next

next

The session-start skill — the human's re-entry point. Surveys every source of DAE state and answers one question: what should I pick up now?

Read-only and advisory. It changes nothing, produces no artifact, and emits no handoff (the recommendation is the whole output; a handoff would just restate it). This is a deliberate exception to the agentic-summary contract — next is a query, not a task that changes state.

next is the read-side bookend to session-summary: session-summary writes "here's where I left off, next tasks" at session end; next consumes that — and everything else — at session start.

When to use

Start of a session, or any "what now?" moment. Project-scope; surveys the whole project — there is no narrower scope.

Not for: loading context on a feature you've already chosen (prime-context); checking artifact consistency (consistency-check); a per-feature next-step (each skill's handoff already carries recommended_next).

Workflow

Step 1 — Resolve and survey

Resolve the methodology root + manifest via ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/dae_resolve.py (see references/resolving.md). Then read, read-only:

• In-flight features — every features/*/feature.md (status) + progress.md (current checkpoint; whether it's blocked or ready to advance). For each in-flight feature, run ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/dae_reconcile.py <feature-dir> (read-only): if it reports needs_reconcile: true, the feature's PR is merged but its local state hasn't caught up — this is the authoritative merged-detection (via gh, so it catches squash-merge and git.manual, which the current-branch git-ancestry check below misses). Surface these under NEEDS YOUR DECISION and, at autonomy medium/high, offer /engineer.post-merge to reconcile (which flips the status and propagates). A flag: merged-unverified means it shipped without CP7 — call that out.
• Consolidation backlog — .engineer/consolidation.md if present (coverage backlog + triage order)
• Roadmap (strategic feature list) — the next unstarted roadmap item(s) via the driver (local = ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/dae_roadmap.py next-unstarted; MCP/CLI/API-backed = the connected channel — see references/roadmap.md). This is the "what's next in the roadmap" altitude — candidate features not yet promoted to a feature folder, the forward-looking complement to the consolidation backlog. If manifest.roadmap.type is none, or its host is unreachable (MCP disconnected / CLI gone), skip it with a one-line note — degrade gracefully, never error.
• Parked ideas — features/*/ with status: parked; .engineer/discussions.log
• Tracker captures (triage queue) — tasks a human added directly to the onboarded tracker: rows with no Slug yet (the reconcile() orphan-as-intake case, see references/tracker.md), or .engineer/inbox.md lines in local mode. These are quick-captured bugs/ideas/tasks awaiting triage — not yet a feature or fix.
• Pending human actions — recent handoffs/*.md (per-feature and .engineer/handoffs/) flagged human_action_needed: yes
• Session-log next-tasks — the latest session-log.md entry per active feature ("Next tasks")
• Dispatched to cloud — features whose latest handoff carries cloud_session_url (running on a cloud agent; PR pending). Surface as DISPATCHED — not actionable until the PR lands.
• CHARTER.md + manifest — autonomy levels and path overrides, for execution-mode advice
• Open fixes — .engineer/fixes/*.md via ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/dae_fix.py list_open_fixes (status != closed)
• Stale merged branch — if the current branch is not main/master, run git fetch origin --quiet then check git merge-base --is-ancestor HEAD origin/HEAD (fallback origin/main). If true, the branch is merged and lingering — surface it as a STALE BRANCH item. (This git check only catches the current branch and only non-squash merges; the per-feature dae_reconcile.py probe above is the broader, gh-based merged-detection.)