What is session-start?

A session-start routine that loads the previous work handoff, reviews recorded lessons, and reports whether the project is ready to continue. A handoff is a document describing the next work to do.

It responds to `/session-start` and similar requests, checks the project’s handoff, lessons, and settings, and identifies the next priority. It skips the handoff when starting fresh or when the question is unrelated to the project.

It helps an agent resume project work with the right context and detects configuration problems without changing files.

session-start — Skill for Claude Code and Codex by AlexZio00

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.

Any agent

npx skills add AlexZio00/sovereign-skills --skill session-start

Clone the repo

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/AlexZio00/sovereign-skills

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Or install session-start, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 1 skill.

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/skills/alexzio00/sovereign-skills/session-start/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/alexzio00/sovereign-skills/session-start)

Your own site

<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/alexzio00/sovereign-skills/session-start"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/alexzio00/sovereign-skills/session-start/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

Your own site · 80×15

<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/alexzio00/sovereign-skills/session-start"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/alexzio00/sovereign-skills/session-start.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>

Per session 52 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.

When invoked 5,581 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.

Security scan B 1 finding. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe. Third-party audits

NVIDIA SkillSpector warn 7 Sept 2026

SkillSpector: 12 findings, up to high

These are SkillSpector’s own severities. On a checked sample its high-severity flags on skills were ~96% false positives — a documented command, a public API, a “never do X” rule — so we show them as a caution to read, not a verdict. Why →

high Agent Snooping · line 22
Skill reads from agent configuration directories (.claude/, .codex/, .gemini/). These directories may contain API keys, personal settings, and other credentials that the skill has no legitimate need to access.

Fix: Remove all code or instructions that access agent configuration directories (.claude/, .codex/, .gemini/). If configuration values are needed, pass them explicitly as parameters or environment variabl
high Agent Snooping · line 79
Skill reads from agent configuration directories (.claude/, .codex/, .gemini/). These directories may contain API keys, personal settings, and other credentials that the skill has no legitimate need to access.

Fix: Remove all code or instructions that access agent configuration directories (.claude/, .codex/, .gemini/). If configuration values are needed, pass them explicitly as parameters or environment variabl
high Agent Snooping · line 23
Skill reads from agent configuration directories (.claude/, .codex/, .gemini/). These directories may contain API keys, personal settings, and other credentials that the skill has no legitimate need to access.

Fix: Remove all code or instructions that access agent configuration directories (.claude/, .codex/, .gemini/). If configuration values are needed, pass them explicitly as parameters or environment variabl
high Agent Snooping · line 90
Skill reads from agent configuration directories (.claude/, .codex/, .gemini/). These directories may contain API keys, personal settings, and other credentials that the skill has no legitimate need to access.

Fix: Remove all code or instructions that access agent configuration directories (.claude/, .codex/, .gemini/). If configuration values are needed, pass them explicitly as parameters or environment variabl
high System Prompt Leakage · line 97
Skill contains instructions that could directly expose system prompts, internal rules, or hidden instructions to users or external parties.

Fix: Remove any instructions that reveal, print, or output system prompts or internal rules. System instructions should never be exposed to end users.
high Prompt Injection · line 105
Hidden instructions were detected in comments or invisible text. These could contain malicious directives. Manual review is recommended.

Fix: Audit all comments and invisible characters. Remove any instructions that direct the agent to perform unauthorized actions. Use plain, reviewable content.
high Agent Snooping · line 167
Skill reads from agent configuration directories (.claude/, .codex/, .gemini/). These directories may contain API keys, personal settings, and other credentials that the skill has no legitimate need to access.

Fix: Remove all code or instructions that access agent configuration directories (.claude/, .codex/, .gemini/). If configuration values are needed, pass them explicitly as parameters or environment variabl
high Prompt Injection · line 262
Hidden instructions were detected in comments or invisible text. These could contain malicious directives. Manual review is recommended.

Fix: Audit all comments and invisible characters. Remove any instructions that direct the agent to perform unauthorized actions. Use plain, reviewable content.
high Agent Snooping · line 356
Skill reads from agent configuration directories (.claude/, .codex/, .gemini/). These directories may contain API keys, personal settings, and other credentials that the skill has no legitimate need to access.

Fix: Remove all code or instructions that access agent configuration directories (.claude/, .codex/, .gemini/). If configuration values are needed, pass them explicitly as parameters or environment variabl
medium Excessive Agency · line 302
Skill enables autonomous high-impact decisions without human-in-the-loop verification. Critical operations (destructive commands, financial transactions, data deletion) should require explicit user confirmation.

Fix: Add human-in-the-loop confirmation for destructive, irreversible, or high-impact operations. Never auto-execute commands that modify files, send data, or alter system state.
medium Excessive Agency · line 394
Skill enables autonomous high-impact decisions without human-in-the-loop verification. Critical operations (destructive commands, financial transactions, data deletion) should require explicit user confirmation.

Fix: Add human-in-the-loop confirmation for destructive, irreversible, or high-impact operations. Never auto-execute commands that modify files, send data, or alter system state.
medium Rogue Agent · line 355
Skill establishes unauthorized persistence across sessions via cron jobs, startup scripts, or state files. Session persistence allows an attacker to maintain access beyond the current interaction.

