Catch Up

/catch-up — what needs my attention

Aggregates three feeds and distills them into a single prioritized "do these first" list (not a dump of everything):

1. Slack — messages from the last week where the user is involved (mentions, DMs, replies in their threads), plus their "save for later" / Later items, scoped to the configured channels.
2. Jira — tickets in the configured project(s) that are assigned to the user or open with no assignee.
3. GitHub — pull requests in the configured repos that are still open, or any PR (anywhere) where the user is mentioned / requested as reviewer.

The skill is portable: it reads everything it needs from a config file and uses whatever integrations are available. Nothing about a specific employer or repo is baked in.

Step 1 — Load config

The config file is .claude/.config/catch-up.json. Walk up the directory tree from the current working directory looking for it, and stop at $HOME (inclusive):

<cwd>/.claude/.config/catch-up.json
<cwd>/../.claude/.config/catch-up.json
<cwd>/../../.claude/.config/catch-up.json
… (keep going up) …
$HOME/.claude/.config/catch-up.json

First match wins — so a project-local .claude/.config/catch-up.json overrides the one in $HOME. Never search above $HOME. ($CATCH_UP_CONFIG, if set, takes precedence over the walk.)

Read the first one found. If it parses and has at least one source configured → go to Step 3 (Run).

If the file is missing or empty → go to Step 2 (Configure).

If the user invoked the skill with an argument like configure, setup, reconfigure, or --config → go to Step 2 regardless.

Step 2 — Configure (first run)

Tell the user there's no config yet and you'll set one up. Collect the values below by asking the user (conversationally, or with AskUserQuestion for the bounded choices). For each source you include, you must explicitly ask for that source's specifics — never silently fall back to a default. In particular:

• Ask which Slack channels to scope to. Don't assume "everywhere": present it as a real choice ("specific channels, or search everywhere you can see?") and only record [] if the user actively chooses unscoped. List the channel names back to them before writing.
• Ask which Jira project keys to include.
• Ask which GitHub repos (owner/name) to watch.

Only skip a source entirely if the user says they don't want it — in which case omit its key so it's skipped at run time.

{
  "lookbackDays": 7,                      // Slack/PR recency window
  "identity": {
    "slackHandle": "jdoe",                // your Slack display name or @handle (for "mentions you")
    "githubLogin": "jdoe"                 // optional; gh defaults to @me if omitted
  },
  "slack": {
    "channels": ["#team", "#general"]     // ask the user; [] only if they choose unscoped search
  },
  "jira": {
    "projects": ["PROJ"]                  // one or more project keys
  },
  "github": {
    "repos": ["owner/repo-a", "owner/repo-b"]
  }
}

Notes when collecting:

• Slack handle — needed to find "messages that mention you". Confirm the exact display name/handle; if unsure, you can resolve it with slack_search_users.
• Jira projects — project keys (e.g. PROJ). The JQL uses currentUser(), so no account id is needed.
• GitHub repos — owner/name slugs. Reviewer/mention search uses @me, so login is optional.

Write the file to $HOME/.claude/.config/catch-up.json by default (so it applies in every project), creating the .claude/.config/ directory first. If the user wants this config to apply only to the current project, write it to <repo-root>/.claude/.config/catch-up.json instead. Then continue to Step 3 with the values you just collected.

Step 3 — Run

Compute the cutoff date once: date -d "-${lookbackDays} days" +%Y-%m-%d (GNU) — keep it as a YYYY-MM-DD string for both Slack and GitHub queries.

Run the three source checks in parallel (independent — fire them in one batch). Skip any source that isn't present in the config. If an integration/tool is unavailable, note it as "unavailable" rather than failing the whole run.

Fan out within each source too — don't loop sequentially. Issue one query per configured Slack channel, one per Jira project, and one per GitHub repo, all in the same parallel batch, then merge the results. With N channels + M projects + K repos you should have ~N+M+K queries in flight at once, not one-at-a-time.

Slack — involved in the last week

Use the Slack search tools. Run, for the configured channels (or unscoped if channels is empty):

• Mentions of the user: query @<slackHandle> after:<cutoff> (add in:#channel per channel when scoped).
• Their own thread activity / DMs: query from:@<slackHandle> after:<cutoff> to catch threads they drove and conversations awaiting their reply.

