Swain Status

Status

Cross-cutting project status dashboard. Aggregates data from artifact lifecycle (swain chart), task tracking (tk), git, GitHub issues, and session state into an activity-oriented view.

When invoked

Locate and run the status script from skills/swain-status/scripts/swain-status.sh:

# Find the script from the project root or installed skills directories
SKILL_DIR="$(find . .claude .agents -path '*/swain-status/scripts/swain-status.sh' -print -quit 2>/dev/null)"
bash "$SKILL_DIR" --refresh

If the path search fails, glob for **/swain-status/scripts/swain-status.sh.

The script's terminal output uses OSC 8 hyperlinks for clickable artifact links. Let the terminal output scroll by — it is reference data, not the primary output.

After the script runs, present a structured agent summary following the template in references/agent-summary-template.md. The agent summary is what the user reads for decision-making. It must lead with a Recommendation section (see below), then Decisions Needed, then Work Ready to Start, then reference data — following the template in references/agent-summary-template.md.

The script collects from five data sources:

1. Artifacts — swain chart vision-rooted hierarchy (epic progress, ready/blocked items, dependency info). Use bash skills/swain-design/scripts/chart.sh recommend for ranked artifact view; respects focus lane automatically.
2. Tasks — tk (in-progress, recently completed)
3. Git — branch, working tree state, recent commits
4. GitHub — open issues, issues assigned to the user
5. Session — bookmarks and context from swain-session

Compact mode (MOTD integration)

The script supports --compact for consumption by swain-stage's MOTD panel:

bash skills/swain-status/scripts/swain-status.sh --compact

This outputs 4-5 lines suitable for the MOTD box: branch, active epic progress, current task, ready count, assigned issue count.

Cache

The script writes a JSON cache to the Claude Code memory directory:

~/.claude/projects/<project-slug>/memory/status-cache.json

• TTL: 120 seconds (configurable via status.cacheTTL in settings)
• Force refresh: --refresh flag bypasses TTL
• JSON access: --json flag outputs raw cache for programmatic use

The MOTD can read this cache cheaply between full refreshes.

Recommendation

The recommendation uses a scoring formula:

score = unblock_count × vision_weight

Where vision_weight is inherited from the artifact's Vision ancestor (high=3, medium=2, low=1, default=medium). Read .priority.recommendations[0] from the JSON cache for the top-ranked item.

Tiebreakers (applied in order):

1. Higher decision debt in the artifact's vision
2. Decision-type artifacts over implementation-type
3. Artifact ID (deterministic fallback)

When a focus lane is set, recommendations are scoped to that vision/initiative. Peripheral visions are summarized separately (see Peripheral Awareness).

If attention drift is detected for the recommended item's vision, include it as context in the recommendation.

Mode Inference

swain-status infers the operating mode from context (first match wins):

1. Both specs in review AND strategic decisions pending → ask: "Steering or reviewing?"
2. Specs awaiting operator review (agent finished, needs sign-off) → detail mode
3. Focus lane set with pending strategic decisions → vision mode within that lane
4. No specs in review, decisions piling up → vision mode
5. Nothing actionable in either mode → vision mode (show the master plan mirror)

Once the operator answers, swain remembers for the session via swain-session bookmark.

Focus Lane

The operator can set a focus lane via swain-session to scope recommendations to a single vision or initiative:

bash "$(find . .claude .agents -path '*/swain-session/scripts/swain-focus.sh' -print -quit 2>/dev/null)" set VISION-001

When set, .priority.recommendations only includes items under that vision. Non-focus visions appear in the Peripheral Awareness section.

Peripheral Awareness

When a focus lane is set, non-focus visions with pending decisions are summarized: "Meanwhile: [Vision] has N pending decisions (weight: W)"

This is a mirror, not a recommendation — the operator decides when accumulation warrants redirection.

Active epics with all specs resolved

When an Active epic has progress.done == progress.total:

• Show "→ ready to close" in the Readiness column of the Epic Progress table
• Do NOT show it in the Work Ready to Start bucket (it's not implementation work)
• Do NOT show it as "work on child specs"

Settings

Read from swain.settings.json (project) and ~/.config/swain/settings.json (user override).

Session bookmark

After presenting status, update the bookmark with the most actionable highlight: bash "$(find . .claude .agents -path '*/swain-session/scripts/swain-bookmark.sh' -print -quit 2>/dev/null)" "Checked status — {key highlight}"

Error handling

• If chart.sh / specgraph is unavailable: skip artifact section, show other data
• If tk is unavailable: skip task section
• If gh CLI is unavailable or no GitHub remote: skip issues section
• If .agents/session.json doesn't exist: skip bookmark
• Never fail hard — show whatever data is available