tidegate

Create, validate, and transition documentation artifacts (Vision, Initiative, Epic, Spec, Spike, ADR, Persona, Runbook, Design, Journey) through lifecycle phases. Handles spec writing, feature planning, epic creation, initiative creation, ADR drafting, research spikes, persona definition, runbook creation, design capture, architecture docs, phase transitions, implementation planning, cross-reference validation, and audits. Chains into swain-do for implementation tracking on SPEC; decomposes EPIC/VISION/INITIATIVE/JOURNEY into children first.

Bootstrap, install, and operate an external task-management CLI as the source of truth for agent execution tracking (instead of built-in todos). Provides the abstraction layer between swain-design intent (implementation plans and tasks) and concrete CLI commands. MUST be invoked when any implementation-tier artifact (SPEC) comes up for implementation — create a tracked plan before writing code. Optional but recommended for complex SPIKEs. For coordination-tier artifacts (EPIC, VISION, JOURNEY), swain-design must decompose into implementable children first — this skill tracks the children, not the container. Also use for standalone tasks that require backend portability, persistent progress across agent runtimes, or external supervision. Use this skill whenever the user asks to track tasks, create an implementation plan, check what to work on next, see task status, manage dependencies between work items, or close/abandon tasks — even if they don't mention "execution tracking" explicitly.

ALWAYS invoke this skill at the START of every session before doing any other work. Validates project health: governance rules, tool availability, memory directory, settings files, script permissions, .agents directory, and .tickets/ validation. Auto-migrates stale .beads/ directories to .tickets/ and removes them. Remediates issues across all swain skills. Idempotent — safe to run every session.

Trove collection and normalization for swain-design artifacts. Collects sources from the web, local files, and media (video/audio), normalizes them to markdown, and caches them in reusable troves. Use when researching a topic for a spike, ADR, vision, or any artifact that needs structured research. Also use to refresh stale troves or extend existing ones with new sources. Triggers on: 'research X', 'gather sources for', 'build a trove', 'search for sources about', 'refresh the trove', 'what do we know about X', or when swain-design needs research inputs for a spike or ADR.

Session management — restores terminal tab name, user preferences, and context bookmarks on session start. Auto-invoked at session start via AGENTS.md. Also invokable manually to change preferences or bookmark context for the next session.

ALWAYS invoke this skill at the START of every session before doing any other work. Validates project health: governance rules, tool availability, memory directory, settings files, script permissions, .agents directory, and .tickets/ validation. Auto-migrates stale .beads/ directories to .tickets/ and removes them. Remediates issues across all swain skills. Idempotent — safe to run every session.

Session management — restores terminal tab name, user preferences, and context bookmarks on session start. Auto-invoked at session start via AGENTS.md. Also invokable manually to change preferences or bookmark context for the next session.

Automated retrospectives — captures learnings at EPIC completion and on manual invocation. Reviews recent work, prompts the user with reflection questions, then distills findings into memory files and retro docs. Triggers on: 'retro', 'retrospective', 'what did we learn', 'reflect', or automatically after EPIC completion.

Trove collection and normalization for swain-design artifacts. Collects sources from the web, local files, and media (video/audio), normalizes them to markdown, and caches them in reusable troves. Use when researching a topic for a spike, ADR, vision, or any artifact that needs structured research. Also use to refresh stale troves or extend existing ones with new sources. Triggers on: 'research X', 'gather sources for', 'build a trove', 'search for sources about', 'refresh the trove', 'what do we know about X', or when swain-design needs research inputs for a spike or ADR.

Contextual help and onboarding for the swain skill ecosystem. Use when users ask about swain — what skills exist, how to use them, what artifacts are available, how workflows connect, or when they need a quick reference. Also invoked after swain-init to orient new users. Triggers on: 'how do I...', 'what is...', 'help', 'what can swain do', 'show me the commands', 'I'm confused', 'where do I start', any question about swain skills, artifacts, or workflows, and after project onboarding completes.

Meta-router for swain skills. Invoke when the user types /swain or mentions swain by name. Routes to the matching swain-* sub-skill — only load the one that matches.

Cross-cutting project status dashboard. Shows active epics with progress ratios, actionable next steps, blocked items, in-progress tasks, GitHub issues, and session context. Produces rich terminal output with clickable links. Triggers on: 'status', 'progress', 'what's next', 'dashboard', 'overview', 'where are we', 'what should I work on'.

