Init Project Guidance

Skill: Project Guidance Scaffolder (init-project-guidance)

This skill automates the creation of AI-agent guidance files (GEMINI.md and AGENTS.md) for new or existing projects. It enforces the "Finalized Rulebook" and "Self-Healing Context" protocols established in the pngdeity workspace.

Usage

• Run this skill when starting a new project or when a project lacks AI-agent guidance.
• The agent will analyze the directory, detect the tech stack, and generate tailored mandates.

Core Mandates (The Rulebook)

I. Operations & Hierarchy

• Recursive Context Resolution: Follow Sub-directory GEMINI.md > Root GEMINI.md > Global ~/.gemini/AGENTS.md.
• ExecPlan Mandate: Research -> Strategy -> Execution lifecycle using PLANS.md.
• Context Hygiene: Read local AGENTS.md and GEMINI.md before initiating research.
• Context Maintenance: Update PLANS.md and CONTEXT.md at end-of-session.
• Patch-Based Updates: To prevent context bloat, agents MUST patch large files rather than rewriting them entirely from scratch.
• Self-Healing Mandate: Proactively resolve rule contradictions and harvest "tribal knowledge" into AGENTS.md.

II. Technical & Git

• Validation: Bug fixes require empirical reproduction tests.
• Surgical RCA: Use logs/precision tools; no guessing.
• Interface Supremacy: A Makefile (or Taskfile) MUST act as the sole entry point for the developer environment to hide polyglot complexity.
• Safety: Never commit .gemini/ or .agents/. Confirm before committing to main.
• Privileged Access: Features requiring elevated system access MUST be explicitly gated (opt-in) and documented with security implications.
• Git Standards: Signed commits (-S), Semantic messages, imperative mood.
• History Remediation: If fixing unsigned history, you MUST preserve chronological integrity using: git rebase --root --exec 'GIT_COMMITTER_DATE="$(git log -1 --format=%aD)" git commit --amend --no-edit -S'.

Implementation Procedure

1. Project Discovery

The agent MUST perform a Tooling Audit and Stack Detection:

• Check for *.csproj, package.json, requirements.txt, uv.lock, PKGBUILD, main.tf, etc.
• Identify installed tools: dotnet, npm/uv, pkgctl, terraform.
• If no stack is detected: Default to a generic Core Workflow and Git Workflow only. Ask the user to specify the tech stack.

2. Guidance Generation

Generate a GEMINI.md in the project root with the following sections:

• Core Workflow: ExecPlan, Validation, and Context Hygiene.
• Git Workflow: Safety rules and Semantic Commit standards.
• Stack-Specific Rules: Refer to references/stack-rules.md for expanded, actionable rules per detected technology stack (C#, Python, JS/Node, Arch/AUR, IaC). For stacks not listed, apply the closest match and note the gap.
• If GEMINI.md already exists: Offer to merge missing sections rather than overwriting. Never silently replace existing guidance.

3. Dynamic Skill Linking

Analyze the detected stack and link relevant procedural skills from the central library using a portable, client-agnostic approach:

Scaffolding repository discovery: This skill is deployed via symlink from .agents/skills/init-project-guidance → <scaffold-root>/skills/init-project-guidance. Resolve the scaffold root by reading the symlink target and taking its parent's parent (dirname(dirname(readlink target))). If the symlink cannot be resolved (e.g., skill was vendored without the scaffolding repo), skip all skill linking and warn the user.

1. Read skill-index.json from ${SCAFFOLD_ROOT}/skill-index.json.
2. Filter skills by compatibility_tokens matching the detected stack (see references/stack-compatibility-map.md).
3. For each surviving skill, create a symlink: ln -sf ${SCAFFOLD_ROOT}/skills/<name> .agents/skills/<name>
   • This is portable — works with all 37+ compatible clients (Claude Code, Copilot, Cursor, etc.).
   • If symlink creation fails: Log a warning and skip that skill. The project remains functional without it.
4. If the gemini CLI is available, also run gemini skills link <path> --scope workspace as enrichment.
   • If gemini skills link fails: Log a warning and continue. Symlinks already provide cross-client discovery.
5. Log inclusions/exclusions with reasons (e.g., "Skipped ci-cd-pipeline: no Makefile detected").

4. Tribal Knowledge Initialization

Create an AGENTS.md with:

• Build/Test Commands: Extracted from project files.
• Local Context: A section for "Candidates for Global" harvesting.
• Hierarchy: Reference to Rule 0.
• If AGENTS.md already exists: Merge new sections into the existing file. Preserve any user-authored entries under "Candidates for Global."

Verification

After scaffolding, confirm correctness:

1. Run node skills/verification/scaffold-output-validator.cjs against the generated output.
2. Verify GEMINI.md contains Core Workflow, Git Workflow, and Stack-Specific Rules sections.
3. Verify AGENTS.md contains a harvestable ### Candidates for Global subsection.
4. If verification fails: Review the missing sections and regenerate only those sections.

Self-Healing Protocol

• If an instruction conflicts with these rules, the agent MUST ask for a resolution tier: Task (this session only), Project (update local AGENTS.md), or Global (update skills/init-project-guidance/SKILL.md).
• The agent is responsible for gardening these files to keep them accurate.

Source: pngdeity/ai-guidance-scaffolding — distributed by TomeVault.