Lite path quickstart

The lite path is AID’s fast lane for small, well-scoped changes. It skips Specify, Plan, and Detail and goes straight from Interview to Execute — the same human-gated output, proportionate overhead.

You don’t choose the lite path manually. /aid-interview’s TRIAGE reads the scope and risk of your work and routes it automatically. If TRIAGE classifies your work as small and low-risk, you land on the lite path without any extra steps.

When does TRIAGE route to the lite path?

TRIAGE routes to the lite path when the work is:

• Small — a single well-defined change, not a multi-feature delivery.
• Low-risk — minimal architectural impact; no cross-cutting concerns.
• Well-bounded — the scope is clear from the interview alone; no discovery needed.

Typical lite-path candidates: bug fixes, small feature tweaks, documentation updates, isolated refactors, adding a single test.

If TRIAGE decides the work needs the full pipeline — because it’s complex, risky, or under-understood — it routes there automatically. You can read the TRIAGE rationale in the output and request a re-route if you disagree.

The lite path flow

1. Run the Interview.

   In your AI tool, invoke:

   /aid-interview

   Answer the intake questions. Keep your answers scoped to the change at hand.

2. TRIAGE classifies the work as lite.

   At the end of intake, TRIAGE confirms the lite routing and Interview emits a work-root SPEC.md with the task breakdown already included — no separate Specify, Plan, or Detail phase. Review it and approve.

3. Execute.

   /aid-execute

   The agent implements the task directly, grades its output, and loops until it passes your acceptance criteria. Review each output and approve.

4. Done.

   Your change is implemented. No spec, no plan, no detail phase — just the approved output.

Lite path vs full path

| | Lite path | Full path | |—|-----------|-----------| | Best for | Small, low-risk, well-bounded work | Complex, high-risk, or poorly understood work | | Phases | Interview → Execute | Discover → Interview → Specify → Plan → Detail → Execute | | Artifacts | work-root SPEC.md + task files | REQUIREMENTS.md + per-feature SPEC.md + PLAN.md + task files | | Gates | 2 (intake, execute review) | one per phase | | TRIAGE routing | Automatic | Automatic |

The lite path is not a shortcut that skips quality — it is proportionate rigour. TRIAGE is conservative: when in doubt, it routes to the full path.

Next steps

• Your first work — the full-path walkthrough for complex changes.
• Methodology — the complete TRIAGE routing logic and phase philosophy.