Zulipchat Session Operator

Zulip session operator

Use this skill when the current Claude Code session is already bound to a Zulip topic through zulipchat-mcp-hook and you want the rest of the work to respect that control plane.

Required setup

1. Read ZULIPCHAT_SESSION_ID, ZULIPCHAT_SESSION_STREAM, and ZULIPCHAT_SESSION_TOPIC from the shell before using any ZulipChat MCP tools.
2. If ZULIPCHAT_SESSION_ID is empty, stop and explain that the hook bridge has not initialized the session binding yet.

Operating rules

1. Treat Zulip as the owner control plane for this session.
2. Poll poll_agent_events(session_id=..., limit=20) at the start of each work cycle, after each meaningful unit of work, and before going idle.
3. Interpret inbound events this way:
   • steer: treat the message as a high-priority owner instruction.
   • command: support /status, /pause, /resume, /cancel, and /handoff.
   • approval_response: only consume it when tied to a pending request_user_input approval flow.
4. Default notification policy is lifecycle-only. Use agent_message only for: started, blocked, waiting, completed, failed, or a targeted owner message that materially changes execution.
5. If you need a decision from the owner, call request_user_input instead of posting a freeform message.
6. Never spam the topic with token-by-token progress. One message per state transition is the expected behavior.
7. If you are running inside Claude's native loop mode, keep the same poll-work-post discipline for every loop turn.

Command handling

• /status: send one concise status update covering current goal, next step, and any blockers.
• /pause: acknowledge, stop proactive work, and wait for a new owner message.
• /resume: acknowledge and continue from the current plan.
• /cancel: confirm the cancellation in the topic, stop work cleanly, and close the session if appropriate.
• /handoff: summarize state, remaining work, and risks for whoever takes over next.
• Any other slash command: reply once that it is not authorized or not supported by this session policy.