Tensei

Tensei

Install or reconcile the Tensei persona -- the answer-shaping, markers and register document at ~/.claude/daikenja/tensei.md, imported by a @~/.claude/daikenja/tensei.md line at the end of ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md -- on the machine this session is running on.

Slash-only, on purpose. This skill writes a file outside the project, in the user's home directory, and can append a line to the CLAUDE.md that governs every session on the machine. Nothing about "set up my persona" or "install tensei" should make it fire by itself -- the user runs /daikenja:tensei when they mean to. disable-model-invocation: true is what enforces that.

Not part of daikenja.yaml, and no dependency on setup-user. Tensei governs conversation, not deliverables -- it is a different contract from voice.md and unrelated to the profile: block, personas.md, or writing_style. A user can run this skill with no Daikenja configuration on disk at all, so it carries its own environment gate (Step 0) rather than assuming setup-user already ran.

Not a blank template, unlike personas.md and writing-style.md. Those two are copied once, on absence, and never inspected again -- the user owns everything written into them from that point on. templates/tensei.md is maintained content this plugin ships and revises; an installed copy the user has not hand-edited can be updated to a newer shipped version. Step 2's five-state model is what makes that safe: it never overwrites a copy the user changed without saying so first.

Step 0: the environment gate

Try to list ~/.claude/ (the real OS home directory, not the project working tree) and confirm it looks like a live Claude Code install -- at least one of ~/.claude/settings.json, ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md or ~/.claude/plugins/ exists there.

• It resolves and at least one marker exists. Proceed.

• It does not resolve, is empty, or none of the markers exist. Stop and say:

  This session has no persistent home directory with a Claude Code install in
  it, which this skill needs to read and write ~/.claude/daikenja/. Nothing
  was written.
  

Step 1: read what already exists

Before asking anything:

• ~/.claude/daikenja/tensei.md -- read it if present.
• ~/.claude/daikenja/.tensei-manifest.json -- read it if present. Malformed JSON: stop, name the file, say the user should fix or remove it. Never rewrite a file that could not be read.
• ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md -- read it if present, and check whether a line reading exactly @~/.claude/daikenja/tensei.md already exists (compare after stripping the line ending and surrounding whitespace, and anywhere in the file, not only at the end -- another installer may have placed it inside a slot of its own).

Step 2: state and report

Hash the shipped payload (${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/templates/tensei.md) and, if present, the installed file, with a short inline command rather than eyeballing a diff -- python -c "import hashlib,sys;print(hashlib.sha256(open(sys.argv[1],'rb').read()).hexdigest())" <path> works on every platform this plugin supports.

One report before asking anything:

A local-edit or conflict an install would discard is named plainly -- the backup in Step 4 is the only place the discarded version survives.

Report the import line's presence in the same pass: missing -- propose adding it alongside a file install. A bare import line with no file behind it is never useful, so never propose it alone.

A plan reporting unchanged with the import line already present is one line: "Already installed and current -- nothing to change." No gate follows.

Adoption. unchanged with no manifest is the one exception: the file matches the payload but nothing records that, so the next update would read a later hand edit as a conflict instead of a local-edit. Say so in one line and offer to record the manifest -- a new file, no other write, no backup needed. Its import_line_added_by_skill is false: this run did not add the line. Declining is fine and leaves everything as it was.

Step 3: the gate

One closed question. The question text carries the state and whether the import line will be added -- Step 2 already delivered the detail in its own turn.

Options, at minimum:

• Install (Recommended) -- writes the file (new/update) and the import line if missing. Never touches a local-edit or conflict file.
• Install and overwrite my local edit -- offered only when the state is local-edit or conflict; say plainly that the local version is backed up, not discarded outright.
• Record the manifest only -- offered only in the adoption case above; writes .tensei-manifest.json and nothing else.
• Nothing -- stop, write nothing.

Never write without an explicit yes.

Step 4: apply

1. Back up whatever is about to be replaced, before writing anything: copy the current ~/.claude/daikenja/tensei.md (if it exists) to ~/.claude/backups/tensei-<UTC timestamp>/tensei.md, and, only if the import line is about to be added and ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md already exists, copy it to ~/.claude/backups/tensei-<UTC timestamp>/CLAUDE.md first.

2. Write ~/.claude/daikenja/tensei.md verbatim from ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/templates/tensei.md, if the gate approved a file write.

3. Append the import line (@~/.claude/daikenja/tensei.md, on its own line, at the end of the file) if the gate approved it and it is not already present. Keep the file's existing line ending (CRLF stays CRLF), make sure the previous last line is terminated before appending, and end the file with one newline. Create ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md with just that line if the file does not exist yet.

4. Write the manifest at ~/.claude/daikenja/.tensei-manifest.json:

   {
     "installed_hash": "<sha256 of the file just written>",
     "installed_at": "<UTC ISO-8601 timestamp>",
     "import_line_added_by_skill": true
   }
   

   Set import_line_added_by_skill only if this run is the one that added it; otherwise carry forward whatever the existing manifest already had for that field. Merge onto the existing manifest rather than replacing it wholesale, so a manifest that later gains fields is never clobbered here.

Close with one report, per ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/docs/response-format.md -- the result leads: what was written, what was backed up and where. Say plainly that the new CLAUDE.md import takes effect on the next session -- this one already loaded the old file.

Step 5: uninstalling

On an explicit ask to remove or revert the persona (not the default flow):

1. One closed gate first (Uninstall?), same mechanics as Step 3.
2. Back up the current file and CLAUDE.md exactly as in Step 4 before removing anything.
3. Remove ~/.claude/daikenja/tensei.md if the user chose to.
4. Remove the import line only if ~/.claude/daikenja/.tensei-manifest.json records "import_line_added_by_skill": true. A line the user wrote in by hand independently is never touched -- if the manifest doesn't say this skill added it, leave CLAUDE.md alone and say why in one line.
5. Delete the manifest.

Report what was removed and where the backup landed.

Re-running this skill

Safe at any time. A re-run with nothing to do is one line and writes nothing, including no manifest rewrite. It never touches a local-edit file without the explicit overwrite option in Step 3, and never resolves a conflict on its own.

Coexisting with other installers of CLAUDE.md

Other tooling may own and regenerate ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md from a skeleton (the carlos plugin's setup-wow does, and keeps a slot for exactly this import line). The contract that keeps the two from fighting:

• This skill only ever appends one plain line or removes that exact line; it never restructures the file, and it never reads anything under ~/.claude/reference/ or any other installer's manifest.
• After this skill appends the line, an installer that hashes CLAUDE.md will see it as changed on its next run. That is correct: it should surface the line and carry it forward, not silently drop it. If it does drop it, a re-run of this skill reports the line as missing and re-adds it.
• If another installer later moves the line into its own slot, import_line_added_by_skill stays whatever this skill recorded -- the line is still the one this skill added, wherever it now sits, so uninstall still removes it.
• ~/.claude/daikenja/tensei.md and .tensei-manifest.json are this skill's alone. Nothing else should write them, and this skill writes nothing else.

Failure cases