| 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
- 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.
- Find ready work:
bd ready --json
- Select a bead. If the user specified one, use that. Otherwise, choose the best ready bead based on current context, priority, and dependencies.
- Show the bead details before claiming:
bd show <id> --json
- 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
- Claim it:
bd update <id> --status in_progress
- 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.