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Paved Roads

ORCA Framework paved roads are the strongly recommended default paths for common work. They are opinionated, optional, and allowed to degrade safely by harness.

Why They Exist

Paved roads reduce decision fatigue by encoding the best current default path instead of presenting a large menu of equal options. They should remove drag, not add ceremony.

Current Default Roads

  • idea to validation: orca-idea -> orca-evaluate-idea -> orca-plan-idea -> orca-validate-idea -> orca-spec
  • standard software delivery: intake -> setup -> discover -> spec -> plan -> build -> review -> QA -> ship
  • legacy slice modernization: intake -> discover -> orca-legacy -> spec -> phased plan -> build -> QA
  • web SaaS default: Next.js + Vercel + Supabase + Stripe + Resend + PostHog + Sentry
  • mobile app default: Expo + React Native + Expo EAS + Supabase or Firebase + RevenueCat + OneSignal + Sentry
  • internal tool default: Next.js + Railway + Postgres + Clerk + GitHub + Linear

Integration Bundles

Paved roads should recommend bundles, not unrelated tools:

  • web road favors deploy, auth, billing, analytics, and monitoring that fit web workflows
  • mobile road favors build, store, subscription, push, and crash workflows that fit native app constraints
  • internal-tool road favors simpler hosting, database, auth, and work-management integration

Do not recommend a paved road unless the user's use case actually matches it strongly. Do not load a paved road with optional tooling that fails the friction test.

Leaving The Road

Leave the paved road when:

  • the user already has stronger artifacts
  • a harness or integration is unavailable
  • the work type genuinely differs from the default path
  • the next-step guidance recommends a safer alternate branch

Leaving the road should be explicit. ORCA Framework should say what default path it is leaving and why.