Session Orientation

Session Orientation is a skill for Claude Code from ralfyishere/rules-with-receipts. It costs 116 tokens per session (1,406 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A session-start procedure that reads a project registry to find the canonical repository paths, current versions, and pending work in a multi-project workspace.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it when starting or resuming work, checking a project's status, beginning a broad audit, or recording durable project changes before ending a session.
Why use it?
It prevents each new session from rediscovering project locations and state through broad filesystem searches.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: installed under .claude/. Also seen: mentions CLAUDE.md.

Good fit Use it when starting or resuming work, checking a project's status, beginning a broad audit, or recording durable project changes before ending a session.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/ralfyishere/rules-with-receipts/session-orientation
Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

Any agent
npx skills add ralfyishere/rules-with-receipts --skill session-orientation
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/ralfyishere/rules-with-receipts

Made for: Claude Code.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for Session Orientation

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/ralfyishere/rules-with-receipts/session-orientation/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/ralfyishere/rules-with-receipts/session-orientation)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/ralfyishere/rules-with-receipts/session-orientation"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/ralfyishere/rules-with-receipts/session-orientation/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

agentmods 80×15 button for Session Orientation

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/ralfyishere/rules-with-receipts/session-orientation"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/ralfyishere/rules-with-receipts/session-orientation.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 116 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,406 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5.1 $0.00116 $0.01406
Opus 5 $0.00058 $0.00703
Sonnet 5 $0.00023 $0.00281
Haiku 4.5 $0.00012 $0.00141

Measured 8d ago against content hash 3ba89239c416, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-08, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

Session Orientation scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 8d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

.claude/skills/session-orientation/SKILL.md · 106 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 106 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Session Orientation

Purpose

A fresh session starts with amnesia about everything outside its context window: where repos live, which copy is canonical, what version is current, what is pending. Without a fixed orientation step, every session pays a rediscovery tax — filesystem archaeology, stale-memory guesswork, unscoped audits — and sessions restart instead of compounding. This skill makes orientation a procedure: read the map, verify what matters live, then work — and makes writing the map back a closeout duty, because the read side only works if sessions keep it true.

When to use this skill

  • First substantive action in a new or resumed session in a multi-project workspace.
  • Project-state requests: "check the work on X", "is GitHub up to date", "continue the launch", "where are we on X" — oblique names count ("the scanner").
  • About to find/glob for a project whose canonical location should be recorded.
  • About to start a broad audit with no defined scope.
  • A session that changed durable project state is about to end (closeout half).

When NOT to use

  • Single-project repos where the task names its own files — orientation is one git status, not a procedure.
  • Questions with no project-state component.
  • Mid-session once oriented — re-run only after resume/compaction, or when evidence contradicts the map (memory-hygiene territory).

The procedure

  1. Map before territory. Read the workspace registry (ACTIVE-PROJECTS.md or whatever CLAUDE.md names) before any filesystem search or audit. Find the entry the request refers to.
  2. Trust order, stated: live observed state > registry > memory files > recollection. The registry locates truth cheaply; it isn't truth. Live-verify any registry or memory fact that is load-bearing (the entry's verify commands, or git status -sb + a real git fetch at minimum).
  3. Canonical path or explain yourself. Work happens in the registry-listed clone. Copies found in scratchpads, temp dirs, or other sessions' workspaces are never source of truth; using one requires saying so and why.
  4. "Updated/done/published" is a compound claim. Check the parts and name which you checked: tree clean; local == origin after a fetch; CI at HEAD; and for releases: tag position, package registry, one consumer-side check (fresh install or raw URL). A subset checked = a subset claimed.
  5. Broad requests get scoped by the map: registry pending list + the requester's emphasis, stated as an explicit scope — never an unbounded sweep.
  6. Closeout writes the map back. Before ending a session that changed state: promote durable work out of scratchpad paths (they die with the session); update the registry entry (state, pending, pitfalls, date). A session that changed state but not the registry is unfinished. No registry yet and the workspace has outgrown one project? Creating a minimal one IS in scope.

Read the full file on GitHub · 106 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 8d ago First seen · 106 lines · 0 tokens per session scan A 3ba89239c416

Subscribe to this mod's changes

Session Orientation is a skill published in the GitHub repository ralfyishere/rules-with-receipts (2 stars, last pushed 1mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 116 tokens to every session and 1,406 once invoked, about $0.0006 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-31.

Related

Other skills, from other repositories

happiness-skill

A Chinese-language guide to happiness based on reducing unmet wants, focusing on the present, and treating happiness as a trainable skill.

kangarooking/cangjie-skill · 136 tokens

setup-matt-pocock-skills

A setup skill that configures engineering skills for a repository, including its issue tracker, labels, and documentation layout. A repository is the project folder managed by version control.

devcxl/mattpocock-skills-zh · 43 tokens

frontend-design

A design guide for building polished web interfaces such as pages, dashboards, forms, navigation, and reusable UI components. It covers HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and common frontend frameworks.

AnastasiyaW/codex-claude-code-config · 264 tokens

alterlab-cobrapy

Build and analyze genome-scale constraint-based metabolic models with COBRApy — flux balance analysis (FBA), flux variability analysis (FVA), gene and reaction knockouts, flux sampling, and SBML model I/O. Use when simulating metabolic networks, predicting growth or knockout phenotypes, or running systems-biology and…

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills · 91 tokens

alterlab-depmap

Query the Cancer Dependency Map (DepMap) for cancer cell line gene dependency scores (CRISPR Chronos), drug sensitivity data, and gene effect profiles. Use when identifying cancer-specific genetic vulnerabilities, finding synthetic lethal interactions, checking whether a gene is essential in given cell lines, or…

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills · 77 tokens

alterlab-qutip

Simulates open quantum systems with QuTiP, the Quantum Toolbox in Python, solving Lindblad master equations (mesolve), Monte Carlo trajectories (mcsolve), and unitary dynamics (sesolve). Use when studying master-equation or Lindblad dynamics, decoherence, dissipation, quantum optics, cavity QED, or open-system time…

AlterLab-IEU/AlterLab-Academic-Skills · 134 tokens