start-task

A workflow for starting work on a backlog task, a recorded piece of planned development work. It loads the task details, checks the current Git state, and creates a feature branch for implementation.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it when beginning a task such as task-123: find its requirements, confirm the repository state, update the main branch, and create a task-named feature branch.
Why use it?
It reduces the setup work and branch mistakes that can happen before coding begins. It also checks for uncommitted changes before changing branches.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

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 skills/devoxx/devoxxgenieideaplugin/start-task
Any agent
npx skills add devoxx/DevoxxGenieIDEAPlugin --skill start-task
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/devoxx/DevoxxGenieIDEAPlugin

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Per session 54 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 789 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.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00054 $0.00789
Opus 5 $0.00027 $0.00394
Sonnet 5 $0.00011 $0.00158
Haiku 4.5 $0.00005 $0.00079

Measured 2d ago against content hash a4f080c4964f, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

start-task 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 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.

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.

.claude/skills/start-task/SKILL.md · 68 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 68 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Start Task

Context

  • Current branch: !git branch --show-current
  • Working tree status: !git status --short
  • Existing branches: !git branch --list 'feature/task-*'

Your task

Create a feature branch for a backlog task and begin implementation.

The user will provide a task ID (e.g. task-123 or 123). If no task ID is provided, check the argument $ARGUMENTS for the task reference.

Step 1 — Load the task

  • Normalize the input: if the user gave just a number like 123, treat it as task-123.
  • Use mcp__backlog__task_view to read the full task details: title, description, acceptance criteria, and any referenced files.
  • If the task is not found, use mcp__backlog__task_search to locate it.
  • Print a brief summary of the task for the user.

Step 2 — Ensure a clean working tree

  • Check git status. If there are uncommitted changes, warn the user and ask whether to stash them before proceeding.
  • Ensure we are on the main branch. If not, ask the user if they want to switch.

Step 3 — Create and switch to a feature branch

  • Pull latest changes on main: git pull --rebase.
  • Derive a branch name from the task: feature/task-{id}-{slugified-title} (lowercase, hyphens, max ~60 chars).
    • Example: task 113 "Split app.css into native CSS modules" → feature/task-113-split-css-modules
  • Create and switch to the branch: git checkout -b <branch-name>.

Step 4 — Mark the task as in-progress

  • Use mcp__backlog__task_edit to set the task status to In Progress.

Step 5 — Plan and implement

  • Analyze the task description and acceptance criteria carefully.
  • Read all files referenced in the task, plus any related code you need to understand.
  • Create a plan and present it to the user for approval before writing code.
  • Once approved, implement the changes following the project's patterns and conventions.
  • After implementation, run the full verification suite:
    npm run lint && npm run typecheck && npm test && npm run build:app && npx playwright test
    
  • Fix any issues found by the verification suite.

Read the full file on GitHub · 68 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 · 68 lines · 54 tokens per session scan A a4f080c4964f

Subscribe to this mod's changes

start-task is a skill published in the GitHub repository devoxx/DevoxxGenieIDEAPlugin (677 stars, last pushed 5d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 54 tokens to every session and 789 once invoked, about $0.0003 per session on Opus 5. 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 2026-08-30.

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