/gaia-edit-ux

What it does

/gaia-edit-ux makes targeted edits to an existing UX design document while preserving unchanged content. After editing, it assesses cascade impact on architecture, epics, stories, and test plans.

When to use it

• You need to update the UX design after a change request, user feedback, or accessibility review findings.

Prerequisites

• UX design must exist at .gaia/artifacts/planning-artifacts/ux-design.md.

Orchestration mode

When /gaia-edit-ux starts in subagent mode (Mode A -- the default), the framework emits a one-shot warning to your conversation. The warning text:

────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
GAIA orchestration: running in subagent mode (Mode A)

The skill you're invoking belongs to a class (heavy-procedural or
conversational) whose output benefits from cross-step context. Mode A
dispatches each sub-agent in its own forked context, so context may
be lossy between steps — sub-agents return summaries, not full reasoning.

For the full-fidelity experience, enable Mode B (Agent Teams):
  1. Set CLAUDE_CODE_EXPERIMENTAL_AGENT_TEAMS=1 in your environment.
  2. Add orchestration.mode: team to .gaia/config/project-config.yaml.

Mode B uses persistent teammates that preserve in-conversation state
across dispatches.

This warning is shown once per session.
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

Why Mode B is better for this command

The /gaia-edit-ux skill declares orchestration_class: heavy-procedural in its SKILL.md frontmatter. Heavy-procedural skills produce output that benefits from cross-step context -- under Mode A every sub-agent dispatch runs in its own forked context and can only return a summary back to the orchestrator, losing the full reasoning trace of every prior step. Mode B uses persistent teammates that retain in-conversation state across dispatches, so each agent's contribution can build on what was said before instead of receiving only a summary.

How to enable Mode B

Both steps are required. If either is missing, the framework falls back silently to Mode A and the warning fires again on the next session.

Step 1 -- set the environment variable:

export CLAUDE_CODE_EXPERIMENTAL_AGENT_TEAMS=1

Add this to your shell rc file to persist across sessions, or set it in Claude Code's settings.json.

Step 2 -- add the YAML block to .gaia/config/project-config.yaml:

orchestration:
  mode: team

One-shot semantics

The warning is emitted once per Claude Code session. A marker file at _memory/checkpoints/orchestration-warning-shown.<session-id> suppresses the warning for the rest of the session. Starting a new session re-emits the warning once.

How to invoke

/gaia-edit-ux

What it does step by step

1. Load UX design Reads the current document and displays: sections, persona count, wireframe count, current version.
2. Identify changes Asks what sections need to change, why, and whether linked to a change request. Classifies scope.
3. Apply edits Applies changes with your confirmation. Preserves unchanged content.
4. Version and save Adds version note, writes the updated document, shows diff summary.
5. Adversarial review Runs if triggered by the change type.
6. Cascade assessment Checks impact on architecture, epics, stories, and test plan.

Inputs

Outputs

Example session

> /gaia-edit-ux

Current UX design: 3 personas, 8 wireframes, v1.0.

What sections need to change?
> Add dark mode support to interaction patterns

Applying edits... done.
Version: v1.1 -- Added dark mode interaction patterns.

Cascade: MINOR -- architecture unaffected, test plan needs update.

What to run next

• /gaia-validate-design-a11y -- re-validate accessibility after UX changes.

Troubleshooting

"No UX design found"

Run /gaia-create-ux first.

I keep seeing the GAIA orchestration warning every time I start this command

The warning is shown once per session, so if it fires again that's a new session -- not a per-skill repeat. If you want to silence it entirely, enable Mode B (full-fidelity orchestration via Agent Teams). Both of these conditions must be true:

• echo $CLAUDE_CODE_EXPERIMENTAL_AGENT_TEAMS returns 1 (not empty)
• .gaia/config/project-config.yaml contains:

  orchestration:
    mode: team

If either is missing the framework silently uses Mode A and re-emits the warning each session.

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