zynk

Control zynk from inside it. Manage workspaces, tabs, and panes, spawn and coordinate agents, read pane output, wait for state changes, and exchange native messages — all via CLI commands that talk to the running zynk instance over a local unix socket. Use when running inside zynk (ZYNK_ENV=1).

Prepares production launches. Use when preparing to cut a release. Use when you need a pre-launch checklist, when setting up monitoring, when planning a staged rollout, or when you need a rollback strategy.

Optimizes runtime performance. Use when performance requirements exist, when you suspect performance regressions, or when render latency, IPC/PTY throughput, allocation, or async overhead needs improvement. Use when profiling reveals bottlenecks that need fixing.

Manages deprecation and migration. Use when removing old systems, APIs, IPC methods, or features. Use when migrating consumers from one implementation to another, evolving the wire protocol or DB schema, or deciding whether to maintain or sunset existing code.

Audit zynk release readiness by comparing commits since the last release tag against the root CHANGELOG.md and README.md, plus version/tag/Nix-hash consistency. Use when asked to run the repo's pre-release audit or to check that the changelog and docs cover what shipped before a zynk release.

Use early when debugging a medium or hard bug, especially when tests alone may not reveal the real runtime failure. Trigger this before extended TDD iteration when a bug involves runtime state, PTY/terminal ordering, persistence, streaming, async/concurrency, the TUI/manual reproduction, the IPC socket layer, or when a red or newly passing test may not model the real issue. Skip only when the root cause is already directly proven by a stack trace or deterministic test that exercises the real runtime path.

Use when creating an approachable, self-contained HTML review aid for a pull request; explaining what changed, why it matters, how it works, and how it fits into the broader system; turning PR diffs, commits, tests, and architecture context into a local `.pr-review/` HTML page for reviewers; or helping reviewers (including the Codex/swarm second-opinion pass) understand complex code changes without dumping the full diff.

Use when breaking a large, complex, messy, or hard-to-review pull request into multiple smaller PRs; planning stacked PRs; extracting independent changes from a branch; splitting mixed refactor and behavior changes; managing drift after review feedback (operator gate, Codex/swarm second opinion); rebasing follow-up PRs as earlier PRs change; or preserving original branch intent while shipping incrementally.

Build zynk and run a fast end-to-end sanity check of the release binary against an isolated dev runtime (server starts, panes/agents spawn, conversation rows record) before claiming a build works or passing a release gate. Use after a build or before a release.

Guidelines for writing or editing zynk documentation (README, CLAUDE.md/AGENTS.md/WORKFLOW.md, ADRs, user docs). Use when creating or updating any doc in this repo.

Guides stable API and interface design. Use when designing APIs, module boundaries, or any public interface. Use when adding IPC protocol methods, defining type contracts between modules, or establishing boundaries between the CLI client and the socket server.

Automates CI/CD pipeline setup. Use when setting up or modifying build and deployment pipelines. Use when you need to automate quality gates, configure test runners in CI, or establish deployment strategies.

Conducts multi-axis code review. Use before merging any change. Use when reviewing code written by yourself, another agent, or a human. Use when you need to assess code quality across multiple dimensions before it enters the main branch.

Simplifies code for clarity. Use when refactoring code for clarity without changing behavior. Use when code works but is harder to read, maintain, or extend than it should be. Use when reviewing code that has accumulated unnecessary complexity.

Optimizes agent context setup. Use when starting a new session, when agent output quality degrades, when switching between tasks, or when you need to configure rules files and context for a project.

Guides systematic root-cause debugging. Use when tests fail, builds break, behavior doesn't match expectations, or you encounter any unexpected error. Use when you need a systematic approach to finding and fixing the root cause rather than guessing.

Records decisions and documentation. Use when making architectural decisions, changing public APIs, shipping features, or when you need to record context that future engineers and agents will need to understand the codebase.

Subjects every non-trivial decision to a fresh-context adversarial review before it stands. Use when correctness matters more than speed, when working in unfamiliar code, when stakes are high (production, security-sensitive logic, irreversible operations), or any time a confident output would be cheaper to verify now than to debug later.

Structures git workflow practices. Use when making any code change. Use when committing, branching, resolving conflicts, or when you need to organize work across multiple parallel streams.

Refines raw ideas into sharp, actionable concepts through structured divergent and convergent thinking. Use when an idea is still vague, when you need to stress-test assumptions before committing to a plan, or when you want to expand options before converging on one. Triggers on "ideate", "refine this idea", or "stress-test my plan".

Delivers changes incrementally. Use when implementing any feature or change that touches more than one file. Use when you're about to write a large amount of code at once, or when a task feels too big to land in one step.

Breaks work into ordered tasks. Use when you have a spec or clear requirements and need to break work into implementable tasks. Use when a task feels too large to start, when you need to estimate scope, or when parallel work is possible.

Hardens code against vulnerabilities. Use when handling untrusted input, IPC/socket access, data storage, or external integrations. Use when building any feature that accepts data from clients, plugins, or external processes, or that touches the local socket, the conversation DB, or secrets.

Grounds every implementation decision in official documentation. Use when you want authoritative, source-cited code free from outdated patterns. Use when building with any framework or library where correctness matters.

Creates specs before coding. Use when starting a new project, feature, or significant change and no specification exists yet. Use when requirements are unclear, ambiguous, or only exist as a vague idea.

Drives development with tests. Use when implementing any logic, fixing any bug, or changing any behavior. Use when you need to prove that code works, when a bug report arrives, or when you're about to modify existing functionality.

Discovers and invokes agent skills. Use when starting a session or when you need to discover which skill applies to the current task. This is the meta-skill that governs how all other skills are discovered and invoked.