project-continuity

Project Continuity

Keep a long-lived project aligned on purpose while narrow implementation work changes. The goal is a compact, discoverable continuity contract, not more documentation.

Concrete bootstrap tools, memory retrieval, Git mechanics, indexing, and local proof commands belong to the installed environment or a tooling guide the repository explicitly claims. Do not infer a repo-local codex/TOOLING.md or a Git policy from this skill.

Workflow

1. Bind the latest explicit user-selected task subject before reading a packet as actionable: objective and scope, canonical repository or system, exact worktree/ref/HEAD or runtime identity, and current authority/evidence. A goal, queue, checkpoint, prompt, packet, index hit, or worker output is evidence only until every binding field matches.
2. Infer the mode: inspect is read-only; adopt establishes a packet; repair separates mixed roles; resume reconciles the handoff with the bound subject and current evidence; handoff refreshes current state and archives displaced detail.
3. Establish the authority scope: one repository, a multi-repository workspace, or one product or program spanning repositories. Start unfamiliar ownership at undetermined; then establish repo-native-only, local-overlay, or repo-local from evidence. Treat in-tree-adoption and repo-native only only as deprecated read aliases; never write them back.
4. Inspect the applicable AGENTS.md and AGENTS.override.md instruction chain for the current working directory, native documentation and source-of-truth files, existing continuity and ownership declarations, repository and publication posture, and conflicting, duplicated, stale, generated, or sensitive material. Stay read-only until the current task and repository policy authorize writes.
5. Reconcile each fact into exactly one role: durable product authority, repo-local working rule, advisory volatile handoff state, durable decision or deep reference, or historical evidence. Treat every checkpoint and state anchor as a claim about prior state, not proof or task selection.
6. Apply the smallest idempotent change. Preserve truthful native guidance, merge rather than replace existing agent rules, avoid duplicating current state, and make no changes when the existing packet is healthy.
7. Verify that a fresh agent can discover the packet without knowing this skill exists, pointers resolve, current-state claims match repository or runtime evidence, template instructions and secrets are absent, and only the intended startup files load routinely. Run scripts/audit-continuity.py --root <path> --json when this skill's bundled auditor is available. A stale or fail result blocks resume and handoff; it is never authority to write or to follow another file's next step.
8. Return the mode, scope, posture, inspected and changed files, authority conflicts resolved, verification performed, and unresolved decisions or missing authority. End terminally: residuals are non-directive findings, not a generated successor task.