init

Init — Session Briefing + Health

Point init at a folder, get back a project description and the context you need to start working. Pairs with close-session so the two together form a lossless session loop.

Trigger

"init", "/init", "start session", "initialize", "begin session", "init this project"

Phase 0: Load Foundation (grep-first — keep context light)

Never bulk-read the shared files. Pull only the entries tagged for init or ALL:

grep -B1 -A10 "applies_to.*init\|applies_to.*ALL" \
  ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/shared/_shared_protocols.md 2>/dev/null

grep -B1 -A10 "applies_to.*init\|applies_to.*ALL" \
  ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/shared/_shared_learnings.md 2>/dev/null

Skip silently if the shared files don't exist — init must never block on missing context.

Phase 1: Scan the Folder

Figure out what project this is. One parallel batch — don't iterate:

echo "CWD: $PWD"
ls -A | head -30

Then detect the project type from signal files (first match wins, multiple signals reported as "multi-stack"):

Signal file(s)	Project type
package.json	Node / TypeScript
pyproject.toml, requirements.txt, setup.py	Python
Cargo.toml	Rust
go.mod	Go
*.uproject, Source/*/*.Build.cs	Unreal Engine 5
CMakeLists.txt	C / C++
*.csproj, *.sln	C# / .NET
Gemfile	Ruby
pom.xml, build.gradle	Java / Kotlin
.claude-plugin/plugin.json	Claude Code plugin

If it's a git repo, grab the state (one call, bounded output):

git -C "$PWD" log --oneline -5 2>/dev/null
git -C "$PWD" status --short 2>/dev/null | head -20
git -C "$PWD" branch --show-current 2>/dev/null

Skip git calls cleanly if not a repo.

Phase 2: Load Prior Context

Read files that carry session-to-session context, all in one parallel batch. Read only the tail of long files — the latest entries are what matters at session start.

File	Read pattern	Purpose
./CLAUDE.md	full read if < 5K, else tail 200 lines	Project rules + personal instructions — binding for the session
./README.md	tail 100 lines	Project overview / description
./project_status.md	tail 150 lines	Most recent session entry
./MEMORY.md	full read (index file, should stay small)	Memory index
./.claude/settings.json	full read if present	Hooks, permissions, env vars