Stack Forge

On first invocation, read references/orchestrator.md and follow its welcome protocol.

Opinionated stack advisor that helps you pick the right tools and enforces type safety across whatever stack you choose. Auto-invoked by oc-app-architect during Phase 2 — you don’t call it separately for new projects.

Works with any stack: Cloudflare Workers, Vercel/Next.js, AWS Lambda, Supabase, Rails, Django, Go, Rust — the decision framework is universal. The implementation patterns are stack-specific, loaded from reference docs at runtime.

How This Skill Fits the Build Pipeline

APP-ARCHITECT (planning)                TRI-DEV (building)
  Phase 2: Spec ──auto-calls──▶ oc-stack-forge decision tree
  Phase 5: Scaffold ──auto-calls──▶ oc-stack-forge project structure
                                         │
  Feature request ───────────────────────▶ /oc-feature → sprint decomposition
                                         │
                                   Planner reads feature-decomposition
                                   Generator reads stack-specific patterns
                                   Evaluator reads per-layer criteria

App-architect auto-invokes oc-stack-forge — when Phase 2 starts, oc-stack-forge’s decision tree runs automatically to generate 01-tech-stack.md and 02-architecture.md. The user doesn’t need to call /oc-stack-forge separately. Stack-forge reads the discovery interview results and recommends the best stack for the project’s requirements.

App-architect Phase 6 uses oc-stack-forge for stack-ordered sprint decomposition regardless of stack choice.

/oc-stack-forge — Command Reference

STACK FORGE COMMANDS
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
  STACK SELECTION
  /oc-stack-decide     Run the full stack decision tree
  /oc-stack-compare    Compare 2-3 specific stack options side by side

  PATTERNS
  /typed-pipeline   Set up type chain for the selected stack
  /testing          Configure testing pyramid for the stack
  /oc-deploy           Deployment patterns for the selected platform
  /errors           Error handling + logging patterns
  /ci               CI pipeline for the stack

  TRI-DEV INTEGRATION
  /oc-feature          Decompose a feature into stack-ordered sprints

  SESSION
  /checkpoint       Show checkpoint status
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Stack Decision Tree (/oc-stack-decide)

How It Works

The decision tree adapts to the project. It doesn’t assume Cloudflare or any platform — it starts from requirements and narrows down. Skip questions where the answer is already clear from oc-app-architect discovery, user memory, or conversation context.

Before answering any question, web search for current best practices. Frameworks change fast — a recommendation from 6 months ago may be wrong today. Search for “[framework] production readiness 2026” or “[A] vs [B] for [use case]” before committing.

Question 1: Platform & Hosting

Start here because it constrains everything downstream.

Decision heuristic:

• Solo/small app, free tier matters → Cloudflare Workers or Vercel Hobby
• Next.js app → Vercel (native support) or CF Pages (cost)
• Heavy backend logic, Python/ML → Cloud Run or Fly.io
• Enterprise, existing AWS → Lambda + API Gateway or ECS
• Full-stack with auth/storage built in → Supabase or Firebase
• If unsure → start with the smallest thing that works. Migrate later when you hit a wall.

Question 2: Backend Language & Framework

Decision heuristic:

• Full-stack JS/TS, API + frontend same language → TypeScript
• Data processing, ML features, scripting → Python
• Performance-critical microservice → Go or Rust
• Rapid prototype, “I need this by Friday” → Rails or Next.js
• Team’s strongest language wins unless there’s a compelling technical reason otherwise

Question 3: Database

Decision heuristic:

• < 100 users, simple schema → SQLite/D1 (zero ops)
• Production app, complex queries, RLS → Postgres (Supabase or Neon for free tier)
• Need flexible schema, document storage → Mongo (but usually Postgres JSONB is enough)
• Caching layer needed → add Redis/Upstash alongside primary DB

Question 4: Auth

Decision heuristic:

