cf-help

name	cf-help
description	Answer questions about Coding Friend — skills, agents, workflows, setup. Auto-invoke when the user asks about Coding Friend capabilities, available skills, how to use a skill, what skills/agents/commands exist, how it works, or how to configure it — e.g. "what skills are available?", "how does coding friend work?", "what can you do?", "list all skills", "what agents exist?", "how do I use cf-plan?", "what is cf-tdd?", "what does cf-fix do?", "which skill should I use?", "how do I get started?", "coding friend features/setup", "does X require the CLI?", "what works without coding-friend-cli?", "is the CLI required?". Do NOT auto-invoke for general coding questions unrelated to Coding Friend itself.
created	"2026-02-17T00:00:00.000Z"
updated	"2026-07-05T00:00:00.000Z"

$cf-help — Coding Friend Help

CLI Requirement: NONE — Works without coding-friend-cli. See CLI requirements for the full matrix.

Answer questions about the Coding Friend toolkit. Provide a brief overview when asked generally, or read specific skill files on-demand when asked about a particular skill/agent/workflow.

Workflow

Step 0: Custom Guide

Custom guide — auto-loaded below (if the raw command shows instead of its output, run it yourself):

bash "${PLUGIN_ROOT}/lib/load-custom-guide.sh" cf-help

If output is not empty, integrate returned sections: ## Before → before first step, ## Rules → apply throughout, ## After → after final step.

Step 1: Understand the question

Determine what the user is asking about:

• General overview — what is Coding Friend, what can it do?
• Specific skill — how does $cf-commit work? what does cf-tdd do?
• Specific agent — what is the cf-reviewer agent?
• Setup/config — how to configure, custom guides, ignore patterns
• Workflow — how do skills work together?

Step 2: Provide overview (if general question)

Coding Friend is a lean toolkit for disciplined engineering workflows in Codex CLI. Core philosophy:

1. Check skills first — Before any task, check if a relevant skill exists
2. Test before code — RED → GREEN → REFACTOR
3. Verify before claiming — Never claim done without running tests
4. Commit with purpose — Conventional commits with clear "why"

Slash Commands (user triggers with /)

• $cf-ask [question] — ⚡⚡ — Quick Q&A about codebase → docs/memory/; auto-generates an ASCII flow diagram for "how does X work" / flow / lifecycle questions
• $cf-plan [task] — ⚡⚡ — Brainstorm and create phased implementation plans with parallel execution. Flags: --fast (alias --quick) lighter workflow, --hard deeper exploration + rollback, --auto end-to-end autopilot (auto review + fix Critical/Important + commit per phase), --inline (alias --no-file) plan in chat only without writing a file, --gui (alias --human) also generate the human-readable overview doc for this run (off by default).
• $cf-plan-resume <plan> — ⚡⚡ — Resume a saved plan (folder path, entry file, or bare <slug>) from where execution last stopped: reads the plan + its context file, re-runs pending/interrupted tasks, honors auto: true frontmatter to continue in autopilot.
• $cf-review [target] — ⚡⚡ — Dispatch code review to subagent. Flags: --with-codex/--codex, --claude, --gemini, --cursor, --grok run headless external reviewers in parallel and merge into one report; --out exports a $cf-review-out prompt with Claude's findings embedded. Set review.withCodex: true in config to enable Codex by default; review.agentTimeout (default 300s) bounds each external agent. Unavailable agents are skipped with a warning.
• $cf-commit [hint] — ⚡ — Analyze diff, soft review check, and create conventional commit
• $cf-design [mode] — ⚡⚡ — UI design workflow: scan existing patterns, design new UI, or modify UI consistently
• $cf-ship [hint] — ⚡ — Verify, commit, push, and create PR (supports --dry-run)
• $cf-fix [bug] — ⚡⚡ — Quick bug fix workflow
• $cf-optimize [target] — ⚡⚡ — Structured optimization with before/after measurement
• $cf-scan [description] — ⚡⚡⚡ — Scan project and bootstrap memory
• $cf-remember [topic] — ⚡⚡ — Extract project knowledge to docs/memory/. Also auto-invoked.
• $cf-learn [topic] — ⚡⚡ — Extract learnings (configurable output, language, categories)
• $cf-research [topic] — ⚡⚡ — In-depth research with web search → docs/research/
• $cf-session [label] — ⚡⚡ — Save current session to sync folder for cross-machine resume
• $cf-warm [user] — ⚡⚡ — Catch up after absence — git history summary for a user
• $cf-checkpoint [additional-prompt] — ⚡⚡ — Capture a concise conversation checkpoint (decisions, breaking changes, next steps) → docs/context/checkpoints/; updates an existing checkpoint when the arg matches one.
• $cf-checkpoint-from [slug] — ⚡⚡ — Load a saved checkpoint into a fresh conversation to continue with the prior context.
• $cf-help [question] — ⚡⚡ — This skill — answer questions about Coding Friend. Also auto-invoked.

