

This skill ports the Manus "working memory on disk" pattern into Claude Code: the context window is RAM, the filesystem is disk, and anything important gets written down.

task_plan.md — phases, goals, decisions, error log
findings.md — research output and anything fetched from the web
progress.md — session log and test results

On top of that:

Reads existing planning files first and runs session-catchup.py to recover context lost to /clear
2-Action Rule: after every two view/browser/search operations, findings are flushed to disk
3-Strike error protocol: diagnose → alternative approach → rethink assumptions → escalate to the user
Parallel plans under .planning/YYYY-MM-DD-<slug>/ with a PLAN_ID pin per terminal
attest-plan.sh locks the plan with a SHA-256 hash so silently edited plan content can't be injected into model context

Who it's for

Anyone assigning multi-step work that spans 5+ tool calls
Developers who've watched Claude drift away from the original goal in long sessions
People tired of re-explaining "where we left off" after every /clear
Teams juggling several workstreams in the same repository

Examples

Large refactor: ask it to plan an auth-to-JWT migration and it produces a task_plan.md split into Phases 1–6, flipping each to complete and logging errors in a table as it goes.
Technical research: while comparing libraries, every two searches get flushed into findings.md, so the comparison evidence survives even when context fills up.
Resuming work: after a /clear, the catchup script is cross-checked against git diff --stat to bring the planning files up to date before continuing.
Parallel tasks: init-session.sh "Backend Refactor" and init-session.sh "Incident Investigation" create isolated plan directories; export PLAN_ID=... pins each terminal to one.

· · · Install guide · · ·

Install in the Claude app (no terminal)

Download the ZIP with the button below.
In Claude, open Settings → Capabilities and turn on 'Code execution and file creation'. (one time)
Go to Customize → Skills → + → 'Upload a skill' and upload the ZIP.

↓ Download ZIP

Install in Claude Code

Let Claude do it — paste this into Claude Code

Install the skill I found on Claude Skill Mart.
Copy the .continue/skills/planning-with-files folder from the GitHub repo OthmanAdi/planning-with-files into my ~/.claude/skills/othmanadi-planning-with-files-3/.
When it's done, tell me in one line what this skill can do.

Install with a command instead

git clone https://github.com/OthmanAdi/planning-with-files.git /tmp/planning-with-files && cp -r /tmp/planning-with-files/.continue/skills/planning-with-files ~/.claude/skills/

⚠ This is a third-party skill. Check the source repository before installing.

Open a terminal and make sure the skills folder exists: mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills
Clone the repository into a temp folder: git clone https://github.com/OthmanAdi/planning-with-files.git /tmp/planning-with-files
Copy the skill directory into place: cp -r /tmp/planning-with-files/.continue/skills/planning-with-files ~/.claude/skills/
(Important) SKILL.md hardcodes script paths under .continue/skills/.... Edit them to ~/.claude/skills/planning-with-files/scripts/... for Claude Code, or copy the folder into your project's .claude/skills/ instead if you want it project-scoped.
Make the helper scripts executable: chmod +x ~/.claude/skills/planning-with-files/scripts/*.sh
Restart Claude Code and say something like "plan this out step by step" to trigger the skill.
Once you approve a plan, run sh ~/.claude/skills/planning-with-files/scripts/attest-plan.sh to lock its contents against silent edits.

View source on GitHub ↗License: MIT