• Using Supabase? → Supabase Auth
• Using Next.js? → Auth.js or Clerk
• 1-2 known users → Passkeys
• Internal tool behind corp network → Platform-native (CF Access, AWS SSO)
• Need full control → Lucia
• Enterprise SSO required → Clerk or Auth0

Question 5: Frontend

Output: Stack Recommendation

After the decision tree, produce a summary:

## Stack Recommendation — [project]

| Layer | Choice | Rationale | Alternatives Considered |
|---|---|---|---|
| Platform | Vercel | Next.js native, generous free tier | CF Pages (cheaper), AWS (team uses it) |
| Backend | Next.js API Routes (TS) | Same language as frontend, tRPC available | FastAPI (if Python needed) |
| Database | Postgres (Supabase) | Auth included, RLS, free tier | D1 (simpler), Neon (standalone) |
| Auth | Supabase Auth | Built-in with DB, magic links | Auth.js (more providers) |
| Frontend | Next.js + React | SSR for SEO, app router | SvelteKit (lighter) |
| Hosting | Vercel | Zero-config for Next.js | CF Pages, Fly.io |

### Estimated Monthly Cost
| Tier | Users | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Free | < 100 | $0 |
| Growth | 100-1K | $20-50 |
| Scale | 1K+ | $50-200 |

When invoked by oc-app-architect, this output becomes 01-tech-stack.md.

Typed Pipeline (Universal)

Regardless of stack, the principle is the same: DB schema is truth, everything downstream is derived.

DB Schema → ORM Types → API Types → API Spec (OpenAPI) → Generated Client Types → Frontend
    ↑                                                                                  │
    └──────────────── Never hand-edit generated types ─────────────────────────────────┘

Per-Stack Type Chains

Read references/typed-pipeline.md for detailed implementation per stack.

oc-stack-forge recommends the typed pipeline. The oc-api-dev skill materialises it: authoring the OpenAPI / GraphQL contract, scaffolding typed handlers, and generating the SDK. When oc-app-architect Phase 2 detects a first-party API surface, it auto-invokes oc-api-dev with the stack chosen here.

Testing Strategy (Universal)

For any stack, start with: contract tests + unit tests on critical paths. Add E2E only for critical user flows. Don’t over-test a 2-user app.

Read references/testing-patterns.md for framework-specific tooling.

Deployment Patterns (Per-Platform)

Read references/deployment-patterns.md for detailed patterns per platform.

Platform Matrix (v1.3+)

opchain v1.3 expands the platform menu beyond the JS / Cloudflare bias of v1.0–v1.2. Four full-stack patterns are first-class targets: oc-stack-forge recommends them, oc-app-architect’s references/scaffold-guide.md knows how to scaffold them, and oc-deploy-ops knows how to ship them.

Decision criteria (for /oc-stack-decide)

• Django/Render — picks itself when: solo dev, no ops appetite, server-rendered UI, admin panel needed, time-to-first-deploy is the dominant cost. Render’s free tier covers the entire app; Postgres is one click. Skip if: you need <50ms global latency or sub-second cold-starts.
• Rails/Heroku — picks itself when: team has Rails experience, Hotwire/Turbo replaces a SPA, the app is CRUD-heavy with traditional auth. Heroku’s pipeline (review apps + staging + prod) is the smoothest mainstream path. Skip if: cost-at-scale matters more than dev velocity.
• Go/Fly.io — picks itself when: performance is the headline requirement, single-binary deploys are aesthetically preferred, the team values explicit error handling. Fly’s edge VMs give regional placement without configuring a CDN. Skip if: the team has no Go experience and the app is CRUD-heavy (Django/Rails will ship faster).
• Rust/Shuttle.rs — picks itself when: the team wants Rust’s correctness guarantees, the app is library-shaped (financial calc, parsers, codecs), and Shuttle’s “infra as code in your main.rs” model fits. Skip if: the team has no Rust experience (the learning curve is real) or the app is mostly CRUD (Django/Rails ship dramatically faster).

