Sessionstart

Session Start — v2.4

The opening ritual that eliminates the cold-start problem. When you open a new session, the department head is already briefed AND the machine state is verified. Goal: zero re-orientation time and zero stale-memory action.

The counterpart to /sessionend. Where sessionend closes the loop, sessionstart opens it.

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BRAIN STRUCTURE — Know Before You Read

Master Brain (Chief of Staff):
  {brain_root}/mission-control/
    DASHBOARD.md             ← company-wide status
    awareness.md             ← per-dept running record (primary source for cross-dept flags)
    decisions/               ← company-wide strategic decisions
    state/                   ← live infrastructure state (circuit-breakers.json, etc.)
    NAMING_CONVENTION.md     ← canonical naming rules
    BRAIN_GOVERNANCE.md      ← chain-of-command rules
    skills/                  ← source-of-truth skill copies

Department Brains (kebab-case, lowercase `brain/` at every dept):
  {operator_departments} — configured in brain.config.yml at install time
  # Pattern:
  #   {dept}/brain/sessions/           | decisions/decisions.md | pipeline/current-state.md

Path hygiene: brain/ (lowercase) is canonical at every dept. If a capital-B Brain/ appears anywhere, surface it in Stage 2.5 as a drift finding and normalize.

Department codes: configured in brain.config.yml — set at install time per operator's dept roster.

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Stage 0 — Session continuity probe (runs first)

Purpose: Avoid re-running a full 5-stage brief when continuing a same-day session within the usual break window (~1h).

Algorithm

1. Read most recent {brain_root}/mission-control/sessions/YYYY-MM-DD-*.md (any dept) by file mtime.
2. If date == today AND status == closed AND `(now - close_timestamp) 1h since close, or no same-day closed session, or status != closed) → proceed to Stage 1 normally.

Guardrails

• Explicit /sessionstart invocation always runs full Stage 1–5. Stage 0 only short-circuits on implicit "pick up where we left off" opens.
• Stage 2.5 recursion-rule untouched. When Stage 0 falls through to Stage 1, the full verify-before-firing protocol runs unchanged.
• Sessionend unaffected. Sessionend writes frontmatter the same way regardless of whether the next session opens via Stage 0 or Stage 1.

See references/stage0_turn_start.md for the probe template, close-timestamp extraction strategy, and window rationale.

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The 8 Stages

Stage 1 — Detect Department + Session Shape

See references/stage1_detect.md

• Auto-detect department from context, confirm rather than ask when confident.
• Detect session shape: dept-work (working inside one dept) vs. ops-infra (working on skills, infrastructure, the machine itself) vs. mixed. Shape drives Stage 2.5 depth.

Stage 1.5 — Load Dept CLAUDE.md

See references/stage1_detect.md — "Department → CLAUDE.md Path Mapping"

Primary orientation doc is the dept CLAUDE.md, NOT workspace-root CLAUDE.md.

• Read {dept}/CLAUDE.md in full (60-100 lines — well under context budget)
• Use its "Mission", "Current state", "Canonical files", and "Dept non-negotiables" to frame the Stage 3 brief
• If the file doesn't exist, fall back to workspace-root CLAUDE.md and flag the miss as a Stage 2.5 drift finding ("dept CLAUDE.md missing — scaffold next")

Stage 2 — Read Brain + Memory + Infrastructure State

See references/stage2_read.md

Single-shot brief loader (preferred path). Instead of issuing sequential Read calls per source, invoke one Bash script that emits all Stage 2 sections in a structured stdout block. Run the loader from the Brain root (or set CLAUDE_PROJECT_DIR to your {brain_root}) so the script resolves PROJECT_DIR correctly:

cd {brain_root}                     # or: export CLAUDE_PROJECT_DIR={brain_root}
.claude/skills/sessionstart/Scripts/brief_loader.sh --dept  --shape 

Sections emitted (always in this order, demarcated by ===NAME=== sentinels):

• DEPT_CLAUDE — dept-scoped CLAUDE.md (primary orientation doc)
• LATEST_SESSION — most recent session file frontmatter + closing block
• DECISIONS_PENDING — open / pending decisions for the dept
• DASHBOARD_HEADER — top-matter from Master Brain DASHBOARD.md
• AWARENESS_DEPT — current-date block from awareness.md
• MEMORY_INDEX — auto-memory layer MEMORY.md index, with lifecycle filter (terminal-state entries hidden)
• STATE_FILES — circuit-breakers + relevant infra config
• FLEET_PROBE — fleet host reachability (only on ops-infra / mixed)
• MEMORY_SIZE — auto-memory MEMORY.md size probe (warns near 16 KB consolidation cap)
• DASHBOARD_RENDER — agent-side Q1–Q4 render parity (latest-session-per-dept table)

Missing sections emit SKIP — reason instead of failing. Read the stdout block once; compose the brief from its sections. Do NOT re-read individual files after this — the loader output is the canonical Stage 2 snapshot.

Frozen-snapshot invariant: the MEMORY.md state captured by the loader is frozen for the session — do not re-read or re-weight mid-session. Any memory updates written during Stage 5 go to state/memory-corrections.log + the auto-memory layer; they do not retroactively alter this snapshot.