Fix: Remove any persistence mechanisms (cron jobs, startup scripts, state files). Skills should not maintain state across sessions without explicit user consent.

How audits are shown

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 5.1	$0.00052	$0.05581
Opus 5	$0.00026	$0.02790
Sonnet 5	$0.00010	$0.01116
Haiku 4.5	$0.00005	$0.00558

Measured 3d ago against content hash 19bc59a75005, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-11, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade B, and why

session-start scanned grade B with 1 finding 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 3d ago.

The scan reads SKILL.md. This mod also ships 3 executable files (scripts/harness_observability.py, scripts/secret_redact.py, scripts/test_harness_observability.py), listed below but not scanned — reading those needs a real analyzer, not pattern matching.

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.

3. `grep "^last-analysis:" ~/.claude/memory/model-diff-ledger.md` → `baseline_date` (if the header or file is absent, fall back to the earliest `seen:`/`date:` value found in the two counts above)

session-start/SKILL.md · 404 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 404 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Session Start

Dominant Variable

Does the handoff document what to do next, or what was done? If it lists completed work, the handoff was written incorrectly. If Priority 1 cannot be identified immediately, deepen your inspection of Phase 1.

Trigger

/session-start
"start session"
"continue from where"
"where did we get"
(Korean language triggers handled in YAML frontmatter above)

Discard If

memory/session-handoff-LATEST.md missing (first session) → skip, start fresh
User requests "start fresh" / "ignore context" → skip
Project-unrelated standalone question → skip

Phase 0.5 runs even on discard: configuration errors must be detected in first session and standalone questions too.

Key Assumptions

memory/session-handoff-LATEST.md exists — if broken: fallback to "new session" mode. Do not synthesize handoff.
tasks/lessons.md exists — if broken: skip lesson review Phase.
settings.json parseable — if broken: skip health-check Phase only; proceed normally with rest.
scripts/harness_observability.py runs under the available Python interpreter — if broken: Phase 2.2/2.4 fall back to their own tool_failure handling (see those sections) rather than blocking session start.

Phase 0.5: Environment Health Check

Warnings only — no blocking. Use Read tool only (no modifications).

Check 1 — Model ID (read ~/.claude/settings.json):

Confirm "model" field value → warn if outside this list:

["opus", "sonnet", "haiku", "fable",
 "claude-sonnet-5", "claude-opus-4-8", "claude-opus-4-7", "claude-sonnet-4-6",
 "claude-haiku-4-5", "claude-opus-4-5", "claude-sonnet-4-5", "claude-fable-5"]
# Context suffixes like [1m]/[200k] are stripped before comparison (e.g., claude-fable-5[1m] → claude-fable-5)

Message: ⚠️ settings.json model ID invalid: "{value}" — please update
If file missing: skip silently

Check 2 — Accumulated Allow Entries (read ~/.claude/settings.local.json):

Count permissions.allow array items
If count > 5 → ⚠️ settings.local.json allow: N entries
If file missing: skip silently

Read the full file on GitHub · 404 lines

Files

What ships with it

5 files beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.

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.

3d ago Changed · +51 lines 19bc59a75005
11d ago First seen · 353 lines · 52 tokens per session scan B c45c2dbcaf20

Subscribe to this mod's changes

session-start is a skill published in the GitHub repository AlexZio00/sovereign-skills (128 stars, last pushed 4d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 52 tokens to every session and 5,581 once invoked, about $0.0003 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it B with 1 finding (reads agent configuration directories). No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.

Claude Code Code review Project management agentic-workflows ai-agents codex cursor

issue-creation

Trigger: issue creation, bug reports, feature requests, or issue approval. Create and triage GitHub issues from repository evidence.

Gentleman-Programming/gentle-ai · 30 tokens

sdd-tasks

Break an SDD change into implementation tasks. Trigger: orchestrator launches task planning for a change.

Gentleman-Programming/gentle-ai · 25 tokens

systemic-issue-triage

Trigger: new issue, bug report, triage, backlog, issue flood, community report, root cause, dead-end, blocked user. Attack issues by root class, never one-by-one; fixes must shrink the system, not grow it.

Gentleman-Programming/gentle-ai · 57 tokens

github-triage

Read-only GitHub triage for issues AND PRs. 1 item = 1 background task (category: quick). Analyzes all open items and writes evidence-backed reports to /tmp/{datetime}/. Every claim requires a GitHub permalink as proof. NEVER takes any action on GitHub - no comments, no merges, no closes, no labels. Reports only.…

code-yeongyu/oh-my-openagent · 104 tokens

finn-review

Review open PRs against their linked Linear issues and required GitHub checks, then post a three-group verdict with Finn-loop labels. Use when asked to run Finn-loop's reviewer or review its PR queue. Designed for /loop; never merges or pushes code.

finna/Finn-loop · 56 tokens

jira

Unified Jira entry point. Routes to preview (default), create, or review subcommands.

drafthq/draft · 20 tokens

session-start