Cost band (rough monthly, hobby → small-team scale)

Costs are 2026-Q2 estimates from public pricing; check the platform docs at decision time.

Per-stack quick references

What NOT to add to this matrix

The matrix is intentionally short. New stacks earn a row only when:

1. There’s a documented scaffold-guide.md recipe AND a oc-deploy-ops provider section.
2. At least one in-action /demo scenario exercises the stack end-to-end.
3. The pairing (language + framework + DB + deploy) is opinionated — opchain recommends ONE deploy target per stack rather than listing every option.

Adding a stack without all three is a oc-stack-forge bug; the matrix becomes noise instead of guidance.

kind: mobile dispatch (v1.4+)

Mobile packs (iOS / Android / Flutter / React Native — landing in PRs 6 + 6.5 of the v1.4 sequence) do not have a “deploy command” the way web packs do. App Store / Play Store reviews are the gate; TestFlight / Internal-testing tracks gate beta cohorts. oc-stack-forge’s dispatcher recognises kind: mobile and routes through a release-checklist envelope instead of trying to execute commands.

The runtime entry point is dispatchMobile(packId) in src/lib/pack-dispatch.js:

import { dispatchMobile } from "../../src/lib/pack-dispatch.js";

const out = dispatchMobile("ios-swiftui");
// → {
//     kind: "mobile",
//     platform: "ios",
//     displayName: "iOS (SwiftUI)",
//     mobileRef: "mobile.md",
//     releaseChecklist: "iOS (SwiftUI) (ios) — checklist-driven, not automated…"
//   }

The returned envelope is rendered verbatim at the head of any oc-stack-forge output for a mobile pack so the downstream agent (or user) cannot accidentally interpret it as a deploy command.

Resolution rules

What goes in the release checklist

The actual checklist content lives in each mobile pack’s mobileRef doc (e.g. skills/oc-stack-forge/packs/ios-swiftui/mobile.md, landing in PR 6). The template the agent renders has a fixed prelude:

{displayName} ({platform}) — checklist-driven, not automated.
oc-stack-forge will render the release checklist from {mobileRef} rather than
executing commands. App Store / Play Store review windows are the gate.

…followed by the body of mobileRef. Mobile dispatch deliberately does NOT invoke oc-deploy-ops; oc-release-ops handles the App-Store / Play-Store / TestFlight / Internal-Testing workflow.

Why this lands in PR 3, ahead of the first real mobile pack

PR 6 (ADEV-336) ships the first mobile pack (iOS + SwiftUI). Pre-loading the dispatch logic + tests in PR 3 keeps PR 6’s diff focused on the pack content itself rather than the dispatcher plumbing. The tests/pack-dispatch.test.js suite exercises dispatchMobile against synthetic ios/android/flutter/ react-native fixtures so the dispatcher is locked in before any real mobile pack lands.

Feature Decomposition (/oc-feature)

Decomposes a feature into stack-ordered sprints for oc-app-architect Phase 6 regardless of platform:

1. DB layer (schema, migrations)
2. API layer (endpoints, types, validation)
3. Type generation (if applicable — OpenAPI, tRPC, codegen)
4. Frontend (components, pages, state)
5. Tests (unit, integration, contract)
6. CI/CD (deploy pipeline, type enforcement)

The sprint order follows the type pipeline — bottom-up, each layer built on verified ground truth. This ordering is universal across stacks.

Invocation by oc-app-architect

Stack-forge is actively invoked by oc-app-architect during Phase 2 per orchestrator.md §3. When called, oc-stack-forge:

1. Reads the discovery context from .checkpoints/oc-app-architect.checkpoint.json (requirements, users, constraints, budget, team experience).
2. Runs the decision tree (platform → backend → database → auth → frontend), web-searching for current framework status.
3. Produces the stack recommendation.
4. Writes its own checkpoint and returns control to oc-app-architect, which then writes 01-tech-stack.md and 02-architecture.md.
5. User reviews stack at oc-app-architect’s Spec Approval Gate.