Fallback (sequential reads). If the loader script is missing or returns an error, fall back to sequential reads in this order:

1. Dept Brain: latest session file + decisions/decisions.md + pipeline/current-state.md
2. Master Brain: DASHBOARD.md header + awareness.md current-date block
3. MEMORY.md index (apply lifecycle filter manually — skip entries tagged terminal/closed/superseded)
4. Infrastructure state files (if session shape = ops-infra or mixed): {brain_root}/mission-control/state/circuit-breakers.json + any active process lock markers

Stage 2.5 — Ground-Truth Verify

See references/stage25_verify.md

For every memory or decision being surfaced as "open" or "P1", run the single filesystem check that would falsify it. Mark each as:

• ✅ confirmed — claim matches reality
• ⚠️ drift — claim doesn't match reality, memory needs update
• ❌ contradicted — reality shows the item is already resolved

Also runs infrastructure probes when session shape = ops-infra:

• Local model host alive? (curl -s {OLLAMA_HOST}/api/tags with 2s timeout)
• Any process lock in progress?

Optional probes (run if installed; skip silently if absent):

• Skill discoverability lint — {brain_root}/mission-control/skills/skill-discoverability-lint/Scripts/lint.py (optional). If present, surface any CRITICAL findings in the Stage 3 brief under "⚠️ Skill Drift". WARN/INFO: omit unless asked. Exit 0 always — never blocks session open. Not bundled in V1 profiles; install separately if you want the probe.
• Handoff closure audit — {brain_root}/mission-control/skills/handoff-closure-audit/Scripts/audit.py (optional). If present, surface DRIFT count only in Stage 3 brief if > 0. Full list on request. Not bundled in V1 profiles; install separately if you want the probe.

Recursion guard. A correction is itself a memory claim. Before any correction is queued for Stage 5, re-run the falsification probe against the source claim — including absence claims ("file X does NOT exist", "skill Y is NOT installed", "operator action required: do Z"). Restated claims surviving a context-compaction event are memory claims regardless of where they appear. Verify before firing, verify before restating. See references/stage25_verify.md §Recursion-rule.

Stage 3 — Deliver Brief

See references/stage3_brief.md

🟢 [Department] — Session Brief | [date]

## Infrastructure Snapshot   ← only for ops-infra / mixed sessions
[1-3 lines on machine state: local model host, circuit breakers, key open loops at infra level]

## Incoming State
## Open Loops
## Pending Decisions
## Pipeline Position

Stage 4 — Cross-Dept Flags

See references/stage4_flags.md

Verify-before-surface for HIGH flags. If awareness.md flags something HIGH, confirm against the implied source before surfacing. Stale HIGH flags are worse than no flag.

Stage 5 — Memory Hygiene

See references/stage5_hygiene.md

If Stage 2.5 found drift, surface a "Memory Drift — Auto-Corrected" block at the top of the brief with what changed. Default mode is auto-correct. Every correction:

1. Is logged to {brain_root}/mission-control/state/memory-corrections.log (timestamped, reversible)
2. Shows the old claim, the ground-truth finding, and the new memory body
3. Updates MEMORY.md index if the short hook needs rewording

Stage 6 — Capture Session Intent

See references/stage6_intent.md

Ask one question, write intent header to dept Brain.

Stage 7 — Render HTML

See references/stage7_html_render.md

Render the same synthesized brief to HTML in the operator's house theme. Markdown chat brief stays as-is (Reversibility #5 — additive). HTML is the archivable / shareable artifact.

• Theme: read {house_theme_path} first; drop the :root token block into ` verbatim; use var(--*) references throughout (no inline hex literals). Default: {brain_root}/mission-control/audits/theme.md` if no operator override.
• Output: {brain_root}/mission-control/state/briefs/{YYYY-MM-DD}-{dept}-sessionstart.html (append -{HHMM} if multiple on the same date).
• Write mechanism — prefer a shell heredoc / file write_text over the harness Write tool. Some agent harnesses (e.g. Claude Code's Launch preview) auto-surface Write-tool output in an in-app preview panel. If you intend the browser/file to be the deliverable and do NOT want a duplicate preview-panel copy, author the HTML and write it via `cat > 3 memory claims → pause for explicit operator ack before running Stage 5 auto-corrections; Stage 6 never auto-captures intent — always asks |

References (auto-wikilinks)

• [[BRAIN_GOVERNANCE]]
• [[DASHBOARD]]
• [[MEMORY]]
• [[NAMING_CONVENTION]]
• [[awareness]]
• [[current-state]]
• [[decisions]]
• [[stage0turnstart]]
• [[stage1_detect]]
• [[stage25_verify]]
• [[stage2_read]]
• [[stage3_brief]]
• [[stage4_flags]]
• [[stage5_hygiene]]
• [[stage6_intent]]

Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: cerebrocybersolutions
• Source: cerebrocybersolutions/libro
• License: Apache-2.0
• Homepage: https://cerebrocybersolutions.com/libro

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.