Lighter Documentation Pipeline

When a GitHub issue has documentation labels (docs, documentation, or readme), Sequant automatically uses a lighter workflow pipeline optimized for docs-only work.

Prerequisites

1. Sequant installed — npx sequant --version
2. GitHub issue with a docs label — one of: docs, documentation, readme

What Changes

Documentation issues get a streamlined two-phase pipeline instead of the standard three-phase pipeline:

Issue Type	Pipeline	Phases
Standard	spec → exec → qa	3 phases
Bug fix	exec → qa	2 phases (skips spec)
Documentation	exec → qa	2 phases (skips spec)

Additionally, the QA phase adapts when running on docs issues:

QA Behavior	Standard Issues	Docs Issues
Type safety check	Yes (sub-agent)	Skipped
Security scan	Yes (sub-agent)	Skipped
Scope/size check	Yes (sub-agent)	Yes (1 sub-agent)
Sub-agents spawned	3	1

Setup

No configuration needed. The lighter pipeline activates automatically when autoDetectPhases is enabled (the default).

To verify auto-detection is on:

cat .sequant/settings.json | grep autoDetectPhases
# Expected: "autoDetectPhases": true

What You Can Do

Run a documentation issue through the lighter pipeline

sequant run 123

If issue #123 has a docs, documentation, or readme label, Sequant will:

1. Skip the spec phase entirely
2. Run exec (implementation)
3. Run QA with a single sub-agent focused on scope/size and link validation

Verify detection is working

Look for this log line during execution:

Docs issue detected: exec → qa

If you see Running spec to determine workflow... instead, the issue labels may not include a docs label.

What to Expect

• Faster runs: ~30-50% faster due to skipping spec and running fewer QA sub-agents
• Same exec behavior: The implementation phase runs identically
• Lighter QA: Focuses on content accuracy, completeness, formatting, and link validity instead of type safety and security scanning
• No spec output: Since spec is skipped, there’s no spec plan comment on the issue

How It Works

1. Label detection: Sequant checks issue labels against docs, documentation, readme (case-insensitive)
2. Phase shortcut: If matched, phases are set to ["exec", "qa"] — same pattern as bug fixes
3. Metadata propagation: SEQUANT_ISSUE_TYPE=docs environment variable is passed to skills
4. QA adaptation: The QA skill reads the env var and uses a single sub-agent instead of three

Recognized Labels

Label	Detected As
docs	Documentation
documentation	Documentation
readme	Documentation
DOCS (any case)	Documentation

Labels are matched case-insensitively via substring. A label like docs-update would also trigger the lighter pipeline.

Troubleshooting

Issue runs full pipeline despite having a docs label

Symptoms: Log shows Running spec to determine workflow... instead of Docs issue detected

Solution: Verify autoDetectPhases is enabled in .sequant/settings.json. If set to false, explicit phases override label detection:

jq '.run.autoDetectPhases' .sequant/settings.json
# Should output: true

QA still runs 3 sub-agents on a docs issue

Symptoms: QA spawns type-safety, security, and scope agents

Solution: This happens when running QA standalone (not via sequant run). The SEQUANT_ISSUE_TYPE env var is only set when the orchestrator manages the pipeline. Standalone /qa runs use the full pipeline by default.

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Generated for Issue #451 on 2026-03-26