The user does not call /oc-stack-forge separately for new projects — oc-app-architect chains to it via the active-invocation pattern. /oc-stack-forge is only invoked standalone for:

• Quick stack questions outside a project context
• Feature decomposition (/oc-feature) for existing projects
• Gap analysis on existing codebases (with oc-reverse-spec)

Session Persistence (Checkpoint Protocol)

Checkpoint location: {project-dir}/.checkpoints/oc-stack-forge.checkpoint.json

When to Write

skill_state

{
  "stack_path": "nextjs-supabase",
  "decisions": {
    "platform": { "choice": "Vercel", "rationale": "Next.js native" },
    "backend": { "choice": "Next.js API Routes", "rationale": "Full-stack TS" },
    "database": { "choice": "Supabase Postgres", "rationale": "Auth included, free tier" },
    "auth": { "choice": "Supabase Auth", "rationale": "Built-in" },
    "frontend": { "choice": "Next.js + React", "rationale": "SSR, app router" }
  },
  "features_planned": [],
  "gap_analysis_done": false
}

Cross-Skill Reads

Reference Docs

When a reference doc doesn’t cover the selected stack, web search for current best practices and generate the pattern inline. The reference docs are a starting point, not a ceiling.

PM-Tool MCP Integration (v1.2+)

oc-stack-forge produces architectural decisions. Those decisions deserve a permanent home in the PM tool — the next engineer investigating “why are we on this stack?” should not have to dig through chat logs. v1.2 makes oc-stack-forge an Architectural Decision Record (ADR) author. See oc-integrations-engineer for the canonical PM-MCP patterns.

Stack-decision comment on the linked ticket

When oc-stack-forge runs from oc-app-architect Phase 2 (the typical case), the source ticket comes from the parent invocation. After the stack is selected, post:

Stack decision (ADR-{N}):
  Platform:  {choice}        ← {one-line rationale}
  Backend:   {choice}        ← {one-line rationale}
  Database:  {choice}        ← {one-line rationale}
  Auth:      {choice}        ← {one-line rationale}
  Frontend:  {choice}        ← {one-line rationale}

Considered + rejected: {alternatives}, because {reason}.
Cost projection: ~${USD/month} at MVP scale.
Full rationale: spec/01-tech-stack.md

The ADR-{N} is auto-numbered from the project’s existing ADR counter (read from .opchain/adr-counter if present; otherwise maintained by oc-stack-forge in the checkpoint).

Standalone /oc-stack-decide runs

When oc-stack-forge is invoked outside a Phase 2 flow with /oc-stack-decide --ticket TICKET-1234, the ticket is treated as the ADR home. Otherwise the decision lives in the project’s docs/adr/ directory only.

Re-decisions

If /oc-stack-decide is invoked on a project that already has a prior stack-decision comment in PM:

• Find the prior comment via the PM-MCP search.
• Post a follow-up comment: Stack re-decision; supersedes ADR-{prev}.
• Add the supersession to the prior ADR record.

Failure modes

• No ticket context → no PM write; ADR lives in docs/adr/{N}-stack-decision.md only.
• MCP unavailable → log intent to checkpoint as deferred.
• ADR counter conflict → fall back to ISO timestamp suffix rather than block.

Principles

1. Start with the smallest stack that works. SQLite before Postgres. Vercel before AWS. Monolith before microservices. Upgrade when you hit a real wall.
2. One-direction type flow. DB schema is truth. Everything downstream is derived.
3. Web search before recommending. Frameworks change. Don’t recommend based on stale training data — search for current status.
4. CI is the enforcer. If it’s not in CI, it’s a suggestion, not a rule.
5. The team’s stack wins. Unless there’s a compelling technical reason, match what the team already knows. Migration cost > marginal framework benefit.
6. Automatic, not optional. Stack decisions happen inside oc-app-architect Phase 2, not as a separate step the user might forget.