start-work

A workflow command for starting a development task in a project. It connects the task to a Jira ticket, a work item used to track development, then prepares a branch and marks the ticket as in progress.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it when beginning a task with an existing Jira ticket or when you need a new one created. It also estimates the work and records state for later work logging.
Why use it?
It puts the task, source-code branch, and work tracking into a known state before coding begins.

Command

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/jpesewang/solo-dev-workflow/start-work
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/jpeseWang/solo-dev-workflow
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 3,599 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan B 2 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.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00000 $0.03599
Opus 5 $0.00000 $0.01800
Sonnet 5 $0.00000 $0.00720
Haiku 4.5 $0.00000 $0.00360

Measured 2d ago against content hash 8cf5bc607d51, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade B, and why

start-work scanned grade B with 2 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 2d ago.

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.

Reads agent configuration directoriesmediumAgent snooping

.claude/, .codex/, .gemini/ hold keys, settings and other credentials a mod has no legitimate need for.

EXISTING=$(cat .claude/task-state.json)

Makes network callslowCapability

Not a fault in itself. Listed so you know the mod talks to something, and to what.

curl -sS -u "$JIRA_EMAIL:$JIRA_TOKEN" \
variants/team-jira/commands/start-work.md · 401 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 401 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

You are $DEV_ROLE, starting the workflow for a new task in the $PROJECT_NAME project.

/start-work is the entry point when you begin a task: confirm the Jira ticket (existing or newly created), have the AI estimate the time, create a branch, transition the ticket to In Progress, and record state so /push can log work accurately and automatically. By the end: you are on a new branch, the ticket is In Progress, ready to code.

Security note: For any security-related ticket, explicitly flag authentication, authorization, input validation, and secret-handling considerations before implementation begins.


STEP 1: ASK FOR THE TICKET

Ask the user:

"Do you already have a Jira ticket? If so, paste the ticket ID (e.g. PROJ-123). If not, describe the task you want to do and I'll create a ticket."

Classify the response:

  • Matches regex (${KEYS_REGEX})-\d+ (build from $JIRA_PROJECT_KEYS) → BRANCH A: Has a ticket
  • No match → treat as a task description → BRANCH B: Create a new ticket
KEYS_REGEX=$(echo "$JIRA_PROJECT_KEYS" | tr ',' '|')  # e.g. "PROJ"

BRANCH A: EXISTING TICKET

A1. Verify the ticket exists + fetch metadata

[ -f ".claude/config.env" ] && source .claude/config.env
source ~/.zshrc 2>/dev/null || true
if [ -z "$JIRA_TOKEN" ] || [ -z "$JIRA_EMAIL" ] || [ -z "$JIRA_BASE_URL" ]; then
  echo "[ERROR] Missing JIRA env vars. Fill them into .claude/config.env or ~/.zshrc"
  exit 1
fi

TICKET_ID="PROJ-XXXX"  # from your input

curl -sS -u "$JIRA_EMAIL:$JIRA_TOKEN" \
  -H "Accept: application/json" \
  "$JIRA_BASE_URL/rest/api/3/issue/$TICKET_ID?fields=summary,status,issuetype" \
  > /tmp/ticket.json

python3 -c "
import json
d=json.load(open('/tmp/ticket.json'))
if 'key' not in d:
    print('NOT_FOUND')
else:
    print(d['key'])
    print(d['fields']['summary'])
    print(d['fields']['status']['name'])
    print(d['fields']['issuetype']['name'])
"

If NOT_FOUND → tell the user the ticket ID is wrong, ask again.

Read the full file on GitHub · 401 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.

  1. 2d ago First seen · 401 lines · 0 tokens per session scan B 8cf5bc607d51

Subscribe to this mod's changes

start-work is a command published in the GitHub repository jpeseWang/solo-dev-workflow (2 stars, last pushed 13d ago), licensed MIT. It costs nothing until one of its globs matches a file; then it loads 3,599 tokens. A static security scan graded it B with 2 findings (reads agent configuration directories, makes network calls). No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-31.