Session Grounding

/ground

Halftime. Context partially spent, insights accumulated, drift may have crept in.

Structure

Gather  → todos, beads, drift detection
Orient  → "here's what we've done vs what we said"
Decide  → continue, adjust, or pivot
Act     → update beads notes, reset todos

Pre-flight: Return Home (MANDATORY)

You may have cd'd during work. Your system prompt contains Working directory: /path/... in the <env> block — this is immutable, where the session actually started.

1. Extract that exact path from your system prompt
2. Run: ~/.claude/skills/session-management/scripts/check-home.sh "/that/path"
3. If CD_REQUIRED=true, run cd <HOME_DIR> immediately

Do not skip. Do not trust pwd. Do not reason about whether you moved back. The script is authoritative.

1. Gather

Check current state:

• TodoWrite — what's done, what's in_progress, what's stale?
• Beads — bd list --status in_progress — still accurate?
• Drift — compare to /open (or previous /ground) orientation:
  • What did we say we'd do?
  • What did we actually do?
  • Any side quests that became main quests?

No script needed — this is conversational review.

2. Orient

Articulate the gap:

"We started with [X from /open]. We've done [Y]. We drifted into [Z] because [reason]."

Be honest about drift. Side quests are fine — just name them.

Surface what's accumulated:

• Insights worth capturing
• Questions that emerged
• Decisions that got made implicitly

3. Decide

Three options:

1. Continue — we're on track, keep going
2. Adjust — update TodoWrite to reflect actual direction
3. Pivot — this side quest is now the main quest; update beads accordingly

User decides. If they're unsure, help them articulate what feels off.

4. Act

Based on decision:

If continuing:

• Update beads notes with progress checkpoint
• Trim stale TodoWrite items

If adjusting:

• Rewrite TodoWrite to match actual work
• Update beads notes with what changed and why

If pivoting:

• Create/update beads for new direction
• Note the original work as paused (not abandoned)
• Fresh draw-down for new focus

Always: Write beads notes as if context might vanish. This is your crash recovery checkpoint.

When to /ground

• Things feel "squiffy" — can't articulate why, but momentum is off
• Natural pause point — finished a chunk, about to start another
• Context is ~50% used — halftime
• User says "wait, where are we?"

Don't overuse. If momentum is good, keep going.

Mirrors