Claude-Code-Game-Studios/.claude/skills/dev-story/references/3-route.md

/dev-story — Phase 3: Route to the Right Programmer

Part of /dev-story. SKILL.md names when to read this file; the settings it resolved and the rules under its later headings still apply here.

Phase 3: Route to the Right Programmer

Based on the story's Layer, Type, and system name, determine which specialist to spawn via Agent.

Config/Data stories — skip agent spawning entirely: If the story's Type is Config/Data, no programmer agent or engine specialist is needed. Jump directly to Phase 4 (Config/Data note). The implementation is a data file edit — no routing table evaluation, no engine specialist.

Primary agent routing table

Story context	Primary agent
Foundation layer — any type	engine-programmer
Any layer — Type: UI	ui-programmer
Any layer — Type: Visual/Feel	gameplay-programmer (implements)
Core or Feature — gameplay mechanics	gameplay-programmer
Core or Feature — AI behaviour, pathfinding	ai-programmer
Core or Feature — networking, replication	network-programmer
Config/Data — no code	No agent needed (see Phase 4 Config note)

Engine specialist — always spawn as secondary for code stories

Read the specialists block from project.yaml directly — it is not in the resolve_config output at the top of this skill.. resolve_config does not emit specialists.*; the five skills that already consume it (/adopt, /code-review, /design-system, /gate-check, /team-ui) all read the block out of project.yaml themselves, and so does this one. Adding it to the frontmatter key list would fail the gate that asserts every requested key is one resolve_config actually emits.

/setup-engine writes the block, and it is the project's own answer to "which specialist implements here" — resolved from the engine and the language, which engine.name alone cannot tell you. Resolve in this order:

1. specialists.code — the language/code specialist, and the right secondary for an implementation story. This is the value that distinguishes a Godot C# project (godot-csharp-specialist) from a Godot GDScript one (godot-gdscript-specialist); engine.name is Godot for both.
2. specialists.shader when the story touches shaders or materials, and specialists.ui when the story's Type is UI — in addition to, not instead of, specialists.code.
3. The generic <engine>-specialist — derived from engine.name (Godot→godot-specialist, Unity→unity-specialist, Unreal→unreal-specialist) — for architecture-level and broad engine concerns, and as the fallback when the specialists block is absent.
4. If engine.name is also absent or empty, read the Primary line of the ## Engine Specialists section of .claude/docs/technical-preferences.md.

A value of null means UNSET — treat that key as absent and fall through to the generic specialist. Never spawn it as an agent name. The config reader returns the four-character string "null", which is not empty and therefore reads as configured; null, empty and missing are the same state here. (This is the same caveat /code-review Phase 2 carries, for the same reason.)

Spawn the resolved specialist alongside the primary agent when the story involves engine-specific APIs, patterns, or the ADR has HIGH engine risk.

The full roster, for reference when no specialists block exists:

Engine	Specialist agents available
Godot 4	godot-specialist, godot-gdscript-specialist, godot-csharp-specialist, godot-shader-specialist, godot-gdextension-specialist
Unity	unity-specialist, unity-ui-specialist, unity-shader-specialist, unity-dots-specialist, unity-addressables-specialist
Unreal Engine	unreal-specialist, ue-gas-specialist, ue-blueprint-specialist, ue-umg-specialist, ue-replication-specialist

Do not pick from this table when specialists is set. The table lists what exists for an engine; the block records what this project chose. Reading the table instead of the block is how a Godot C# project ends up reviewed by the GDScript specialist.

When engine risk is HIGH (from the ADR or VERSION.md): always spawn the engine specialist, even for non-engine-facing stories. High risk means the ADR records assumptions about post-cutoff engine APIs that need expert verification.

Read the risk, do not trust the story card alone. If the story's Risk field is absent, or says NOT ASSESSED, or disagrees with docs/engine-reference/<engine>/VERSION.md, the VERSION.md rating wins and an unknown counts as HIGH. At minimal there is no ADR, so VERSION.md is the only source; a story card carrying an improvised MEDIUM against a VERSION.md rating of HIGH would skip this spawn without saying so. /create-stories now derives the field from the same file, so the two should agree; this check is what catches it when they do not.

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