name: session-opening description: > Re-orient to session context on demand. Loads companion skills (beads, todoist-gtd) based on what's present. Use when you missed the startup context, want a fresh look at what's available, or after cd'ing to a different project. Triggers on /open, 'what were we working on', 'where did we leave off'. Pairs with /ground and /close. (user) user-invocable: false

/open

Interpret context and load companion skills.

When to Use

Context is surfaced automatically at session start via hook. The hook provides data; this skill provides behavior.

Use /open for:

• Re-orientation — "Show me the context again"
• Skill loading — Ensures beads/todoist-gtd patterns are available
• After directory change — Context is project-specific; if you cd'd, context may differ

Prerequisites

Before running /open, verify infrastructure is healthy. Silent failures here cause downstream confusion.

Quick pre-flight:

[ -x ~/.claude/scripts/open-context.sh ] && echo "OK" || echo "BROKEN: open-context.sh missing"

If pre-flight fails, STOP and diagnose before proceeding. See ~/Repos/claude-suite/references/ERROR_PATTERNS.md for common issues.

Structure

Prerequisites → Verify infrastructure
Gate          → Load required companion skills
Gather        → Script output (already present from hook, or re-run if needed)
Orient        → Synthesize what matters
Decide        → User picks direction
Act           → Draw-down to TodoWrite

1. Gate: Load Companion Skills

Before synthesizing, load skills based on what's present. Do not proceed until loaded.

Work tracker is mandatory when present. The draw-down pattern (item → TodoWrite checkpoints) is where drift gets caught. Without it, Claude works from the tracker directly → no checkpoints → drift compounds.

• Arc is lighter — outcomes and actions, simpler CLI, GTD vocabulary built-in
• Beads is heavier — epics, dependencies, molecules, more ceremony

Todoist-gtd is conditional. Offer it when relevant, don't load by default.

Skill loading bias (Jan 2026 learning): Loading todoist-gtd primes Claude to think about "where work belongs" (Todoist vs bd vs arc). This caused misinterpretation when user said "refactor beads into proper epics" — Claude proposed moving to Todoist instead of organizing within bd. When a tracker skill is loaded, stay anchored to the user's explicit tool references ("the beads", "in arc", "the outcomes").

Memory is optional. Offer when user seems confused about history, not by default.

2. Gather

Pattern: Notifications to stdout, content on disk.

Hook output at session start shows what exists:

📋 Handoffs: 9 available, latest 23h ago
   Index: ~/.claude/.session-context/<encoded-cwd>/handoffs.txt
📦 Beads: 8 ready                    # OR
🎯 Arc: 4 ready                      # (one or the other, based on .beads/ vs .arc/)
   Context: ~/.claude/.session-context/<encoded-cwd>/beads.txt (or arc.txt)
📰 News: available
   File: ~/.claude/.update-news

Context files are per-project. The <encoded-cwd> is the working directory with / and . replaced by - (e.g., -Users-modha-Repos-claude-suite).

To get actual content, read the files:

To compute the path: echo "$(pwd -P)" | tr '/.' '-' → use as subdirectory name.

Missing or Stale Context

If context files don't exist for current directory, regenerate them:

~/.claude/scripts/open-context.sh

This happens when:

• Session started in a different directory (hook ran there, not here)
• First time in this project
• After cd'ing to a different project mid-session

Check first: [ -d ~/.claude/.session-context/$(pwd -P | tr '/.' '-') ]

Script Failure Handling

If the script fails (exit code 127 = file not found, or any other error):

1. STOP. Do not continue with partial context.
2. Tell the user: "The open-context.sh script failed. This usually means a broken symlink."
3. Diagnose: Run ~/.claude/scripts/check-symlinks.sh to identify the issue.

3. Orient

Read files based on what notifications indicate, then synthesize.

Reading Pattern

First, compute the context directory:

CONTEXT_DIR=~/.claude/.session-context/$(pwd -P | tr '/.' '-')

Then read:

1. Check handoff index — read $CONTEXT_DIR/handoffs.txt (if missing, run ~/.claude/scripts/open-context.sh first)
2. Read most recent handoff — path is in the index, read the actual .md file
3. Check tracker context — read $CONTEXT_DIR/beads.txt OR $CONTEXT_DIR/arc.txt (whichever exists)
4. News if relevant — read ~/.claude/.update-news if user asks or it's actionable

Synthesize What Matters

• Handoff — Done, Next, Gotchas from previous session
• Tracker hierarchy — from beads.txt or arc.txt, show directly to user
• Ready work — what's unblocked (beads ready or arc ready)
• Commands — if handoff has a Commands section, offer to run them
• Scope mismatches — if handoff "Next" doesn't match ready items, flag it

Orphaned Local Handoffs

When stdout shows orphaned .handoff* files:

1. Tell the user: "Found local .handoff* files — these are invisible to /open"
2. Offer to rescue: "Want me to move them to the central location?"
3. If yes: mv .handoff* ~/.claude/handoffs/<encoded-path>/

Multiple Handoffs

When handoff index shows multiple entries, present choices to user:

AskUserQuestion([{
  header: "Handoff",
  question: "Multiple handoffs found. Which workstream to continue?",
  options: [
    { label: "9ac230b1", description: "23h ago — Removed --local bypass..." },
    { label: "a6317919", description: "yesterday — Added raw_text to FTS..." },
    { label: "Start fresh", description: "Ignore existing handoffs" }
  ],
  multiSelect: false
}])

Then read the selected handoff file.

Single Handoff (default)

Read the handoff, present concisely: "Previous session did X. Next suggested: Y. Z beads ready."

4. Decide

User picks direction. Options typically:

• Continue with handoff "Next"
• Pick from ready work (beads or arc items)
• @Claude inbox items
• Something else

5. Act: Draw-Down

Draw-down triggers on ALL substantial work, not just explicit tracker item claims.

Explicit item selection

When user picks a work item:

Then:

1. Read the item's criteria (beads: acceptance-criteria, arc: brief.done)
2. Create TodoWrite items from those criteria
3. Show user: "Breaking this down into: [list]. Sound right?"

Continuation phrases

When user says "continue X", "keep going", "pick up where we left off":

1. Clarify scope: "Which item? Outcome (broad goal) or action (specific task)?"
2. Read the item's criteria
3. Create TodoWrite items — this catches scope gaps before work begins
4. Proceed with checkpoints

Failure mode (Jan 2026): User said "continue backfill" → Claude continued existing code without checking epic scope → discovered an hour later that "complete pass" meant more than file attachments.

External briefs

When user provides a spec, brief, or requirements from elsewhere:

1. Extract acceptance criteria from the brief
2. Create TodoWrite items from those criteria
3. Show user: "I'm reading this as: [list]. Right?"
4. Proceed with checkpoints

Failure mode: User provided brief from another Claude → work completed → "fix" didn't work → second debugging phase had no TodoWrite → drift.

Ambiguous references

When user says "the email thing", "that feature", or similar:

1. Don't guess. Ask: "Do you mean item X (description) or Y (description)?"
2. Once clarified, do full draw-down

The test

If the work will take >10 minutes, it needs TodoWrite items.

No TodoWrite items = No checkpoints = Drift compounds.

Full draw-down patterns live in the tracker skill (beads or arc) — that's why gate-loading matters.

Mirrors (GODAR)