start-work

Start Work

Create a feature branch from a GitHub issue and prepare the working context.

Configuration

Read cloudstack.json from the project root at the start of execution. Extract relevant fields:

• REPO_OWNER / REPO_NAME = repository.owner / repository.name (default: detect from git remote -v)

If cloudstack.json does not exist, auto-detect by parsing the GitHub remote URL:

git remote get-url origin | sed -E 's|.*github\.com[:/]([^/]+)/([^/.]+).*|\1 \2|'

Arguments

• {issue} -- GitHub issue number (required). Pass as argument: /start-work 42

Process

1. Fetch issue details -- Read the issue title and body to understand the scope.
2. Ensure clean working tree -- Check git status for uncommitted changes. Warn the user if the tree is dirty.
3. Pull latest main -- Ensure the branch starts from the latest main.
4. Create and checkout branch -- Use the naming convention below.
5. Report -- Show the branch name and a summary of the issue tasks.

Branch Naming Convention

{username}/{issue-number}-{short-slug}

Derive {username} from the git config user.name (lowercase, no spaces). Derive {short-slug} from the issue title (lowercase, hyphens, max 50 chars, no special characters).

Examples:

• jdoe/42-user-group-assignments
• jdoe/15-order-versioning-api

Commands

Fetch the issue using MCP for structured data:

mcp__github-mcp-server__get_issue(owner: "{REPO_OWNER}", repo: "{REPO_NAME}", issue_number: {issue})

This returns structured JSON with title, body, labels, and state -- no CLI parsing needed.

# Check working tree
git status --short

# Update main and create branch
git fetch origin main
git checkout -b {branch-name} origin/main

After Starting -- Automatic Implementation

Once the branch is created, do not stop. Immediately continue with implementation:

1. Analyze the issue -- Parse acceptance criteria, identify affected services, and determine which layers need changes (Domain, Application, Infrastructure, Endpoints, Frontend, Tests).
2. Create a task list -- Use TodoWrite to track each implementation step derived from the issue.
3. Implement -- Follow the layer order: Domain -> Application -> Infrastructure -> Endpoints -> Frontend -> Tests. Use the appropriate scaffolding skills (/add-entity, /add-command, /add-query, /add-event-handler, /add-migration, /add-feature) where they apply. Commit logically after each meaningful change.
4. Verify as you go -- Run tests and architecture checks between steps. Fix issues before moving on.
5. When done -- Run /complete-task to go through the full completion workflow (build, lint, tests, review, PR).