init

Initialize: get MasterMind ready for this project, fast

The goal: a new user goes from "installed" to "the brain is set up for my stack and knows what I'm building" in a few quick steps: a handoff, not an intake form. Detect what you can; ask the rest. Run once per project; if this project already built its field, you're set: skip this.

Nothing ships pre-baked. A fresh install carries only the engine and engineering/fields/_template/ no field, because a pack tuned to someone else's stack is worse than none (dead weight that misleads). So init's core job is to build this project's field from the template, tuned to the real stack. This is where the measured quality lift comes from; without it you still apply solid general judgment, but the domain pack is the difference.

Keep it short (the #1 rule)

Detect before asking: read the answers out of the project, and make the technical calls yourself. A developed project needs zero questions: continue with its own stack. A greenfield project needs one open question ("what do you want to build?"), answered in their own words. The whole thing should feel like 20 seconds, then you're working.

Path A: the project already has code

1. Detect the stack: package.json/lockfile, configs, framework + versions, DB, test runner, folder shape (core/agent-loop.md). This is free, read it rather than asking.
2. Set up its field:
   • This project already built a field that fits → load it. Done. (Nothing else ships, so this only happens on a re-run of a project that was set up before.)
   • Otherwise: build one from engineering/fields/_template/, tuned to the detected stack: a one-time bootstrap (levelup bootstrap), stated as a trade-off, not a menu: "a few minutes now makes me much sharper on your stack: its real defaults, pitfalls, and review rules. It's once per field, then reused for every task." Build it to fit one real stack, and keep it lean, tailoring prunes as much as it adds (active-field.md). Fill the pack's "Where things are" section from what step 1 already detected: the half-dozen entry-point pointers (components, routes, state, tests + run command, config, the one file that explains the architecture fastest). This is the narrow exception to "skip the directory listing" below: a full tree is re-derivable noise, but these few pointers are what stop every future task from re-running discovery. Then point active-field.md at it and regenerate the router from the brain you are installed into: node .mastermind/scripts/build-router.mjs for a per-project brain, the default. Under --shared the brain is the one in your home directory, so run that same script from there. A bare scripts/… path is the project's own directory and fails with MODULE_NOT_FOUND.
3. Fill the project brief (.mastermind/brief.md). An isolated install seeds it; under --shared there is no project brain, so create the file yourself at that path. The field pack holds the stack; the brief holds this project: what it is, the words it uses for its own ideas, what breaks and who feels it, what cannot be undone here, and how it ships. Most of it comes from step 1. Ask the user only for what the code cannot tell you, which is usually who feels an outage and which actions are irreversible. Keep it under about 40 lines: it is read every session. This is what stops a change that is technically correct and operationally wrong.
4. Respect the project: match its conventions and keep the stack it already chose (stack-defaults.md: the project wins).