What is Composable Workflow Orchestration?
Silver Bullet's composable workflow orchestration replaces fixed step-by-step pipelines with a catalog of 18 named workflow steps. When you invoke /silver, it classifies your context and dynamically composes a chain of steps appropriate to the work — no two compositions need be identical.
Each step is a discrete unit with a contract: prerequisites, trigger signals, steps, produced artifacts, review cycle, GSD state impact, and exit condition. Steps compose into chains. Chains execute under supervision.
Why composition instead of fixed pipelines? A feature composition includes PLAN, EXECUTE, VERIFY, REVIEW, SECURE, SHIP. A debug composition inserts DEBUG before EXECUTE. A release composition includes RELEASE but not EXECUTE. Fixed pipelines cannot express this variability cleanly — composable workflow orchestration can.
The 18 Workflow Steps
Every step has a number, a name, and a one-line description. The trigger column describes what causes /silver to include this step in a composition.
| Step | Name | Description | Trigger |
|---|---|---|---|
| FLOW 0 | BOOTSTRAP | Initialize project, milestone, or resume prior session | No .planning/ exists, prior milestone complete, or user says "new project" |
| FLOW 1 | ORIENT | Orient on codebase, project state, and current workflow position | Always included for non-trivial work |
| FLOW 2 | CLARIFY | Clarify scope, assumptions, boundaries, and decision-ready handoff | Fuzzy intent, unclear scope, or user uncertainty |
| FLOW 3 | DECIDE | Architecture, product, or technical decision artifact | Architecture choice, stack selection, major tradeoff, API/data-model impact |
| FLOW 4 | SPECIFY | Produce SPEC.md and REQUIREMENTS.md via silver-spec | No SPEC.md exists, spec refresh needed, or external artifacts to ingest |
| FLOW 5 | PLAN | Produce CONTEXT.md, RESEARCH.md, PLAN.md | Always for every phase |
| FLOW 6 | DESIGN CONTRACT | Produce UI-SPEC.md via design system and UX skills | Phase involves UI (keywords, file types, DESIGN.md presence) |
| FLOW 7 | EXECUTE | Wave-based parallel execution via gsd:execute-phase | Always |
| FLOW 8 | UI QUALITY | Design critique, 6-pillar UI audit, accessibility review | FLOW 6 was in composition, or SUMMARY.md contains UI file types |
| FLOW 9 | REVIEW | Layered code review: automated → peer → engineering → cross-AI | Always for any composition with FLOW 7 |
| FLOW 10 | SECURE | Security audit, validation, LLM safety checks | Always — scope varies by project type |
| FLOW 11 | VERIFY | Non-skippable verification gate — gsd:verify-work | Always — NON-SKIPPABLE |
| FLOW 12 | QUALITY GATE | Dual-mode: design-time checklist pre-plan + adversarial audit pre-ship | Always — appears TWICE in every composition |
| FLOW 13 | SHIP | Create PR via gsd:ship | Always |
| FLOW 14 | DEBUG | Systematic debugging, forensics, incident response | Execution failure, CI red, verification failure — inserted dynamically |
| FLOW 15 | DESIGN HANDOFF | Produce design handoff package for milestone UI phases | Milestone has UI phases AND in release flow — runs inside FLOW 17 only |
| FLOW 16 | DOCUMENT | Update docs/, session log, tech debt, milestone summary | Always post-ship |
| FLOW 17 | RELEASE | Milestone audit, gap closure, GitHub Release creation | User signals milestone complete, or last phase shipped |
How Composition Works
When you invoke /silver, composition happens in four steps:
- Context classification —
/silverreads the request, current STATE.md position, and file context to determine workflow type (feature, bugfix, UI, devops, research, release, trivial). - Step selection — Based on classification,
/silverselects which of the 18 steps apply. Always-included steps (FLOW 7 EXECUTE, FLOW 11 VERIFY, FLOW 12 QUALITY GATE, FLOW 13 SHIP) are anchors. Context-dependent steps (FLOW 2 CLARIFY, FLOW 3 DECIDE, FLOW 6 DESIGN CONTRACT, FLOW 8 UI QUALITY, FLOW 14 DEBUG) are added based on signals. - Chain ordering — Steps are ordered by their dependency graph. FLOW 0 before FLOW 1 before FLOW 5 before FLOW 7, etc. Dynamic insertions (e.g. FLOW 14 DEBUG on failure) are injected at the appropriate point in the running chain.
- Proposal —
/silverproposes the composed chain to the user, explaining which steps are included and why, before execution begins.
Example composition for a feature request: FLOW 1 (ORIENT) → FLOW 12 (QUALITY GATE, pre-plan) → FLOW 5 (PLAN) → FLOW 7 (EXECUTE) → FLOW 11 (VERIFY) → FLOW 9 (REVIEW) → FLOW 10 (SECURE) → FLOW 12 (QUALITY GATE, pre-ship) → FLOW 13 (SHIP) → FLOW 16 (DOCUMENT). FLOW 14 (DEBUG) is available to insert dynamically if FLOW 7 fails.
Per-instance Workflow Tracker
The active composition tracker lives at .planning/workflows/<id>.md. It is created when a composition begins and updated after every step completes.
What the workflow tracker contains
- Active step — which workflow step is currently executing
- Completed steps — log of steps that have exited successfully, with timestamps
- Deferred improvements — items noted during execution that are not blocking but should be addressed later
- Dynamic insertions — steps inserted at runtime (e.g. FLOW 14 DEBUG after a failure)
- Composition plan — the full ordered chain proposed at composition time
Why the workflow tracker matters
The per-instance tracker gives both the user and the agent a shared, persistent view of what is happening. If a session is interrupted, .planning/workflows/<id>.md allows the next session to resume from the correct point in the chain without re-running completed steps. It also provides an audit trail for post-hoc review. The retired single-file WORKFLOW.md model is legacy only.
Supervision Loop
Each step in a composition runs under a supervision loop:
- Pre-step check — Prerequisites are verified before the step begins. If prerequisites are missing, the step is blocked and the user is notified.
- Step execution — The step's actions execute in order, with mandatory actions always running and as-needed actions gated on context signals.
- Exit verification — The step's exit condition is checked. If not met, the supervision loop either retries or inserts a corrective step (e.g. FLOW 14 DEBUG on execution failure).
- Stall detection — If a step makes no progress for a configured timeout, a stall sentinel is surfaced to break the loop.
- Progress reporting — On every tool use, the compliance status hook shows the current step and overall chain progress.
FLOW 11 VERIFY is NON-SKIPPABLE. The supervision loop cannot exit the chain before FLOW 11 completes. Even if the user requests to skip it, the enforcement hooks block any
git commit or git push until verification has run and passed.See Also
- Routing Logic — how
/silverclassifies intent before composing a workflow chain - Verification Before Completion — FLOW 11 VERIFY and dual-mode quality gates in detail
- Artifact Review Assessor — how FLOW 9 REVIEW triages findings via the assessor
- Documentation Scheme — FLOW 16 DOCUMENT and the per-instance workflow tracker as project artifacts