Init Mentoring

Install the memory automation into the current project (${CLAUDE_PROJECT_DIR}), so ./memory/ keeps growing on its own instead of relying on anyone remembering to update it by hand.

What this does

Three scripts, two hooks:

• memory-filter.sh (Stop hook) — fires after every response. Reads transcript_path/cwd from stdin and immediately forks memory-filter-worker.sh as a detached background process, then exits. This must stay near-instant: Stop is synchronous (Claude Code waits for it), so the actual work cannot happen here.
• memory-filter-worker.sh (background only, never registered as a hook) — does the real work. Pulls the last real user message plus every bit of assistant narration since then out of the transcript, sends it to a cheap/fast model (Haiku) with a rubric asking "is this a decision / feedback / progress update / pattern worth remembering?", and if YES, writes a one-line summary to .claude/hooks/.memory-pending.json. A NO writes nothing — costs nothing, leaves no trace anywhere.
• memory-pending-check.sh (UserPromptSubmit hook) — fires when the user submits their next message. Reads .memory-pending.json if it exists, surfaces it as additionalContext for that prompt, then deletes it (read-once). At that point the main agent (not Haiku) decides what to actually write and where, following memory/mentoring_rules.md's SESSION UPDATE PROTOCOL — the filter never writes memory itself.

Why split into three instead of one hook doing everything: measured latency for a real headless claude -p call is ~5-35s (mostly CLI/network overhead, not the model). A single synchronous Stop hook would add that delay after every single response, which defeats the point of a "cheap" background check. Splitting the slow part into a detached background process means Stop returns in single-digit milliseconds — the check still happens, it just surfaces on the next turn instead of blocking this one. Best-effort, not guaranteed-immediate: if the user replies faster than the worker finishes, that one reminder is skipped and the next turn's worker run catches up instead.

Steps

1. Check dependencies. Run command -v jq and command -v claude. If either is missing, stop and tell the user which one — everything here fails open (never breaks a session) but is a no-op without them.

2. Copy the hook scripts.

   • mkdir -p ${CLAUDE_PROJECT_DIR}/.claude/hooks
   • Copy this skill's memory-filter.sh, memory-filter-worker.sh, and memory-pending-check.sh (all co-located next to this SKILL.md) to ${CLAUDE_PROJECT_DIR}/.claude/hooks/.
   • chmod +x all three copies.
   • If files already exist at the destination, diff each against its source first — if identical, skip; if different, ask the user before overwriting (they may have customized it).

3. Register both hooks in .claude/settings.json.

   • Read the file if it exists; otherwise start from {}.
   • This is a merge, never a blind overwrite — preserve every existing key. Add (or extend, if either array already has entries) this block:

     {
       "hooks": {
         "Stop": [
           {
             "type": "command",
             "command": "${CLAUDE_PROJECT_DIR}/.claude/hooks/memory-filter.sh",
             "timeout": 10,
             "suppressOutput": true
           }
         ],
         "UserPromptSubmit": [
           {
             "type": "command",
             "command": "${CLAUDE_PROJECT_DIR}/.claude/hooks/memory-pending-check.sh",
             "timeout": 5,
             "suppressOutput": true
           }
         ]
       }
     }
     

     Both timeouts are short on purpose — memory-filter.sh only forks a background process, and memory-pending-check.sh only reads/deletes a small file. Neither should ever take more than a second or two; if one does, something is broken, not just slow.
   • Idempotency: before adding, check whether these hooks are already registered — if so, don't duplicate the entries.
   • If the update-config skill is available in this session, prefer delegating this merge to it instead of hand-editing the JSON — it knows the current settings.json schema authoritatively and this skill's copy of the schema can drift out of date.

4. Gitignore the pending file. Add .claude/hooks/.memory-pending.json to .gitignore if it's not already covered — it's ephemeral scratch state (may briefly contain a snippet of conversation content) and should never be committed.

5. Verify memory/feedback_log.md exists. The filter's rubric routes "confirmation of a working approach" signals there. If the project copied an older version of this template without that file, create it from memory/feedback_log.md in this repo (or prompt the user to pull the latest template).

6. Confirm to the user in one or two sentences: both hooks installed, Stop returns instantly (background worker does the real check), a flagged turn surfaces as a reminder on the next message rather than blocking the current one. Mention they can remove it by deleting both hook entries from .claude/settings.json.

Do not

• Do not put the Haiku call directly in the Stop hook — Stop is synchronous, so anything slow there blocks the user after every single response. Always fork it into memory-filter-worker.sh in the background.
• Do not make either hook decision: block the turn — that risks loops if the filter is noisy, and defeats the non-blocking design. Both hooks only ever use additionalContext.
• Do not run this skill's logic silently as a side effect of something else — it edits settings.json, which is why disable-model-invocation: true is set. Only run it when the user explicitly asks (/init-mentoring).