plan_case
Plan the next diagnostic evidence steps for a VMware case, naming reachable sources and gaps so each submitted round sharpens the following plan.
Instructions
[READ] What to fetch next for this case — step 02, recomputed each call.
WHEN: right after open_case, and again after each round of evidence. It is not a checklist: submit something and the next plan is shorter, lose a source and it routes around it.
RETURNS: {category, category_signals, steps, already_covered, held_back, unavailable, ceiling, note}. Steps are interleaved across evidence classes, so you get breadth before depth — corroboration is counted in distinct sources, which is what actually moves the grade. Each step is {evidence_class, skill, tool, purpose, objects, window, degraded} — call that skill's tool, then submit the result with submit_case_evidence.
GOTCHAS: unavailable is the important half. A source this install
cannot reach is listed there with how_to_supply rather than left out, so
the gap is visible now instead of when the conclusion refuses to firm
up. An empty steps is never silent — note says whether everything
reachable is already in, or whether nothing here can be reached.
category_signals names the words that chose the category, and any
category that also matched — check it first, since the rest runs off
that one word.
Input Schema
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| case_id | Yes | The case to plan for (from open_case/list_cases). | |
| category | No | Force the symptom class instead of inferring it. Exactly one of: storage, network, compute, ha_drs, configuration, accelerator, kubernetes, hardware, host_lifecycle, power_lifecycle, auth, platform, licensing, data_collection. Omit to infer, then read `category_signals` for the word that decided it. | |
| max_steps | No | How many steps to return, at least 1. The default of 6 is two rounds across three evidence classes — enough to reach the two independent sources a Probable grade costs, without handing a model a fourteen-item menu it will work through. Raise it when `held_back` says there is more for this category; a storage case has fourteen reachable tools. Below 1 is refused rather than obeyed, because an empty plan already means "nothing left to fetch". | |
| available_skills | No | Narrow to the skills actually installed, in either spelling ("monitor" or "vmware-monitor"). Omit to assume all of them, which can produce steps this install cannot run. |