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Workflow Support

Find and follow installed workflows, or write your own. This package supplies the use-workflow Skill. Agents reach every workflow recipe that other packages install through this one Skill.

  • Package ID: workflows
  • Depends on: Nothing
  • Needed by: Planning, Project Documents, Development, and through them Task Coordination
  • Startup visibility: This package adds one entry line in the Skills entrypoint for use-workflow. SKILL.md, the recipe catalogue, recipes, and the Template stay on demand. Your harness may also list the Skill through its own discovery, if you've set that up.

These counts describe this package's own entries when their parent routes expose them in Entries and are read. Required packages add their own entries. Linked files stay on demand unless selected or required.

Install​

Package files follow your installation choices. Essentials leaves out Templates, so Extension starters are skipped. Restore the Templates category if you want those starters.

From your installed Open Forge workspace, preview the package and its required packages:

open-forge extension install workflows --dry-run

Review the plan. Then apply it:

open-forge extension install workflows

The CLI installs required packages from the same catalogue. See the Extension guide for scripts using --automatic, updates, removal, or a local source.

Why it exists​

Repeatable methods, such as reviewing or debugging, are useful, but they aren't rules and most tasks don't need them. A Core category would put them in every workspace's base install, and they would overlap with Skills.

So they live behind one native Skill, use-workflow, and a catalogue. The agent sees the Skill's one-line entry, opens SKILL.md when a method is wanted, and then opens only the recipe that fits. Other packages add their recipes to the same catalogue, so there's one way in instead of one per package.

What it installs​

.agents/
  skills/use-workflow/
    SKILL.md                      <- native Skill: how to pick and follow a recipe
    references/
      _references.md              <- the recipe catalogue (empty until other packages add recipes)
  templates/workflows/
    _workflows.md                 <- Template category entrypoint
    workflow.md                   <- starter for writing your own recipe

What each file is for​

skills/use-workflow/SKILL.md​

Kind: native Skill. Used when: you ask for a workflow, or an installed recipe would clearly improve the task.

This is the selector. It tells the agent to read the catalogue, load only the relevant scope and recipe, check the recipe's Goal before proceeding, and prefer the smallest method that fits. If no recipe adds value, the agent works directly.

Once a recipe is selected, the Skill tells the agent to follow its required steps, take conditional branches only when their conditions hold, and check Completion against the actual result. Finishing a recipe doesn't authorize new scope, accept its own output, or grant permission to commit, merge, or publish.

skills/use-workflow/references/_references.md​

Kind: recipe catalogue entrypoint. Used when: the Skill is choosing a recipe.

The catalogue defines the recipe convention: every recipe has one non-empty ## Goal, ## Steps, and ## Completion, in that order, and may add other sections. Other packages add their recipes as scoped folders below it (development/, planning/, project-documents/, orchestration/). Installed alone, it contains no recipes.

Agents reach recipes through the use-workflow Skill. The CLI's ordinary index command also reaches recipe catalogues of structurally reachable native Skills. Preview reachable indexes with:

open-forge index --dry-run

To limit the operation to this recipe catalogue, name it explicitly:

open-forge index .agents/skills/use-workflow/references/_references.md

templates/workflows/workflow.md​

Kind: Template. Used when: you want to capture a method of your own.

A starter recipe with Goal, Steps, and Completion sections, plus guidance on placing it in a catalogue scope and keeping tool-specific invocation in the native capability that owns it.

How to use it​

Use the installed workflow that fits this task. Load only its relevant scope and required context.

Use the review workflow on this branch.

Good to know​

  • Open Forge routing and native harness discovery are separate. Make sure your harness can see .agents/skills/use-workflow/SKILL.md through its own Skill discovery, and that relative resource links resolve.
  • The package installs no hooks, execution engine, tool grants, or provider-specific agents.
  • A missing or deliberately removed recipe isn't permission to reinstall it.

Next: Install this package, or update and remove Extensions.