next

name	next
description	Insert after in-flight task.
user-invocable	true
allowed-tools	[]

next

/next <instructions> means: finish what you're doing now, then do this before anything else that's queued. It slots a task immediately after the currently in-progress task — jumping the rest of the queue, but not interrupting work already in flight.

It sits between its siblings in the queue family:

• /first — head of queue; may pause in-progress work to run now.
• /next — immediately after the current (in-progress) task.
• /before <target> — immediately before the referenced queued task.
• /also — tail of queue.
• /last — sticky tail; stays last even as new /also tasks arrive.

What fires this

The user types /next followed by one or more instructions, e.g.:

• /next once this refactor is done, run the tests before moving on
• /next after the current edit, tweak the table styling
• /next handle this right after, ahead of the other queued items

How to handle it

1. Let the in-progress task finish — to its normal, verified completion. Do not pause or preempt it (that's /first).
2. Do the /next task immediately after, ahead of everything else still queued.
3. Then continue with the remaining queue in its existing order.
4. Report it in sequence. Make clear the current task finished, then the /next task ran ahead of the rest of the queue.

Edge cases

• Nothing in progress. With no task in flight, /next is effectively "do it now" — start it as the current task.
• Multiple /nexts. The most recent /next slots immediately after the current task; earlier /nexts follow it (LIFO right behind the current task), all still ahead of the older /also queue.
• The /next task is tightly related to the current one. Common case — it's fine to fold it into the same work unit (e.g. same file, same render) as long as the current task's result is verified first.
• The current task is long. /next still waits for it; if the user wanted to interrupt, they'd use /first.

What this is not

• Not an interrupt — that's first. /next waits for the current task to finish.
• Not a tail task — that's also. /next jumps ahead of the rest of the queue, just not ahead of the task in flight.