A work-starting command for a Jira issue. It creates a branch and prepares the development environment for that issue.

Use it when beginning work on a Jira ticket, optionally selecting a repository.

It removes the repetitive setup needed before coding on a tracked task, helping connect the branch and workspace to the Jira issue.

start-work — Command for coding agents by dmzoneill: A work-starting command for a Jira issue.

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods

npx agentmods add commands/dmzoneill/redhat-ai-workflow/start-work

Clone the repo

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/dmzoneill/redhat-ai-workflow

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

README.md

[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/commands/dmzoneill/redhat-ai-workflow/start-work.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/commands/dmzoneill/redhat-ai-workflow/start-work)

Your own site

<a href="https://agentmods.dev/commands/dmzoneill/redhat-ai-workflow/start-work"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/commands/dmzoneill/redhat-ai-workflow/start-work.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Per session 0 Only the description is in the session, so the agent can decide to use it. The body loads when it is invoked.

When invoked 602 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.

Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.

Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.

Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

Model	Per session	Once invoked
Fable 5	$0.00000	$0.00602
Opus 5	$0.00000	$0.00301
Sonnet 5	$0.00000	$0.00120
Haiku 4.5	$0.00000	$0.00060

Measured yesterday against content hash e76f9bc4bcd7, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

start-work scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured yesterday.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

docs/commands/start-work.md · 103 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 103 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

/start-work

Begin work on a Jira issue - creates branch, sets up environment.

Overview

Begin work on a Jira issue - creates branch, sets up environment.

Underlying Skill: start_work

This command is a wrapper that calls the start_work skill. For detailed process information, see skills/start_work.md.

Arguments

Argument	Required	Description
`issue_key`	No	-

Usage

Examples

skill_run("start_work", '{"issue_key": "$JIRA_KEY"}')

# Start work on an issue
skill_run("start_work", '{"issue_key": "AAP-61214"}')

# With specific repository
skill_run("start_work", '{"issue_key": "AAP-61214", "repo": "automation-analytics-backend"}')

aap-61214-short-description-from-jira-title

Process Flow

This command invokes the start_work skill. The process flow is:

flowchart LR
    START([User runs /start-work]) --> VALIDATE[Validate Arguments]
    VALIDATE --> CALL[Call start_work skill]
    CALL --> EXECUTE[Execute Skill Steps]
    EXECUTE --> RESULT[Return Result]
    RESULT --> END([Complete])

    style START fill:#6366f1,stroke:#4f46e5,color:#fff
    style END fill:#10b981,stroke:#059669,color:#fff
    style CALL fill:#3b82f6,stroke:#2563eb,color:#fff
```text

For detailed step-by-step process, see the [start_work skill documentation](../skills/start_work.md).

## Details

## Instructions

Start working on a Jira issue:

```text
skill_run("start_work", '{"issue_key": "$JIRA_KEY"}')

This will:

Fetch Jira issue details
Create a branch: aap-XXXXX-short-description
Switch to the branch
Show issue context and acceptance criteria
Suggest next steps

Example

# Start work on an issue
skill_run("start_work", '{"issue_key": "AAP-61214"}')

# With specific repository
skill_run("start_work", '{"issue_key": "AAP-61214", "repo": "automation-analytics-backend"}')
```text

## Branch Naming

Branch will be created as:
```text
aap-61214-short-description-from-jira-title

Read the full file on GitHub · 103 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

yesterday First seen · 103 lines · 0 tokens per session scan A e76f9bc4bcd7

Subscribe to this mod's changes

start-work is a command published in the GitHub repository dmzoneill/redhat-ai-workflow (5 stars, last pushed yesterday), licensed Apache-2.0. It costs nothing until one of its globs matches a file; then it loads 602 tokens. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-09-03.

Commits Git and workflow Project management ai automation redhat workflow

start-work