Prerequisites
Problem Description
Prometheus is already required to produce execution-ready metadata:
- task dependency graph
- parallel execution graph
- per-task delegation recommendation
- per-task category recommendation
- per-task skill recommendation
However, Atlas does not currently consume that output as an authoritative execution contract. Atlas still re-parses the plan and re-derives parallelization and category choice at execution time.
That weakens the planner / executor separation and makes runtime behavior harder to predict and audit than the architecture suggests.
Evidence
1. Prometheus is explicitly required to emit execution metadata
The planning contract explicitly requires:
- dependency graph
- parallel execution graph
- recommended category + skills per task
- explicit task-level execution metadata
The output format already includes blocks like:
### Task N
**Delegation Recommendation**
- Category: ...
- Skills: ...
**Depends On**: ...
and in the newer plan format:
**Recommended Agent Profile**
- Category: ...
- Skills: ...
**Parallelization**
...
2. Atlas still re-analyzes the plan instead of defaulting to planner metadata
Atlas is still instructed to:
- read the plan
- parse incomplete checkboxes
- build its own parallelization map
- choose delegation routing dynamically
That means the current implementation behaves more like:
Prometheus proposes execution structure
Atlas re-decides execution structure
than:
Prometheus defines execution structure
Atlas executes it
3. The Atlas decision matrix is generic fallback guidance, not a plan-bound contract
Atlas gets a generic category / agent decision matrix, but that matrix is not bound to the current task block in the plan. So Atlas can still classify the task ad hoc even when Prometheus already wrote a recommendation.
4. Runtime behavior reflects this drift
In local Atlas runtime evidence, Atlas dynamically routed work across:
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That flexibility can be useful, but it also confirms Atlas is acting as a live execution planner rather than a strict dispatcher of Prometheus decisions.
Why This Matters
The current architecture looks like:
Prometheus -> Plan
Atlas -> Execute the plan
But the effective runtime contract is closer to:
Prometheus -> Plan
Atlas -> Re-interpret plan -> Choose routing again -> Execute
That creates several problems:
- Prometheus output is less authoritative than the system implies.
- Atlas category / model behavior is harder to reason about.
- Planner intent vs runtime execution is harder to audit.
- It becomes difficult to tell whether failures came from the plan itself or from Atlas re-routing around it.
Expected Behavior
Atlas should treat Prometheus execution metadata as authoritative by default.
If a task already specifies:
- dependencies
- execution wave / parallelization
- category
- skills
then Atlas should use that directly unless there is a concrete runtime reason to override it.
Suggested contract:
Planner output is binding by default.
Atlas may override only with an explicit justification.
Related Issues / Why This Is Not A Duplicate
This is related to, but not the same as:
Those issues focus on rule-following quality, QA rigor, state tracking, or orchestration aggressiveness.
This issue is specifically about planner / executor boundary drift:
- Prometheus already emits execution metadata
- Atlas should honor it instead of silently re-planning execution
Proposed Solution
- Parse and extract Prometheus execution metadata from the plan as structured input, or at minimum treat the existing task block metadata as authoritative when present.
- Use
Delegation Recommendation, Recommended Agent Profile, Depends On, and wave / parallelization information as the default execution contract.
- Allow Atlas to override category / skills / ordering only when:
- verification reveals a mismatch
- a blocker changes the dependency graph
- the planner clearly misclassified the task
- When Atlas overrides, require a short explicit note in-session:
- planned category / wave
- actual category / wave
- concrete reason for override
Prerequisites
Problem Description
Prometheus is already required to produce execution-ready metadata:
However, Atlas does not currently consume that output as an authoritative execution contract. Atlas still re-parses the plan and re-derives parallelization and category choice at execution time.
That weakens the planner / executor separation and makes runtime behavior harder to predict and audit than the architecture suggests.
Evidence
1. Prometheus is explicitly required to emit execution metadata
The planning contract explicitly requires:
The output format already includes blocks like:
and in the newer plan format:
2. Atlas still re-analyzes the plan instead of defaulting to planner metadata
Atlas is still instructed to:
That means the current implementation behaves more like:
than:
3. The Atlas decision matrix is generic fallback guidance, not a plan-bound contract
Atlas gets a generic category / agent decision matrix, but that matrix is not bound to the current task block in the plan. So Atlas can still classify the task ad hoc even when Prometheus already wrote a recommendation.
4. Runtime behavior reflects this drift
In local Atlas runtime evidence, Atlas dynamically routed work across:
visual-engineeringunspecified-highdeepwritingquickexplorelibrarianoracleThat flexibility can be useful, but it also confirms Atlas is acting as a live execution planner rather than a strict dispatcher of Prometheus decisions.
Why This Matters
The current architecture looks like:
But the effective runtime contract is closer to:
That creates several problems:
Expected Behavior
Atlas should treat Prometheus execution metadata as authoritative by default.
If a task already specifies:
then Atlas should use that directly unless there is a concrete runtime reason to override it.
Suggested contract:
Related Issues / Why This Is Not A Duplicate
This is related to, but not the same as:
Atlas subagent rules to get better result of plan executionatlas should follow qa / testing manuals much betterPersistent plan/todo tracking and checkpoints between plansOrchestration is too aggressive, some behaviours are dangerous/destructiveThose issues focus on rule-following quality, QA rigor, state tracking, or orchestration aggressiveness.
This issue is specifically about planner / executor boundary drift:
Proposed Solution
Delegation Recommendation,Recommended Agent Profile,Depends On, and wave / parallelization information as the default execution contract.