Next

next

The session-start skill — the human's re-entry point. Surveys every source of DAE state and answers one question: what should I pick up now?

Read-only and advisory. It changes nothing, produces no artifact, and emits no handoff (the recommendation is the whole output; a handoff would just restate it). This is a deliberate exception to the agentic-summary contract — next is a query, not a task that changes state.

next is the read-side bookend to session-summary: session-summary writes "here's where I left off, next tasks" at session end; next consumes that — and everything else — at session start.

When to use

Start of a session, or any "what now?" moment. Project-scope; surveys the whole project — there is no narrower scope.

Not for: loading context on a feature you've already chosen (prime-context); checking artifact consistency (consistency-check); a per-feature next-step (each skill's handoff already carries recommended_next).

Workflow

Step 1 — Resolve and survey

Resolve the methodology root + manifest via ${PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/dae_resolve.py (see references/resolving.md). Then read, read-only:

• In-flight features — every features/*/feature.md (status) + progress.md (current checkpoint; whether it's blocked or ready to advance)
• Consolidation backlog — .engineer/consolidation.md if present (coverage backlog + triage order)
• Parked ideas — features/*/ with status: parked; .engineer/discussions.log
• Pending human actions — recent handoffs/*.md (per-feature and .engineer/handoffs/) flagged human_action_needed: yes
• Session-log next-tasks — the latest session-log.md entry per active feature ("Next tasks")
• CHARTER.md + manifest — autonomy levels and path overrides, for execution-mode advice

Step 2 — Triage into four buckets

NEEDS YOUR DECISION   — blocked features; handoffs flagged human_action_needed.
                        These stall progress — surface them first.
READY TO ADVANCE      — in-flight features sitting at a checkpoint that can proceed.
READY TO DISPATCH     — features / consolidation tasks that can go to a remote agent
                        right now (bounded, automatable verification, no mid-stream
                        human input needed).
COULD START           — the next consolidation-backlog item; parked ideas worth
                        promoting; fresh work.

Step 3 — Rank and recommend

Priority order:

1. Unblocking first — a blocked feature or a pending human-action stalls everything downstream; clearing it usually beats starting something new.
2. Triage priority / dates — consolidation-backlog order, feature target dates.
3. Dispatchability — if the human has limited time, favour surfacing what can be dispatched (freeing the human) over what needs them.

Present the four buckets, then one top recommendation — the single best next action — with a one-line rationale and a suggested execution mode (you, local subagent, agent team, or remote).

Step 4 — Stop

next recommends; it does not act. The human picks, then invokes the relevant skill themselves (prime-context, discuss, feature-init, a consolidation task, …). No handoff is emitted.

Example shape

NEEDS YOUR DECISION (1)
  • 042-customer-export — plan.md has a charter deviation; approve amendment ADR-012 or revise

READY TO ADVANCE (1)
  • 015-image-formats — at Checkpoint 2; ACs done, ready for atdd plugin -> atdd skill

READY TO DISPATCH (2)
  • consolidation #1 core-image-generation — full ATDD coverage; remote one-shot
  • consolidation #3 mcp-connector — remote one-shot

COULD START (1)
  • parked: bulk-admin-export — discussed 3 weeks ago; promote if priorities allow

→ TOP PICK: approve/revise 042-customer-export's plan. It's blocking the
  feature's whole pipeline, and it needs you specifically — 5 minutes now
  unblocks an agent for hours. Then dispatch consolidation #1 to a remote agent.

When NOT to use this skill

• You already know the feature and just need to start → prime-context
• You want full project state validated, not a recommendation → consistency-check --project
• You want to wrap up a session → session-summary

References

• Foundation Design — feature.md / progress.md / agentic summary schemas
• The DAE methodology page — the three-layer visibility model; the parallelism model (one human driving several pipelines)
• Sister skill: session-summary — the session-end bookend.