Plane — Team Behavior Observatory

A behavioral observation layer on top of Plane's project-tracking API. This skill does not wrap Plane CRUD — mcp__plane already does that and you should call it directly for ticket entry, status changes, etc.

Instead, this skill answers behavioral questions about how a team is actually performing under pressure: cycle velocity vs. plan, ownership churn, reviewer gate strength, priority drift, and cross-project load. Each question is answered by a compound command that synthesizes data across multiple Plane endpoints — observations no single endpoint exposes.

Overview

The NOI (references/noi.md) is the design anchor: Plane is a team behavior observatory. Five compound commands derive from that framing:

1. /plane-cycle-velocity — does cycle close-out match cycle planning?
2. /plane-stale-tickets — which In Progress tickets are quietly failing under shared ownership?
3. /plane-reviewer-gate-strength — which reviewers gate-keep harder than the spec demands?
4. /plane-priority-drift — does the team plan high-priority work but ship low-priority work?
5. /plane-cross-project-load — which engineers are spread across too many active projects?

None of these are answerable from any single Plane API call. Each requires cross-endpoint synthesis. That synthesis is the value.

Prerequisites

• mcp__plane MCP server installed and configured (env vars PLANE_API_KEY, PLANE_WORKSPACE_SLUG, PLANE_API_HOST_URL)
• A Plane workspace with at least one project, cycle, and active issues (otherwise the commands return informative empty states)

Authentication

This skill does not handle credentials directly. Auth is delegated to the MCP server. See references/api-surface.md for the env-var setup; if mcp__plane returns an auth error, the skill surfaces the error verbatim and instructs the user to verify their token.

Instructions

Mode detection

Determine user intent from their prompt:

• Compound query mode (default): user asks about cycle health, team behavior, stale tickets, reviewer patterns, priority drift, or workload distribution → route to plane-analyst agent (see agents/plane-analyst.md) which orchestrates the compound commands.
• API help mode: user asks "how do I query X in Plane" or "what endpoint does Y" → route to plane-expert agent (see agents/plane-expert.md) which answers from references/api-surface.md without firing live API calls.
• Skill metadata: user asks "what does this skill do" / "explain plane skill" → return the Overview above + the 5 commands.

If unclear, use AskUserQuestion:

Are you asking about (a) team behavior / cycle health / patterns, or (b) how to use a specific Plane API endpoint?

Step 1: Resolve target project

Most compound commands operate on a specific project. Extract the project slug or readable identifier (e.g., BRAVES, OPS) from the user's prompt.

If absent, list available projects via mcp__plane__get_projects and ask which one. Cache the chosen project for the rest of the conversation.

Step 2: Route to compound command

Match user intent to one of the five commands:

User asks about...	Command
cycle velocity, sprint completion, overrun	/plane-cycle-velocity
stale tickets, orphan work, ownership churn	/plane-stale-tickets
reviewer bottlenecks, blocked PRs, gate-keeping	/plane-reviewer-gate-strength
priority drift, planning vs. reality, P1 vs. P3	/plane-priority-drift
workload distribution, project sprawl, focus	/plane-cross-project-load

Read references/compound-commands.md for the exact endpoint sequence and output format per command.

Step 3: Execute via plane-analyst agent

Invoke the analyst agent (agents/plane-analyst.md) with the chosen command + project. The agent:

1. Calls the relevant mcp__plane__* tools in sequence
2. Performs the JOIN logic
3. Computes the behavioral score per the command's formula
4. Renders the output table per the format in compound-commands.md
5. Adds a "Behavioral signal" interpretation paragraph

If mcp__plane is unavailable, the agent emits a documentation-only response: shows what the command WOULD return, plus the install hint.

Step 4: Interpret the signal

The output is observations, not prescriptions. The skill says "this team plans P1s and ships P3s — the planning conversation is theater." It does NOT say "fire the planner." Interpretation belongs to the human reading the report.

Output

Each compound command produces:

• A table of metrics specific to that observation
• A "Behavioral signal" paragraph that names the pattern in plain language
• Optionally, a follow-up suggestion (e.g., "consolidate projects" / "split this queue") — framed as a question the team can take to its retro

Error Handling

Error	Recovery
mcp__plane unavailable	Emit documentation-only output + install hint pointing at ~/.claude.json MCP config
API rate limit (429)	Back off + retry with exponential delay; if persistent, advise user to wait and re-run
Empty project (no cycles / issues)	Return informative empty state explaining why the command can't compute
Auth error (401/403)	Surface verbatim + instruct user to verify env vars or re-issue token
Workspace member lookup fails	Fall back to assignee UUIDs in output (less readable but functional)

Examples

"How is my team performing on cycle velocity?"

/plane-cycle-velocity BRAVES

→ Renders the cycle-velocity table from references/compound-commands.md § Command 1.

"Are we shipping what we plan?"

/plane-priority-drift BRAVES

→ Renders the priority-drift table; surfaces the gap between planned and shipped priorities.

"Which engineers are stretched too thin?"

/plane-cross-project-load

→ Walks the entire workspace; lists engineers with their active-project / active-cycle / open-issue counts; flags crisis-level stretch.

Resources

• NOI — the secret-identity statement that anchors every command
• API surface — endpoints consumed + auth + pagination
• Compound commands — exact endpoint sequence + output format per command
• Plane docs — upstream API reference
• mcp__plane MCP server — direct CRUD wrapper this skill builds on top of