Add a 'lite' mode to orchestrate-dev skill

[williamthorsen]

Problem

None of the existing orchestration modes serves lightweight coding tasks well:

• vibe is fast (no architecture/planning) but lenient — high thresholds mean most findings pass without being fixed, and 1 review round means no fix-and-re-review cycle is possible.
• Default maintains quality but adds architecture and planning phases that are overkill for minor tasks, plus 3 review rounds.
• strict is the most thorough but also the most expensive.

There's a gap for work where we want speed (skip arch/plan) but still care about code quality (low thresholds, at least one fix cycle).

Proposal

Create a new lightweight mode, --mode=lite, that fills this gap:

Setting	vibe	lite	(default)	strict
architecture	absent	absent	optional	required
planning	absent	absent	optional	required
approval-threshold	high	low	low	low
budget-threshold	high	low	low	low
holistic_reviewer*	sonnet	sonnet	opus	opus
max-review-rounds	1	2	3	4

Positioning: vibe (fast + lenient) → lite (fast + quality) → default (balanced) → strict (thorough).

Settings rationale

• architecture/planning: absent — Same as vibe. Eliminates the heaviest per-task overhead for minor tasks.
• approval-threshold/budget-threshold: low — Same as default/strict. All findings are in scope for fixing. This is the key quality difference from vibe (which uses high, letting most findings pass).
• holistic_reviewer: sonnet — Aspect reviewers already do focused analysis; the holistic pass is a sanity check. Sonnet is sufficient and saves cost vs opus.
• max-review-rounds: 2 — The minimum for a meaningful fix cycle. With vibe's 1 round, findings are reported but can't be fixed (no remaining rounds). With 2 rounds, the initial review + 1 fix iteration is possible.

Scope

Two files need changes:

1. packages/agents/content/skills/orchestrate-dev/SKILL.md — Add lite to the --mode enum, mode presets table, and pipeline-per-mode section.
2. packages/agents/content/skills/orchestrate/SKILL.md — Update the wrapper skills reference to include lite in the mode list (documentation only; the engine is mode-agnostic).

Acceptance criteria

• --mode=lite is accepted by orchestrate-dev
• Mode presets table includes lite column between vibe and (default), with values matching the table above
• Pipeline for lite mode skips architecture and planning (identical to vibe's pipeline)
• Engine's wrapper skills reference mentions lite alongside vibe and strict
• pnpm run build succeeds
• pnpm run check passes

[williamthorsen]

Implementation plan

Changes

Two files, four edits. The engine is mode-agnostic and needs only a documentation update.

File 1: packages/agents/content/skills/orchestrate-dev/SKILL.md

Edit 1.1 — Arguments section (line 18): Add lite to the --mode enum.

- `--mode=<vibe|lite|strict>`: select a mode preset (default: no mode, preserving current behavior)

Edit 1.2 — Mode presets table (lines 29–36): Add lite column between vibe and (default).

| Setting             | `vibe` | `lite` | (default) | `strict` |
| ------------------- | ------ | ------ | --------- | -------- |
| architecture        | absent | absent | optional  | required |
| planning            | absent | absent | optional  | required |
| approval-threshold  | high   | low    | low       | low      |
| budget-threshold    | high   | low    | low       | low      |
| holistic_reviewer\* | sonnet | sonnet | opus      | opus     |
| max-review-rounds   | 1      | 2      | 3         | 4        |

Edit 1.3 — Pipeline per mode section (after line 74): Insert --mode=lite pipeline block between vibe and strict. The pipeline is identical to vibe's (no arch/plan); the quality difference is expressed entirely through the settings in the presets table.

**`--mode=lite`**:

```
implementation (required) -> review-cycle (required)
```

| Phase            | Requirement | Description                                       |
| ---------------- | ----------- | ------------------------------------------------- |
| `implementation` | `required`  | Write code                                        |
| `review-cycle`   | `required`  | Parallel review, code-simplifier, holistic review |

File 2: packages/agents/content/skills/orchestrate/SKILL.md

Edit 2.1 — Wrapper skills reference (line 11): Add lite to the mode list.

Wrapper skills (`orchestrate-dev` with optional `--mode=vibe|lite|strict`, `orchestrate-review`) configure which phases to run and invoke this engine with a pipeline specification.

Verification

1. Read both modified files end-to-end to verify markdown table alignment and code fence nesting
2. Run pnpm run build — content files copy correctly to dist
3. Run pnpm run check — no regressions
4. Invoke /orchestrate-dev "trivial test task" --mode=lite and confirm:
   • Architecture and planning phases are absent from pipeline
   • Implementation phase runs
   • Review cycle runs with max-review-rounds=2, approval-threshold=low, budget-threshold=low
   • Holistic reviewer uses sonnet model