Prefer slack_search_public_and_private if available, else slack_search_public. Collapse results to the distinct threads/conversations; for each, capture channel, who, a one-line gist, and a link.

Also pull the user's "save for later" / Later items — messages they explicitly bookmarked to come back to. These are high-signal by definition (the user chose them), so treat them as such when ranking. There may be no dedicated MCP tool for this; if so, fetch them via the Slack Web API stars.list / saved-items endpoint (e.g. through the slack:slack-api skill or a curl with the workspace token). If no such access is available, note "Later items: unavailable" rather than dropping the category silently.

Read the thread before ranking any Slack item as blocked-on-you. A single matched message is a snippet, not a verdict — a mention that reads like an open question to the user is often already answered by them further down the thread, or the whole incident is resolved. For every Slack item a first pass would rank in tier 1 (directly blocked on you), pull the full thread with slack_read_thread and check whether the user already replied and whether the ask still stands. Only keep it in tier 1 if it's genuinely still waiting; otherwise demote it (already-replied → tier 3, or drop it into the rolled-up tail). This costs a few extra reads but is what stops false "you owe a reply" items. Do this for the tier-1 candidates, not the whole feed.

Jira — assigned to me or open & unassigned

Run one query per configured project, in parallel (searchJiraIssuesUsingJql, Atlassian MCP):

project = <PROJECT>
AND statusCategory != Done
AND (assignee = currentUser() OR assignee IS EMPTY)
ORDER BY updated DESC

Merge the per-project results. For each issue capture key, summary, status, assignee (or "unassigned"), and updated date.

GitHub — open PRs in my repos + PRs that mention me

Use the gh CLI via Bash (most portable — no MCP dependency). Run these concurrently (separate background Bash calls, or one batch), not in a sequential loop:

• Per configured repo, open PRs — one gh pr list per repo, in parallel: gh pr list --repo <repo> --state open --json number,title,author,url,updatedAt,isDraft,reviewRequests
• Mentioned / review-requested anywhere (cross-repo): gh search prs --state open --involves @me --json number,title,repository,url,updatedAt and gh search prs --state open --review-requested @me --json number,title,repository,url,updatedAt

Merge and de-duplicate by URL. Flag the ones awaiting the user's review distinctly from the ones they authored.

Step 4 — Prioritize, then present

Don't dump every item. Pull the raw results from all sources into one pool, then rank them into a single priority list. The output is a short, ordered "do these first" list — not three full feeds.

Score each item by how much it's actively waiting on the user and how urgent it is. Rough order, highest first:

1. Directly blocked on you — a PR with your review requested, a Jira ticket assigned to you that's In Progress, a Slack mention that asks you a direct question and is unanswered (verify against the full thread — see the Slack section; a snippet that looks unanswered often isn't), an item you saved for later in Slack.
2. Owned by you, in flight — your open PRs (esp. non-draft, with changes requested or stale), your assigned tickets not yet started.
3. Up for grabs / FYI — unassigned open tickets, threads you were in but already replied to, draft PRs.

Apply judgment on top of the tier: bump items that are older / going stale (e.g. a review request sitting for days), and collapse noise — group near-duplicates, and roll long tails into a single "…and N more" line with a link rather than listing each. Aim for roughly the top ~10 items; the rest is a count, not a wall of bullets.

Render as one ranked list (links so each item is one click away). Annotate each with its source, why it's ranked there, and its age. Example shape:

🟢 Catch-up — last 7 days · 10 of 34 items shown

1. PR  owner/repo #123  Fix retry backoff       review requested · 4d, stale   <url>
2. Slack ⭐ saved  @alice "can you confirm the rollout window?"  · 2d           <url>
3. Jira PROJ-456  Flaky scanner test            assigned to you · In Progress  <url>
4. PR  owner/repo #119  Queue split             yours · changes requested      <url>
5. Slack #team  @bob pinged you on the migration plan (unanswered) · 1d        <url>
6. Jira PROJ-461  Tune cache TTL                open · unassigned              <url>
…
   + 24 more (8 Slack threads you've already replied to, 3 draft PRs, …)

If a source was skipped (not configured) or unavailable, say so in one line at the end rather than silently omitting it.

Re-configuring

/catch-up configure (or setup / reconfigure) re-runs Step 2 and overwrites the config file.