Wazzap Up

/wazzap:up — "What's up?"

Phase 1 of 4. Mode: intake. Capture the user's high-level wish in their own words. Do not Socratic. Do not pre-judge. Save the deep thinking for :real.

Goal

Produce up.md and MANIFEST.yml for a new decision in under a minute.

Inputs

• Free-text wish, either:
  • In the command: /wazzap:up I want to redesign auth so onboarding is faster
  • Or solicited: /wazzap:up → agent asks "What's up?"

Steps

1. Resolve <wazzap-root> per parent SKILL (repo root .wazzap/ if in a git repo, else ~/Documents/wazzap/). Create directory if missing.

2. Capture the wish. If free text was provided in the command, use it. Otherwise ask: "What's up? (one or two sentences is plenty)".

3. Slug check (clarifier budget = 1). Try to form a slug from the wish: YYYY-MM-DD-<3+-word-kebab>. If the wish is too sparse to form a meaningful slug ("fix it", "do the thing", "I'm stuck"), spend the clarifier on slug:

   "Quick — give me a 3-word handle for this so we can find it later. (e.g. auth-onboarding-redesign)"

   Otherwise, don't ask anything and proceed.

4. Privacy detection. Scan the wish for relationship/money/career/health/personal-strategic signals (e.g. "co-founder", "salary", "should I leave", "my partner", "raise", "fire", "quit"). If detected, ask once:

   "Should this be private (gitignored) or shared (committed)?"

   Otherwise default to shared silently.

5. Collision check. If <wazzap-root>/<slug>/ already exists, append -2 (or -3, etc.) to the slug.

6. Create the folder at <wazzap-root>/<slug>/.

7. Write MANIFEST.yml (see template below).

8. If visibility: private, append .wazzap/<slug>/ to the repo's .gitignore (create the gitignore if missing). Skip if not in a git repo.

9. Write up.md (see template below).

10. Set _active by writing the slug to <wazzap-root>/_active.

11. Tell the user the slug, where it lives, and suggest /wazzap:real as the next step.

up.md template

# <Title — human-readable, derived from wish>

**Slug:** `<slug>`
**Started:** <ISO timestamp>
**Visibility:** <shared|private>

## The wish

<One sentence the user said, or distilled from their longer input. Use their words; don't paraphrase aggressively.>

## Why now?

<What triggered this thought today. If user didn't say, ask once or write "Not specified.">

## First instinct

<What would the user do if they had to act in the next 5 minutes? Captured verbatim.>

## Initial open questions

- <Things the user already flagged as unclear>
- <Or "None yet — will surface in :real">

If the user only gave you a one-sentence wish, do not invent the other sections. Write _Not specified — will revisit in :real_ for the missing fields. The audit trail values "user actually said this" over agent-generated filler.

MANIFEST.yml template

slug: <slug>
title: <Title — derived from wish>
started_at: <ISO 8601 with TZ, e.g. 2026-04-28T15:00:00-04:00>
updated_at: <same as started_at on first write>
status: thinking
status_reason: ""
visibility: <shared|private>
current_phase: up
completed_phases: [up]
chosen_approach: ""
revisits: []
linked_commits: []
linked_prs: []
linked_pm_state: ""
notes: ""

Output to user

Keep it tight:

✓ wazzap started: <slug>
  📁 <full path to folder>
  🔒 private  ← only if visibility=private

Next: /wazzap:real to drill into what's really going on.
(Or /wazzap to see the manifest summary anytime.)

Anti-patterns to avoid in :up

• ❌ Asking "what would success look like?" — that's :real territory.
• ❌ Asking the user to clarify their wish unless the slug is genuinely impossible.
• ❌ Generating creative interpretations of what they meant. Capture, don't editorialize.
• ❌ Writing more than ~10 lines in up.md without explicit user input. Filler kills audit value.
• ❌ Skipping the privacy question when the topic is obviously personal.

Self-check before finishing

• Folder exists at <wazzap-root>/<slug>/.
• MANIFEST.yml is valid YAML.
• up.md exists, contains user's wish in their words.
• _active file points to this slug.
• If private: .gitignore updated.
• Output to user is ≤ 5 lines and suggests the next command.