pipemason program

Start and manage multi-story programs. A program decomposes an intent into a dependency graph of stories and runs the per-story pipeline once per story in order.

Usage

pipemason program start "<intent>" --mode <mode> [flags]
pipemason program status
pipemason program resume

Modes

Mode	Use it for
`greenfield-system`	A multi-domain SaaS or platform built from scratch.
`greenfield-mobile`	A net-new mobile or game app plus a minimum-viable backend.
`brownfield-upgrade`	Read an existing system, then plan and execute multi-story changes.
`brownfield-extension`	Add a new capability to an existing system without rewriting it.

Examples

# Build a new system from scratch
pipemason program start "build a Linear-style issue tracker with API + web + mobile" \
  --mode greenfield-system

# Upgrade an existing system safely (snapshot it first)
pipemason audit
pipemason program start "migrate auth from passwords to passkeys" \
  --mode brownfield-upgrade

# Preview the plan without executing, and cap total spend
pipemason program start "add a notifications service" \
  --mode brownfield-extension --dry-run --max-cost 50

Flags for program start

Flag	Meaning
`--parallelism <n>`	Maximum number of stories worked on concurrently.
`--branch-strategy <stacked\|program-branch>`	How story branches are organized (default: stacked).
`--push`	Push branches as stories complete.
`--dry-run`	Produce the plan and DAG without executing any story.
`--max-cost <usd>`	Cumulative spend ceiling for the whole program.
`--max-daily-cost <usd>`	Per-day spend ceiling; the program pauses for the day when reached and resumes the next day.
`--no-cloud`	Run without streaming metadata to the cloud control plane.
`--force-new`	Start a fresh program even if an existing one is present.

Subcommands

program status

Print the program roadmap and DAG progress so you can see which stories are done, in flight, blocked, or escalated.

pipemason program status

program resume

Advance the program to the next phase after a pause or escalation has been resolved.

pipemason program resume

What it writes

Decomposes the intent into a DAG of stories and records program state under .pipeline/.
Creates a branch per story according to the chosen branch strategy.
Records each story's state in .pipeline/STATE.md as it runs.