Create, validate, and transition documentation artifacts (Vision, Epic, Spec, Spike, ADR, Persona, Runbook, Design, Journey) through lifecycle phases. Handles spec writing, feature planning, epic creation, ADR drafting, research spikes, persona definition, runbook creation, design capture, architecture docs, phase transitions, implementation planning, cross-reference validation, and audits. Chains into swain-do for implementation tracking on SPEC; decomposes EPIC/VISION/JOURNEY into children first.

Dispatch swain artifacts to background agents via GitHub Issues. Creates a GitHub Issue with the artifact content and triggers the Claude Code Action workflow for autonomous implementation. Use when the user wants to offload work to a background agent.

Bootstrap, install, and operate an external task-management CLI as the source of truth for agent execution tracking (instead of built-in todos). Provides the abstraction layer between swain-design intent (implementation plans and tasks) and concrete CLI commands. MUST be invoked when any implementation-tier artifact (SPEC) comes up for implementation — create a tracked plan before writing code. Optional but recommended for complex SPIKEs. For coordination-tier artifacts (EPIC, VISION, JOURNEY), swain-design must decompose into implementable children first — this skill tracks the children, not the container. Also use for standalone tasks that require backend portability, persistent progress across agent runtimes, or external supervision. Use this skill whenever the user asks to track tasks, create an implementation plan, check what to work on next, see task status, manage dependencies between work items, or close/abandon tasks — even if they don't mention "execution tracking" explicitly.

ALWAYS invoke this skill at the START of every session before doing any other work. Validates project health: governance rules, tool availability, memory directory, settings files, script permissions, .agents directory, and .tickets/ validation. Auto-migrates stale .beads/ directories to .tickets/ and removes them. Remediates issues across all swain skills. Idempotent — safe to run every session.

Automated retrospectives — captures learnings at EPIC completion and on manual invocation. Reviews recent work, prompts the user with reflection questions, then distills findings into memory files and retro docs. Triggers on: 'retro', 'retrospective', 'what did we learn', 'reflect', or automatically after EPIC completion.

Evidence pool collection and normalization for swain-design artifacts. Collects sources from the web, local files, and media (video/audio), normalizes them to markdown, and caches them in reusable evidence pools. Use when researching a topic for a spike, ADR, vision, or any artifact that needs structured evidence. Also use to refresh stale pools or extend existing ones with new sources. Triggers on: 'research X', 'gather evidence for', 'build an evidence pool', 'search for sources about', 'refresh the evidence pool', 'what do we know about X', or when swain-design needs research inputs for a spike or ADR.

Session management — restores terminal tab name, user preferences, and context bookmarks on session start. Auto-invoked at session start via AGENTS.md. Also invokable manually to change preferences or bookmark context for the next session.

Cross-cutting project status dashboard. Shows active epics with progress ratios, actionable next steps, blocked items, in-progress tasks, GitHub issues, and session context. Produces rich terminal output with clickable links. Triggers on: 'status', 'progress', 'what's next', 'dashboard', 'overview', 'where are we', 'what should I work on'.

Fetch upstream, rebase, stage all changes, run ADR compliance check on modified artifacts, generate a descriptive commit message from the diff, commit, and push to the current branch's upstream. Handles merge conflicts by preferring local changes for config/project files and upstream for scaffolding.

Per-project SSH key provisioning for git signing and authentication. Generates ed25519 keys, configures git signing, registers on GitHub, and sets up SSH host aliases to bypass global agents (e.g., 1Password).

Tmux workspace manager — creates layout presets (review, browse, focus), opens editor/browser/shell panes, runs an animated MOTD status panel, and lets the agent directly manage panes during work. Only activates in tmux sessions.

Update swain skills to the latest version. Use when the user says 'update swain', 'upgrade swain', 'pull latest swain', or wants to refresh their swain skills installation. Runs the skills package manager (npx) with a git-clone fallback, then invokes swain-doctor to reconcile governance and validate project health.

Create, validate, and transition documentation artifacts (Vision, Epic, Story, Spec, Spike, ADR, Persona, Runbook, Design, Journey) through lifecycle phases. Handles spec writing, feature planning, epic creation, user stories, ADR drafting, research spikes, persona definition, runbook creation, design capture, architecture docs, phase transitions, implementation planning, cross-reference validation, and audits. Chains into swain-do for implementation tracking on SPEC/STORY; decomposes EPIC/VISION/JOURNEY into children first.

