Turn a cold start into a warm one with one doc.
“Every new session or teammate starts cold and asks me the same five questions.”
A single pack that tells a new session or teammate what the project is, where things live, what's decided, and the next move.
What this skill does
Builds one document that orients whoever picks up the work next, a new AI session, a new teammate, or you in three weeks. It answers the five questions a cold start always asks: what is this, where does everything live, what has already been decided, what is still open, and what happens next. The result is a single pack you can paste into a new session or hand to a person, so nobody re-derives context that already exists.
Inputs
- Works today with: whatever you can describe or paste, a project brief, a thread, a folder listing, your own notes on where things stand.
- More powerful connected to a repo or file store: it reads the folder structure and the README so "where things live" is real, not remembered.
- Sharper with a notes or wiki tool: it pulls prior decisions and open items instead of asking you to recall them.
- Sharper with a task tool: it lists the open items with owners and due dates, not just your best guess.
How it works
- 1The five questions (fixed order)
Every pack answers these, in this order, no exceptions.
- What is this one paragraph a newcomer could repeat back correctly.
- Where things live the map: build, docs, data, credentials-by-reference (never the secret itself).
- Decisions so far the calls already made, each with the one-line why, most recent first.
- Open items what is unresolved, who owns it, what it is waiting on.
- Next move the single most important thing to do next, named plainly.
- 2Where-things-live map
List the real locations, not "the usual place." A path, a link, a tool name. If a location is a guess, mark it a guess. Point to where a credential is stored, never paste the credential.
- 3Decisions-so-far digest
Pull the decisions that shaped the current state and give each a one-line reason. If a decision log exists, cite it. If not, this section is the seed of one, and the skill will say so.
- 4Open-items pass
Every open item gets an owner and a blocker if it has one. "Someone should" is not an owner. An item with no owner is itself flagged.
- 5Next-move call
End on one move, not a menu. The pack is useless if the reader still has to decide where to start.
Output format
CONTEXT PACK · Northwind onboarding automation · updated today
WHAT THIS IS
A workflow that enriches new signups and routes them to the right owner.
Runs nightly. Feeds the account list the AE team works each morning.
WHERE THINGS LIVE
Build a git repo, /automations/onboarding
Docs a notes tool, "Northwind onboarding" space
Data a shared sheet, "signups-raw" tab
Secrets stored in the team vault (referenced, not pasted)
DECISIONS SO FAR
- Route by company size, not persona. Personas were too noisy. (last week)
- Nightly, not real-time. Real-time tripled the API cost for no lift.
OPEN ITEMS
- Dedupe on domain still manual. Owner: you. Waiting on: a rule spec.
- Owner for EU signups undecided. Owner: unassigned (flagged).
NEXT MOVE
Write the dedupe rule spec so the last manual step can be automated.
Tips
- Nothing is written or saved anywhere without your explicit approval. The pack is drafted for you to place; it does not touch a repo, a wiki, or a task tool on its own.
- No invented locations. A guessed path is labelled a guess, not stated as fact.
- No secret in the pack. Credentials are referenced by where they live, never pasted.
- The next move is exactly one item, named, not a list to triage.
Capture the session context so you can resume it cold.
An end-of-session brief: progress, decisions, unfinished items with next steps, and the fragile details, then it asks whether to save.
Close the gap between a correction and it happening again.
Scans a session for corrections, approvals, and validated patterns, then proposes exact edits to your skills and docs. Nothing applied until you approve.