totem: Skill for Claude Code

Session-start bring-up. Read-only — no mutations, no dispatches, no board edits until the operator rules on next steps (Proposal 295 d2: read-only orient + grounded next-work). Solo — no agent fleet (feedback_session_start_derive_cheaply: cheap derivation IS the validation dogfood).

1. Derive the seat FIRST — before orient, before any journal read, before any knowledge search (mmnto-ai/totem#2801). Read the INHERITED TOTEM_SELF_AGENT this session was launched with; totem mail --derive-seat is the probe — one stdout line seat=<id> source=env and exit 0 when the inherited env names exactly one seat this repo hosts, otherwise a stderr refusal (exit 2) naming the supplied value (or unset) and every seat this repo hosts. Hosts means one thing everywhere: config.json host_agents, else the seat dirs, else the cohort map keyed on the origin repository — never the env you supplied, which is the thing being checked. Set → that is your seat: use it, and never write a different one. An inline TOTEM_SELF_AGENT=<seat> on any later command may only RESTATE the inherited value; writing a different seat over it silently re-points every step below at a seat that is not yours, and once overridden the tool can no longer see what you inherited — the operator's account is the only witness left. Set but REFUSED (the probe exits 2 while the env names a seat): your declaration and this repo disagree, so act as if you have no seat — put the refusal line itself in front of the operator, verbatim, and change nothing to make it pass; signon is read-only, so totem seat add is never run here. On a repo with no seat registration at all the refusal says the repo cannot CORROBORATE you, not that your seat is wrong: totem mail --as <your-seat> and a per-shell poll still serve your declaration, because a declaration on the command line is yours to make and this probe only checks one. Empty → STOP and ask the operator. Do not guess, do not fall back to the crown, do not derive a seat from the repo basename, the branch, or the only seat in sight; a bring-up on an unknown identity is worse than no bring-up. Report exactly one line and wait: Failure Mode: Hook-less session launched without TOTEM_SELF_AGENT set.

2. Assignment mail before orient — poll since last signoff, seat-anchored. On a hook-less seat the order is fixed: assignment mail before orient, before any journal read, and before any knowledge search — an assignment can turn every one of those into a disclosure (step 2), and the managed hook derives neither the poll nor the journal for you (step 3). Poll AS YOUR SEAT: per-shell TOTEM_SELF_AGENT=<your-seat> (the mmnto-ai/totem#2629 scope ruling — never user/machine scope; prefer the inline form TOTEM_SELF_AGENT=<seat> totem mail where shell state does not persist between tool calls, and on a session whose step-0 env is already set that inline form RESTATES that seat and never another) or totem mail --as <your-seat>. S0 identity check: the banner's Self agents: line must name exactly your seat. Since @mmnto/cli 1.117.0 an identity-less multi-seat poll gates itself (broadcast-only serve, directed mail withheld as a count, exit 2 — the mmnto-ai/totem#2204 deterministic floor), so the residual S0 catches is the WRONG-single-identity class: a mis-scoped or inherited env naming a foreign seat resolves single-seat, ungated, and serves that seat's directed mail. A banner naming a FOREIGN seat = STOP: act on nothing served, propagate nothing from it, fix the identity, re-poll. A GATED poll's LISTING is broadcast-only by construction — but warning lines can still name an unclassifiable or unresolvable file (an ECL basename is recipient + compressed subject — the CLI's named limit), so propagate nothing from a gated poll's warnings either: fix the identity and re-poll for your directed mail. An Error: line is the same surface: since the mmnto-ai/totem#2685 fix a poll whose OWN outbox (one this repo hosts for a resolved seat) carries a dispatch with an unresolvable to: exits 4 (SENDER FAULT) — the verdict IS derived, read it, but the to: is yours to fix first (one recipient per dispatch, or broadcast; a comma list is never a recipient), and propagate nothing from the fault line; exit 2 stays NOT-DERIVED and wins when both hold. Unread = inbound − handled: consumption is tracked by processed/ marks (feedback_check_outbox_before_replying), so the CLI path needs no cutoff stamp. Read every hit before proceeding — new mail can reprioritize everything below. (Fallback — a seat that must stamp-poll instead derives the cutoff from the newest journal's CONTENT date, the filename stamp or frontmatter, never file mtime, which git resets on clone/worktree and silently reports "inbox clean" over waiting mail; mmnto-ai/totem-strategy#813.)