Planning With Files Manus Workflow

What This Skill Does

The Planning With Files Manus Workflow skill transforms your AI agent into a highly persistent coding partner by implementing the industry-standard 'three-file' architectural pattern. Originally popularized by the Manus AI agent, this skill moves critical project context out of the volatile AI context window and onto your persistent local storage. By automating the creation and management of task_plan.md, findings.md, and progress.md, the skill ensures your agent never forgets its objectives, research findings, or current state, even across massive context resets or long-running development sessions.

Installation

You can install this skill via the OpenClaw ecosystem or directly through your terminal using the following command: clawhub install openclaw/skills/skills/adisinghstudent/planning-with-files-manus-workflow

Once installed, the agent will have the necessary directives to maintain the three-file pattern in your project root, ensuring that every task is documented from conceptualization to execution.

Use Cases

This skill is ideal for:

• Complex refactoring projects that span multiple days.
• Large-scale feature development requiring deep research before writing code.
• Maintaining continuity in long-context coding sessions where session timeout is a risk.
• Technical debugging tasks where you need to track findings across multiple experimental runs.

Example Prompts

1. "I'm starting a new feature to integrate Stripe payments. Set up the Manus-style planning files for me."
2. "I've hit a wall with the current debugging task. Please update findings.md with what we've discovered so far and revise the task_plan.md."
3. "Summarize the current project state based on progress.md so I can pick up where we left off yesterday."

Tips & Limitations

• Persistence: Always allow the agent to update the three files; do not manually overwrite them while the agent is running as this can lead to synchronization conflicts.
• Scope: This skill works best in projects with a clear root directory. Avoid using it in temporary scratchpad folders.
• Limitation: The effectiveness relies on your agent's ability to maintain these files consistently. If you notice a file is out of sync, explicitly ask the agent to 'resync project status' using the command /planning-with-files:status to re-parse the files and regain alignment.