The workflow definition is intentionally simple... the enforcement layer handles the mechanics however the model gets more context than just "you're in <xyz> mode now"

Each state has an `instructions` field for phase specific guidance and when an agent's action (tool call) gets rejected the error message lets the model know what went wrong, and what's available to move forward

Tool 'Edit' is not available in the 'planning' phase. Allowed Tools: Read, Grep, Glob To advance, call statewright_transition with READY -> implementing

Models (even simple ones) tend to reason through these error messages, adjusting their approaches as opposed to retrying the blocked call. Additionally, on transitions the model is required to include a rationale explaining why it's transitioning (`data.rationale`) which creates an audit trail of the agent's reasoning at each phase boundary. That ends up being one of the most useful parts of the run history viewable on statewright.ai