Milestone Planning

ORCA Framework milestone planning turns a spec into bounded phases that can be reviewed, assigned, and verified.

Purpose

Use milestone planning when a spec is too large for one safe build step.

Milestone Shape

A good milestone has:

• a clear objective
• explicit in-scope and out-of-scope boundaries
• expected files or surfaces
• verification method
• rollback or containment notes
• approval triggers

It should also produce a state that another engineer can review or test without waiting for the entire project to finish.

Default Breakdown Rule

If the request is "build the project" or "do the whole feature", ORCA should usually split it into:

1. first working slice
2. main capability expansion
3. risk-heavy or integration-heavy follow-up
4. QA, polish, and release-readiness work only when they are meaningfully separate

Do not hide the first executable slice inside a giant umbrella milestone.

Goal Mode Integration

After a spec is split into milestones, the next well-bounded milestone may become a goal candidate. Use docs/goal-mode.md and templates/goal-contract.md.

Use goal mode only when:

• the milestone has a measurable done condition
• verification can prove completion
• scope boundaries are explicit
• risk is low enough or approved

Do not convert a whole roadmap into one goal.