Auto-Invoked Skills (activate automatically when relevant)

• cf-tdd — ⚡⚡ — When writing new code: direct implementation by default; TDD with --add-tests or config tdd: true. Add --auto for standalone autopilot (auto review + fix + commit after implementation).
• cf-sys-debug — ⚡⚡ — When debugging: investigate → analyze → test → fix
• cf-verification — ⚡ — Before claiming done: run, read output, verify
• cf-learn — ⚡⚡ — After substantial new knowledge: extract educational notes
• cf-remember — ⚡⚡ — After non-obvious bug fixes, arch decisions, new conventions, or undocumented session gotchas: save to docs/memory/
• cf-help — ⚡⚡ — When asking about Coding Friend skills, agents, or workflows

Agents (run in forked sessions — separate context window)

• cf-reviewer — ⚡ — Review orchestrator: dispatches 5 specialist agents in parallel + reducer
  • cf-reviewer-plan (medium reasoning effort) — Plan alignment
  • cf-reviewer-security (medium reasoning effort) — Security vulnerabilities
  • cf-reviewer-quality (low reasoning effort) — Code quality + slop detection
  • cf-reviewer-tests (low reasoning effort) — Test coverage
  • cf-reviewer-rules (low reasoning effort) — Project rules compliance (AGENTS.md)
  • cf-reviewer-reducer (low reasoning effort) — Deduplicates and ranks findings
• cf-implementer — ⚡ — Implementation subagent: direct coding by default, TDD with --add-tests (reads structured context file, returns result signals, supports auto-retry on failure). Does not own autopilot loops — cf-plan / cf-tdd orchestrate review / fix / commit when --auto is active.
• cf-explorer — ⚡ — Codebase exploration and context gathering (writes structured context files for downstream agents)
• cf-planner — ⚡ — Task decomposition with parallel/sequential phases (writes structured context file)
• cf-writer — ⚡ — Lightweight doc writer for markdown file generation
• cf-writer-deep — ⚡ — Deep reasoning doc writer for nuanced technical content

Context Window Usage

Each skill loads its SKILL.md into context when triggered. Context tiers: ⚡ = low (<1,500 tokens), ⚡⚡ = medium (1,500–3,000), ⚡⚡⚡ = high (>3,000). Bootstrap context (~2,100 tokens) is loaded every session. Agents run in forked sessions with their own context window. For exact token counts, see https://cf.dinhanhthi.com/docs/reference/context-usage/.

Step 3: Read specific files (if detailed question)

If the user asks about a specific skill, read its SKILL.md:

plugin/skills/<skill-name>/SKILL.md

If the user asks about a specific agent, read its definition:

plugin/agents/<agent-name>.md

If the user asks about configuration, read:

• .coding-friend/config.json — local project config
• docs/config-schema.md — config schema reference

If the user asks about custom skill guides, explain:

• Local: .coding-friend/skills/<skill-name>-custom/SKILL.md
• Global: ~/.coding-friend/skills/<skill-name>-custom/SKILL.md
• Sections: ## Before (pre-workflow), ## Rules (throughout), ## After (post-workflow)

Step 4: Common Workflows (if workflow question)

If the user asks how skills work together, present these common workflows:

• Build a feature: $cf-plan → implement → $cf-review → $cf-commit → $cf-ship
• Fix a bug: $cf-fix → (auto: review) → $cf-commit
• Quick question: $cf-ask → answer saved to docs/memory/
• Deep research: $cf-research → $cf-plan → implement
• End of session: $cf-remember (project context for AI) + $cf-learn (educational notes for human)
• Optimize: $cf-optimize → baseline → fix → measure → compare

Key distinction: $cf-remember saves project knowledge for AI recall in future sessions. $cf-learn saves educational notes for the human to learn from.

Step 5: Troubleshooting (if troubleshooting question)

Common issues:

• Skill not triggering? Check description in SKILL.md — it may not match the user's phrasing. Use /cf-<skill-name> to trigger manually.
• Custom guide not loading? Verify the path: .coding-friend/skills/<skill-name>-custom/SKILL.md and that it has ## Before, ## Rules, or ## After sections.
• Config not applied? Local .coding-friend/config.json overrides global ~/.coding-friend/config.json. Check both.
• More issues? Point the user to the Troubleshooting page for memory daemon, install, hook, and MCP issues.

Step 6: Answer concisely

Provide a clear, concise answer based on the information gathered. Link to specific files if the user wants to dive deeper.

CLI Requirements (quick reference)

The Coding Friend plugin works without coding-friend-cli. The CLI adds the memory MCP server (fast indexed search), the learn-host doc server, and a few utilities — but every skill and agent has a documented fallback path.

Three tiers:

• NONE — works with zero CLI involvement.
• OPTIONAL — uses CLI-installed memory MCP for speed; falls back to grep over docs/memory/ and direct file writes when CLI is absent. Full functionality preserved.
• REQUIRED — cannot function without CLI. (0 skills today.)

For the full per-skill/per-agent/per-hook matrix, see docs/cli-requirements.md.

Example: answering "do I need the CLI?" questions

When users ask whether a skill needs the CLI, look up its tier first.

Q: "Do I need the CLI to use $cf-fix?"

A: "No. cf-fix is OPTIONAL-tier — it uses the memory MCP when available, but falls back to grep -r '<query>' docs/memory/. See docs/cli-requirements.md for the full matrix."

Trigger phrases this skill should recognize:

• "does X require the CLI?"
• "what works without coding-friend-cli?"
• "how do I use memory without the CLI?"
• "is the CLI required?"
• "do I need to install the CLI?"