| name | product-session |
| description | Launch, resume, and drive a phase-gated What→How→Build workshop session over the Product framework graph, and route to the right phase skill. Use when the user says "start a product session", "run a workshop session", "product session start", "product mcp --workflow", "resume the session", "advance the phase", or "finalize the session". Owns start / status / advance / finalize and the locked-session guardrails; hands the actual authoring to product-what, product-how, and product-build.
|
Product Session — the launcher
A session is a phase-gated facilitation run that writes the canonical
.product/ graph directly (the session record is just a workflow.json
journal). It starts in What, advances strictly forward What → How →
Build (optionally capped), and on finalize validates the graph and closes
the session. Every write lands in canonical as it happens — there is no draft
or rollback. The phase gates which tools exist — an out-of-phase tool call
errors.
Starting a session
product session start [<product>] [--until what|how|build] [--cli claude|copilot]
product session start <product> --no-launch
--no-launch prints: product mcp --workflow --session <id> --repo <root> — the
phase-gated MCP server the agent drives. Also: product session list,
product session show <id>, product session resume <id> (relaunch + reprint the
live-view URL).
Always orient first
Before any authoring, call product_workflow_status. It returns phase,
until, availableTools, finalized, and a hint. Route on phase:
| phase | hand off to | authoring families |
|---|
what | product-what | product_domain_*, product_decider_*, product_projector_*, product_primitive_* |
how | product-how | product_how_*, product_archetype_*, product_cell_*, product_work_unit_*, product_worker_* |
build | product-build | product_slice_*, product_deliverable_*, product_release_*, product_build_run |
Advancing
product_workflow_advance moves to the next phase (or jump with to). Only
advance when the current phase's gate is green — the phase skill says how to
check. Advancing freezes earlier-phase writes (e.g. you cannot edit the How once
in Build), so finish a phase before leaving it.
Finalizing
product_session_finalize validates the What and, if conformant, stamps
provenance and marks the session complete. Writes have already landed in the
canonical .product/ throughout the session — finalize is the conformance gate
and completion record, not a promotion step.
Guardrails (apply in every phase)
- Locked session. Do not make source-code edits or hand-edit files while a
session is running. Finish the graph through the MCP/CLI tools; do code changes
after you exit/finalize.
- User data. Never
rm or bulk-git add .product/products/ — it's the
captured What and is the user's.
- Phase gating is real. If a tool "belongs to another phase", advance first;
don't fight the gate.
Reference
The standard is docs/product-framework-open.md (§3 What, §4 How, §5–7 Build).
The live Event-Modeling view is served by the workflow server (URL printed on
start / session show).
