Init Matt Engineering Discipline

Repository Initialization Scaffold

Initialize a repo as a human-agent engineering system: Matt skills for process control, Chinese-first repo assets for team continuity, worktree/branch coordination for execution isolation, and GitHub entities for issues, PRs, CI, review, and release governance.

This is a generic repository scaffold. It must not encode a business domain such as law, finance, healthcare, or a product-specific ontology. Domain facts belong in the target repo's README.md, CONTEXT.md, docs/adr/, custom labels, or project-local skills maintained by that repo.

Workflow

1. Ground the repo

Inspect the current directory before changing anything:

• pwd
• git status --short --branch
• git remote -v
• gh auth status
• existing AGENTS.md, CONTEXT.md, docs/agents/, .github/, .agents/skills/, skills-lock.json

Completion criterion: know whether this is a git repo, whether it already has a GitHub remote, which gh account is active, and which governance assets already exist.

2. Establish GitHub identity

Use local gh as the primary execution surface for repository setup.

• If gh is missing, tell the user to install GitHub CLI and stop before GitHub writes.
• If gh auth status fails, guide the user through gh auth login and stop before GitHub writes.
• If multiple accounts exist, use the active account from gh api user --jq .login unless the user explicitly chooses another account.

Completion criterion: one GitHub owner/account is selected and can perform repo writes.

3. Establish repo target

Collect or infer:

• repository full name: OWNER/REPO
• description
• visibility: private by default unless user asks for public
• whether to create a new GitHub repo or bind an existing one
• remote name: origin by default

If the local repo already has a GitHub remote, prefer that repo and ask only if the user wants to switch. If there is no remote, create or bind the target repo before pushing.

Completion criterion: local repo and GitHub repo identity are aligned.

4. Run the bootstrap script

Use scripts/init_matt_engineering_discipline.py from this skill. Prefer dry-run first:

python3 /path/to/init-matt-engineering-discipline/scripts/init_matt_engineering_discipline.py --dry-run

Then run for real with explicit repo values:

python3 /path/to/init-matt-engineering-discipline/scripts/init_matt_engineering_discipline.py \
  --repo OWNER/REPO \
  --description "..." \
  --visibility private \
  --create-repo \
  --yes

The script is intentionally idempotent. It writes missing repo assets, installs Matt skills when absent, installs bundled runtime skills such as worktree-agent-coordination under .agents/skills/, configures labels and milestone, optionally creates a GitHub Project and branch ruleset, commits the governance baseline, and pushes it.

By default, consumer repos do not receive local skill source under skills/. Use --include-local-skill-source only when the target repo is itself meant to author and maintain project-local skills.

Completion criterion: the script finishes or reports the exact blocked operation and the command/user action needed to resume.

4.1 Keep the scaffold domain-neutral

The generated baseline may require Chinese-first communication, GitHub governance, and worktree discipline. It must not write business-domain assumptions into the target repo.

Allowed:

• Chinese-first documentation and prompt preferences
• generic GitHub labels for triage, type, area, priority, size, and risk
• generic CONTEXT.md placeholders for project language
• worktree/branch/Codex task coordination rules

Not allowed:

• domain-specific area labels unless the user explicitly asks
• legal, finance, medical, ERP, AI-product, or other business assumptions
• README claims about what the product does beyond the repository name
• issue template fields that only make sense for one domain

5. Verify GitHub governance

After the script:

• Confirm git remote -v points at the intended GitHub repo.
• Confirm labels exist.
• Confirm issue templates and PR template exist.
• Confirm CI workflow exists.
• Confirm the governance issue exists.
• If --apply-ruleset was used, confirm the default branch cannot be changed without PR checks/review.

Completion criterion: the repo can accept work through issue -> execution workspace -> branch/worktree -> PR -> CI -> review -> merge -> release.

What the script creates

Local repo assets:

• AGENTS.md
• CONTEXT.md
• CONTRIBUTING.md
• CODEOWNERS
• README.md if missing
• docs/agents/*
• docs/adr/.gitkeep
• .github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE/*.yml
• .github/pull_request_template.md
• .github/workflows/ci.yml
• .agents/skills/* and skills-lock.json through npx skills@latest add mattpocock/skills when absent
• .agents/skills/worktree-agent-coordination from this scaffold's bundled local skills
• optionally skills/productivity/worktree-agent-coordination only when --include-local-skill-source is set

GitHub assets:

• repo remote
• triage/type/area/priority/size/risk labels
• first milestone: v0.1-project-governance
• optional GitHub Project
• optional default-branch ruleset
• initial governance issue

GitHub details

Read references/github-governance.md when the user asks what each GitHub entity means, wants to adjust labels/templates/rules, or needs a manual fallback for permissions.

Safety rules

• Never ask for GitHub tokens in chat. Use gh auth login.
• Never overwrite non-empty user files silently. The script writes missing files and can overwrite only with --force.
• Never push without a commit summary and explicit user intent or --yes.
• Treat branch rulesets, Projects, and org-owned repos as permission-sensitive. Try them only when requested; report failures cleanly.
• Keep Chinese-first project assets, but preserve code identifiers, commands, API names, file paths, and external protocol names in English.
• Keep the scaffold domain-neutral. If the user wants domain-specific labels or docs, treat that as target-repo customization after initialization.