Skill: Smart Start

What This Skill Does

Answers the question: "I just opened this project — what should I do?"

Automatically detects the current state of documentation, plans, and code changes, then presents a unified assessment with concrete recommendations. The user does not need to know which skill exists or when to use it — smart-start figures that out.

This is the entry point to the entire framework. Instead of the user choosing between generate-docs, resume-plan, update-docs, or validate-docs, they load smart-start and get a guided recommendation.

When to Use

• At the start of any session — the default "what's next?" skill
• When the user says "weiter", "continue", "what should I do?", "status?"
• When switching to a project after working on something else
• When unsure which skill to use

Do NOT use this skill mid-session for specific tasks. Once the session is bootstrapped, use the specific skills directly.

Execution Model

• Always: the primary agent runs this skill directly.
• Rationale: smart-start is a context-building skill (like resume-plan). The primary needs the assessment to guide the session. Delegating to a subagent would build context in the wrong place.
• Includes: runs the validate-docs workflow internally (Steps 1-6 of validate-docs) as part of the documentation health check.
• Token budget: the entire smart-start assessment should cost ~3-5k tokens. If it costs more, something is wrong.

Workflow

Step 1: Check Documentation State

Check if project documentation exists:

1. Does docs/ exist?

   • No → Note: "No documentation. Recommend generate-docs."
   • Yes → Continue to Step 1b.

2. Does docs/overview.md exist?

   • No → Note: "Partial documentation (modules/features exist but no overview). Recommend generate-docs."
   • Yes → Read only the frontmatter and ## Modules table (not the full file).

3. Run the validate-docs workflow (Steps 1-6 of the validate-docs skill):

   • Get doc inventory + git timestamps
   • Extract source mappings from Structure sections
   • Check source changes via git log --since
   • Assess overview and feature staleness
   • Produce the staleness summary (Current/Stale/Missing counts)

Step 2: Check Plan State

Check if any plans exist:

1. Does plans/ exist?

   • No → Note: "No active plans."
   • Yes → List plan directories under plans/.

2. For each plan directory, read plan.md frontmatter only (first ~10 lines):

   status: active  # draft | active | completed | abandoned
   

   • Filter to active or draft plans.

3. For the active plan (if any), read todo.md frontmatter + Active Phase section (first ~20 lines):

   • Which phase is active?
   • How many items: pending / in_progress / completed / blocked?
   • IMPORTANT: Do NOT read the full phase documentation files at this stage. Leave deep context loading to resume-plan to avoid unnecessary context growth.

4. Check for handovers:

   ls plans/<name>/handovers/
   

   • If handovers exist, note the most recent one (by filename sort).

Step 3: Check Recent Activity

Get a quick picture of what happened recently:

git log --oneline -5

Note: are there uncommitted changes?

git status --short

This helps determine whether the session is a continuation of recent work or a fresh start.

Step 4: Build the State Assessment

Combine all findings into a structured assessment. The assessment has four sections:

1. Documentation Health (from Step 1)
2. Plan Status (from Step 2)
3. Recent Activity (from Step 3)
4. Recommended Actions (derived from above)

Step 5: Determine Recommended Actions

Apply these rules in order to determine what to recommend:

Rule 1: No docs exist → generate-docs first Documentation is the foundation. Without it, plans and implementation lack context.

Rule 2: Active plan exists → resume-plan If there's an active plan, the primary action is to continue it. Include staleness info as a side note.

Rule 3: Docs exist but are stale → update-docs (targeted) If docs exist and are stale, recommend a targeted update-docs run. List which modules are stale.

Rule 4: Everything current, no plan → ready for new work Inform the user that docs are current and no plan is active. Suggest what might come next based on recent activity.

Rule 5: Completed plan → suggest update-docs + next steps If the most recent plan is completed, docs likely need updating to reflect the implementation.

Step 6: Present and Confirm

Present the assessment in chat using the format below. Then use the question tool to ask:

• Does this match the user's intent for this session?
• Should the focus be adjusted?
• Ready to proceed with the recommended action?

After confirmation, the primary agent loads/executes the recommended skill.

Assessment Format

The assessment follows this structure:

## Session Assessment

### Documentation
<status: Current | Partially stale | Missing>
<if stale: list stale modules with commit counts>
<if missing: suggest generate-docs>

### Plans
<status: Active plan | Draft plan | No plans>
<if active: plan name, active phase, todo summary>
<if handover exists: note and date>

### Recent Activity
<last 3-5 commits, one line each>
<uncommitted changes: Yes/No>

### Recommended Actions
1. <primary action with rationale>
2. <secondary action if applicable>
3. <optional follow-up>

Decision Matrix

Docs	Plan	Recent Commits	Recommendation
Missing	Any	Any	generate-docs first
Current	Active	Any	resume-plan
Stale	Active	Any	resume-plan, then update-docs after phase
Stale	None	Yes	update-docs (targeted)
Current	None	Yes	Ready for new work or create-plan
Current	Completed	Any	update-docs, then new work
Stale	Completed	Any	update-docs (targeted)

Integration with Other Skills

Skill	Relationship
validate-docs	smart-start runs validate-docs internally as Step 1.
resume-plan	If an active plan is detected, smart-start recommends resume-plan and may pre-load plan context.
generate-docs	If no docs exist, smart-start recommends generate-docs as the first action.
update-docs	If docs are stale, smart-start provides the targeted staleness info for update-docs.
create-plan	If docs are current and no plan is active, smart-start may suggest create-plan for new work.
generate-handover	Not directly invoked, but smart-start checks for existing handovers to inform the assessment.

Rules

1. Speed over depth: smart-start must be fast. Use git commands and frontmatter reads only. Never read full documentation files, source files, or plan details beyond what's needed for the assessment.
2. One clear recommendation: always end with a single primary recommended action. Additional actions are secondary. Don't overwhelm the user with options.
3. Include validate-docs: always run the documentation staleness check. This is the primary value-add over manually loading resume-plan.
4. Assessment is conversation, not a file: do NOT write the assessment to a file. It is ephemeral session context, like the resume-plan briefing.
5. Use the question tool: confirm the recommended action with the user before proceeding. The user may have a different priority for this session.
6. Respect user intent: if the user already stated what they want to do (e.g., "fix bug X"), acknowledge the assessment briefly and proceed with their request. Don't force the full workflow.
7. Under 10 tool calls: the entire assessment should complete in under 10 tool calls. If you need more, you're over-reading.
8. No built-in explore agent: do NOT use the built-in explore subagent type.
9. Graceful degradation: if the project has no docs and no plans (brand new to the framework), provide a useful "getting started" recommendation rather than an empty assessment.