beads-claim

name	beads-claim
description	Use at the start of a manual executor session to find and claim a ready bead. Do not invoke in planner sessions or inside swarm workers.

Beads Claim

Workflow position: Manual executor session, step 1 of 7. Next: writing-plans. See BEADS_WORKFLOW.md.

Find a ready bead and claim it for this session.

This is a manual executor skill. It must not be invoked in a planner session or inside `execute-bead-worker`.

Only invoke this skill when:

• the user wants to start manual implementation
• the session is a manual executor session

Do not invoke this skill when:

• beads were just created in this session
• you are in the middle of brainstorming or beads-planner
• swarm-epic already assigned the bead to a worker

Steps

1. If the current repo is not initialized for Beads, stop and tell the user to run the template bootstrap script or at minimum bd init --prefix <prefix> plus the repo scaffolding steps.
2. Find ready work:

   bd ready --json
   

3. Select a bead. If the user specified one, use that. Otherwise, choose the best ready bead based on current context, priority, and dependencies.
4. Show the bead details before claiming:

   bd show <id> --json
   

5. Confirm or auto-claim:
   • present the bead title and description first
   • if this skill was invoked by executor-once, executor-loop, or executor-loop-epic and the bead choice is unambiguous, proceed without an extra confirmation turn
   • if the choice is ambiguous, ask the user before claiming
6. Claim it:

   bd update <id> --status in_progress
   

7. Report the claimed bead id and title, then proceed to writing-plans for the execution plan.

Rules

• Only claim one bead per manual executor session.
• If no beads are ready, report that and suggest running a planner session first.
• If the user already specified a bead id, skip the selection step but still show details before claiming.
• When executor-once, executor-loop, or executor-loop-epic is driving the flow, it is valid to claim without confirmation when bead choice is unambiguous.
• Do not start coding before claiming. The bead must be in_progress before any implementation.
• swarm-epic owns claiming and closing for swarm runs. Workers do not call this skill.