Onboard

Onboarder

Discover and persist creator profile through intelligent scanning + minimal questions. Build creator.yaml — the Master Input that defines the quality ceiling for every product this creator builds.

When to use: First time using the Creator Engine, or when profile needs update (/onboard update).

Full protocol (phases, question scripts, schema, edge cases): Read ${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/references/onboard-protocol.md before executing any phase.

Core Principle: Minimum Friction

RULE: Every question to the creator MUST use the AskUserQuestion tool. Never ask questions via plain text.

RULE: Scan first, ask second. Auto-detect everything possible. Only ask what cannot be inferred.

RULE: Optimize for the happy path. If the scan is rich enough, the entire onboarding should be 1 click.

Activation Protocol

0. Shared preamble: Load references/quality/activation-preamble.md — context assembly, persona adaptation, deterministic routing rules.
1. Check for creator.yaml in project root
2. Exists → read schema_version:
   • schema_version < 3 → run Phase 2.5d Schema v2→v3 Silent Migration (protocol → Phase 2.5d) BEFORE any other action. Migration is atomic + reversible via creator.yaml.bak.v2. After migration succeeds, continue with step 2 against the new v3 file.
   • schema_version == 3 → load it, display summary, AskUserQuestion: "Is this still accurate?"
     • Yes → exit, profile is current
     • No → enter UPDATE MODE (see protocol file → Update Mode Flow)
3. Does not exist → enter FULL ONBOARDING (Phases 0 → 6c). Run Phase 2.5b (Intent Profile Inference) + 2.5c (Language Confirmation Gate) between Phase 2.5 and Phase 3 — both are mandatory for schema v3.

Full Onboarding — Phase Routing Table

Load ${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/references/onboard-protocol.md for full details on every phase.

Scan failure protocol: See protocol → Scan Failure Protocol. Never crash. Never show raw errors.

i18n: Detect language (CLAUDE.md → locale → en). All AskUserQuestion text in detected language.

Commands

/onboard           → Full onboard (FULL ONBOARDING if no creator.yaml)
/onboard update    → Refresh profile (UPDATE MODE if creator.yaml exists)

Quality Gate

Must pass before writing creator.yaml:

• Valid YAML, schema_version: 3
• Required non-empty: name, language, language_confidence, profile.type, profile.technical_level, preferences.default_license, preferences.default_category, preferences.quality_target, preferences.workflow_style
• Schema v3 intent_profile required non-null (except licensing_tolerance which is deferred): intent_profile.domain_depth, intent_profile.working_rhythm, intent_profile.usage_frequency_expectation, intent_profile.maintenance_appetite, intent_profile.target_audience, intent_profile.external_dependency_tolerance
• intent_profile._inferred block present with one entry per intent_profile field
• language_confidence ∈ {high, low, fallback, migrated}
• workflow_style ∈ {guided, autonomous}. Default: guided for beginner/intermediate, autonomous for advanced/expert
• token_efficiency ∈ {eco, balanced, unlimited}. Default: balanced. Eco minimizes context reads; unlimited loads full UX stack every time
• profile.type ∈ {developer, prompt-engineer, domain-expert, marketer, operator, agency, hybrid}
• technical_level ∈ {beginner, intermediate, advanced, expert}
• license ∈ CE-D40 list: MIT, Apache-2.0, GPL-3.0, BSD-3-Clause, ISC, CC-BY-4.0, CC-BY-SA-4.0, CC0-1.0, Proprietary, Custom
• scan_path ∈ {express, standard, full}
• platform ∈ {macOS, Linux, Windows, WSL, Docker, unknown}
• technical_score consistent with technical_level (score in threshold range)
• git_handle set only if actually detected (not fabricated)
• onboarded_at = today's date in YYYY-MM-DD
• language = valid IETF tag (e.g., pt-BR, en, es)
• No placeholder text ({name}, {domain 1}, etc.) in the final file

Post-write: Read creator.yaml back and verify YAML parsing succeeds. Guards against encoding issues.

Anti-Patterns

1. Asking questions via plain text — Always use AskUserQuestion
2. Hardcoding ~/ — Always resolve {home} dynamically per platform
3. Crashing on scan failure — Every scan failure must be caught silently; set to fallback value
4. Mixing preview + multiSelect in one call — Causes silent answer loss; never do this
5. Using a git handle as creator.name without asking — When name_type = handle, always offer name choice
6. Blocking onboarding on marketplace/CLI failures — Phase 6b/6c are non-blocking; skip silently on error
7. Triggering AskUserQuestion in Phase 6b — Setup Intelligence Report is OUTPUT ONLY
8. Ignoring CLI contract in Phase 6c — All 4 CLI commands (whoami, profile sync, stripe status, setup-mcp) follow references/cli-contract.md unified error handling. All are warning severity — no CLI failure prevents onboarding from completing. Phase 6c details are in references/onboard-protocol.md → Phase 6c.

Compact Instructions

When context is compressed, preserve:

• Which path was taken (express/standard/full) and current phase
• name_type and name_confidence from Phase 1 scan
• Scan richness classification and which scans failed
• recommended_default inferred from Phase 2
• Any AskUserQuestion answers already collected (don't re-ask)
• Whether UPDATE MODE or FULL ONBOARDING was triggered