scaffolder | features | plane-integration | DISCOVERY

project:     scaffolder
feature:     plane-integration
doc-type:    DISCOVERY
status:      superseded
version:     0.1
updated:     2026-03-22
depends-on:  scaffolder | ARCHITECTURE

What this is

Raw discovery from session 2026-03-22. Not a SPEC. The decisions and reasoning that will feed the SPEC — or inform the decision to drop this feature entirely. Read this to understand why the structure is what it is.

The problem being solved

Complex projects generate a lot of context — plans, specs, architectures, decisions, feature breakdowns. Currently all of this lives on disk as files Harley reads. That works, but it’s siloed per session and not human-readable as a whole. The goal was to move docs into Plane without breaking the workflow or creating a system that fights AI context.

Secondary problem: Plane needs to be useful for AI — Joker needs to orient quickly at session start, Harley needs read access for context without Joker hand-feeding everything.

What was explored

Plane plan selection

Pro at $8/seat (third-party sources) / $6/seat (plane.so/pro at session time). Business at $15 not warranted — RBAC, automations, approval workflows are team features.

Key Pro capabilities relevant here:

Workspace Wiki with nesting (on Pro)
Project Pages nesting (Business only — critical gap discovered)
Custom work item types (optional, operator-confirmed)
Epics, initiatives, teamspaces
1,000 AI credits/seat/month

MCP surface — the real problem

Plane MCP was probed via tool_search. The exposed tools:

Available:

create_workspace_page — write only
create_project_page — write only
retrieve_workspace_page — by ID only, no list
retrieve_project_page — by ID only, no list
update_workspace_features

Missing entirely:

List pages — cannot browse, cannot orient without knowing IDs first
Update/edit a page — create only, no edits after creation
Delete page
Search pages by name
Nested page operations

This is not a usable read/write doc system. Joker can write pages blind and never read them back. The INDEX pattern (Joker reads index at session start to orient) cannot work without list. This breaks the core session workflow.

Work item types vs tags

Decision: tags handle all work item categorization by default. Custom work item types are optional — Joker proposes at discovery if warranted, operator confirms. Nothing ships with custom types by default.

Decisions are not work items. Not a tag, not a type. They are documents.

Naming convention explored (preserved in standards)

Wiki naming convention was designed: pipe-separated hierarchy. Example: scaffolder | features | plane-integration | SPEC This pattern is still valid for any future wiki system and is preserved in: _system/standards/doc-types.md

Conclusion

Plane is dropped as a doc store. The MCP surface is too restricted for the INDEX/orientation pattern the workflow requires.

Plane’s execution layer (work items, cycles, modules, features mapped to modules) was valid but the PM tool itself has been replaced with Linear. See: docs/features/documentation/DISCOVERY.md

What comes next

Re-scope v0.11.0 Plane epic on GitHub — drop doc store features, reassess PM integration under Linear
CHAT-REFERENCE.md work tracking section updated this session

DISCOVERY — superseded by documentation feature. Do not promote to SPEC.