Bootstrap, install, and operate an external task-management CLI as the source of truth for agent execution tracking (instead of built-in todos). Provides the abstraction layer between swain-design intent (implementation plans and tasks) and concrete CLI commands. MUST be invoked when any implementation-tier artifact (SPEC, STORY, BUG) comes up for implementation — create a tracked plan before writing code. Optional but recommended for complex SPIKEs. For coordination-tier artifacts (EPIC, VISION, JOURNEY), swain-design must decompose into implementable children first — this skill tracks the children, not the container. Also use for standalone tasks that require backend portability, persistent progress across agent runtimes, or external supervision. Use this skill whenever the user asks to track tasks, create an implementation plan, check what to work on next, see task status, manage dependencies between work items, or close/abandon tasks — even if they don't mention "execution tracking" explicitly.

ALWAYS invoke this skill at the START of every session before doing any other work. Validates project health: governance rules, tool availability, memory directory, settings files, script permissions, .agents directory, and .tickets/ validation. Auto-migrates stale .beads/ directories to .tickets/ and removes them. Remediates issues across all swain skills. Idempotent — safe to run every session.

Contextual help and onboarding for the swain skill ecosystem. Use when users ask about swain — what skills exist, how to use them, what artifacts are available, how workflows connect, or when they need a quick reference. Also invoked after swain-init to orient new users. Triggers on: 'how do I...', 'what is...', 'help', 'what can swain do', 'show me the commands', 'I'm confused', 'where do I start', any question about swain skills, artifacts, or workflows, and after project onboarding completes.

One-time project onboarding for swain. Migrates existing CLAUDE.md content to AGENTS.md (with the @AGENTS.md include pattern), verifies vendored tk (ticket) for task tracking, and offers to add swain governance rules. Run once when adopting swain in a new project — use swain-doctor for ongoing per-session health checks.

Per-project SSH key provisioning for git signing and authentication. Generates ed25519 keys, configures git signing, registers on GitHub, and sets up SSH host aliases to bypass global agents (e.g., 1Password).

Stage all changes, generate a descriptive commit message from the diff, commit, and push to the current branch's upstream.

Cut a release — detect versioning context, generate a changelog from conventional commits, bump versions, and create a git tag. Use when the user says "release", "cut a release", "tag a release", "bump the version", "create a changelog", or any variation of shipping/publishing a version. This skill is intentionally generic and works across any repo — it infers context from git history and project structure rather than assuming a specific setup.

Evidence pool collection and normalization for swain-design artifacts. Collects sources from the web, local files, and media (video/audio), normalizes them to markdown, and caches them in reusable evidence pools. Use when researching a topic for a spike, ADR, vision, or any artifact that needs structured evidence. Also use to refresh stale pools or extend existing ones with new sources. Triggers on: 'research X', 'gather evidence for', 'build an evidence pool', 'search for sources about', 'refresh the evidence pool', 'what do we know about X', or when swain-design needs research inputs for a spike or ADR.

Session management — restores terminal tab name, user preferences, and context bookmarks on session start. Auto-invoked at session start via AGENTS.md. Also invokable manually to change preferences or bookmark context for the next session.

Tmux workspace manager — creates layout presets (review, browse, focus), opens editor/browser/shell panes, runs an animated MOTD status panel, and lets the agent directly manage panes during work. Only activates in tmux sessions.

Cross-cutting project status dashboard. Shows active epics with progress ratios, actionable next steps, blocked items, in-progress tasks, GitHub issues, and session context. Produces rich terminal output with clickable links. Triggers on: 'status', 'progress', 'what's next', 'dashboard', 'overview', 'where are we', 'what should I work on'.

Update swain skills to the latest version. Use when the user says 'update swain', 'upgrade swain', 'pull latest swain', or wants to refresh their swain skills installation. Runs the skills package manager (npx) with a git-clone fallback, then invokes swain-doctor to reconcile governance and validate project health.

Use an external task-management CLI as the source of truth for agent execution tracking (instead of built-in todos), including bootstrap/install flow, status-transition rules, and observer-friendly reporting. Use for tasks that require backend portability, persistent progress across agent runtimes, or external supervision.