brief

/mb brief [--request | --request-file ] [--input ]… [--auto]

Formalize a raw request into a one-page brief stored with its sources, so the work enters the pipeline already shaped: brief → discuss → sdd → work.

This command is deliberately NOT an interview. /mb discuss owns the deep elicitation; briefing asks at most a handful of questions and only when it has to.

When to use

At the very start, when the request is a paragraph of prose plus a pile of documents and nobody has written down what the work actually is. Skip it when the request is already one clear sentence — go straight to /mb discuss.

Arguments

• <topic> — matches [a-z0-9][a-z0-9-]*. Anything else is error=usage, exit 2, before anything is written.
• --request <text> — the request inline.
• --request-file <path> — the request read from a file.
• --input <path> — repeatable; a source document to scan and copy into inputs/.
• --auto — skip the clarifying-question gate and infer on best effort.

There is no overwrite or re-publish flag in MVP. Re-formalizing is done on a new <topic>, or after the user deletes briefs/<topic>/ by hand.

Pre-flight

Resolve the skill bundle root once and invoke every bundled helper through it — the working directory during /mb brief is the user's project, so a bare relative scripts/mb-… call either exits 127 or runs somebody else's script:

SKILL_DIR="${MB_SKILLS_ROOT:-$HOME/.claude/skills/memory-bank}"   # memory-bank skill bundle root
[ -f "$SKILL_DIR/scripts/mb-brief.sh" ] || {
  echo "mb: skill bundle not found at $SKILL_DIR — set MB_SKILLS_ROOT" >&2; exit 2; }

Never derive the root from $0: in an executable-Markdown snippet $0 is the shell, not this file.

Request source

Exactly one source of request text is used, and the rule is enforced before any candidate file is written.

• Passing both --request and --request-file is error=usage, exit 2; when neither flag is given, the request is only the text of the user message that carried the invocation.
• A --request whose value has no non-whitespace character is error=request_empty before the candidate is written, exit 2.
• A --request-file that is missing, a symlink, a directory or contains .. is error=request_unreadable path=<p> before the candidate is written, exit 2.
• A --request-file whose contents have no non-whitespace character is error=request_empty path=<p>, likewise before the candidate is written.