JetBrains/thinkrail

Chat TODO plan

What it is

• A plan scoped to this chat — your tasks for the conversation. Shown to the user in the Todo panel; lives with the session (not committed to the repo).
• Group = task, item = step. One user ask = one group; its title is the outcome ("Fix login redirect"), not the process. The steps inside are the items — each has a title, a status (pending → in_progress → done), and an optional note (put the done-criterion there, e.g. "login e2e green"). A task's own status is never stored — it derives from its steps.
• Loose items are the user's lane — and they sit at the END of the plan. They hold what the user adds from the UI; you work them, but never group, rewrite, or drop them. todo_list renders them last, after every group, on purpose: a request the user adds mid-task queues after your current work. So finish (or resume) the task you're on before you pick up a loose item — don't jump to a freshly-added user item and abandon a step you had in progress. You don't author loose items (the tools require a group or an after anchor); a tiny ask is a small group (1–2 steps is fine), or no list at all.
• It is shared and live: you maintain it, and the user edits it while you work — adding tasks, removing ones they've dropped. The stored list is the source of truth; what you remember is only a snapshot. Re-read it (todo_list) to stay in sync, don't trust your memory of it.
• It is the user's status window — how they follow what's happening at a glance, without reading the chat. Short, concrete step titles; statuses always current.

Granularity

Size of the ask	Shape in the plan
Trivial (an answer, one edit)	no list at all
1–7 steps	one group (a small ask = a 1–2-step group, that's fine)
more than ~10 steps	those aren't steps, they're tasks — split into several groups

Steps are verifiable and ≈ commit-sized: "easy to check off as you go", not "phase 1".

Working with it

1. Propose the plan first — it's the point of the list. The moment you understand a request that takes more than a couple of steps, your first action is todo_write with your proposed plan — one group per task, steps inside — before you ask clarifying questions and before you start the work. Then refine it in place as you learn more. (A one-shot answer needs no list.)
2. Work tasks strictly in order, one step at a time:
   • Flip a step to in_progress when you start it, done when you finish. Starting a new step auto-returns any other in_progress step to pending — so finish (mark done) before moving on, or the previous step visibly falls back to open.
   • Don't start the next group while the current one has open steps. The one exception: a genuinely blocked task — record why in the step's note, tell the user, and move on to the next group.
   • Before each next step, todo_list again. The user may have edited mid-work: note anything new (it's appended in the user's lane at the end — take it up after the step you're on, don't preempt in-progress work), and if an item you planned is gone, they dropped it — skip it, don't re-add it.
   • The tool results help you: after a done they name the task's next step; when nothing is in_progress they remind you to flip the step you're on. Act on those nudges.
3. A new ask mid-session = a new group appended (todo_add with group:, one per step — or lay out the new task's steps with several todo_add calls). Never mix a new ask's steps into the current group. A step you discover mid-task slots in with todo_add after: <current step id> (anchor to one of your steps — anchoring to one of the user's own items is rejected, since your items never live in their lane) — don't rebuild the plan with todo_write for that.
4. Reconcile before you finish. At the end of a turn, todo_list once more. If open steps remain (including items the user just added), either do them or clearly say what's left and why — don't go idle silently leaving fresh items untouched.

Invariants

• Done stays. Completing a step = todo_update → done. Never delete a done item — it's the user's history. todo_remove is only for when the user explicitly asks to drop something.
• Edit surgically. After the first plan, use todo_update / todo_add (they touch one item). Never todo_write to tweak an existing list — it replaces everything; todo_write is only for laying out a fresh plan.
• Respect the user's edits. The list is shared; treat their additions as new requests and their removals as cancellations. Loose items are theirs — do them, but don't rewrite or drop them when you re-plan. (todo_write preserves user items and done items for you, but don't lean on that — reach for todo_add/todo_update to edit, and keep todo_write for a genuinely fresh plan.)

Tools

• todo_list — read the current plan (the source of truth; re-read to catch the user's edits).
• todo_add — add one step (into a group, or after an existing step; leaves the rest untouched).
• todo_update — progress one step (in_progress on start, done when finished; done stays).
• todo_remove — delete one item (only when the user asks).
• todo_write — lay out a fresh plan (groups only — one per task; replaces your open items; use once, at the start).