| name | orient |
| description | Fast session-start repository orientation from live local evidence. Use when:
"orient yourself", "start of session", "new session", "where are we",
"catch me up before acting", after compaction,
after switching worktrees, or before choosing a Harness Kit workflow. Trigger:
/orient, /ground, /session-start.
|
| argument-hint | [scope|--deep] |
/orient
Ground the session in repo truth — not memory, not a stale summary. Read-only,
fast.
What it produces
A short, natural read of where things stand and the one move that follows. You
are writing to stop a wrong first step, not to fill a form. In plain prose,
cover only what the evidence supports:
- where we are (repo, branch, clean vs dirty) and what's in flight;
- the single best next move, why it wins, and what would make it wrong.
Punchy beats complete. A sentence or two when the state is obvious; a short list
only when it's genuinely tangled. No fixed template, no field-by-field rundown,
no history dump. If the user already gave a precise command and the state is
clear, that sentence is the whole report. --deep is the only license to dig.
Example, obvious state: "On master, clean, CI green. Shaped ticket 058 is the
only thing in flight and nothing blocks it — next is /deliver 058."
Where the signal lives
Read the smallest set that explains the workspace; skip whatever the prompt
already settled. Beyond the obvious (git status, branch, recent commits):
- scoped then repo
AGENTS.md; project.md for focus (README.md only if still unclear)
backlog.d/*.md for active work; backlog.d/_done/* and Closes-backlog: trailers for closure.harness-kit/agents.yaml / roster probe — only when the next move is a delegation.harness-kit/agent-readiness.yaml — only to name the profile state, never to score the repo
Routing
Recommend one next skill. If the signal is mixed, name the missing evidence
rather than guess from vibes.
| Signal | Next |
|---|
| Shaped ticket, clean branch | /deliver <ticket> |
| Dirty branch, intended changes | /deliver --polish-only |
| Empty or stale backlog | /groom |
| Failure, broken gate, unclear root cause | /diagnose |
| Finished work needing closeout | /ship, /yeet, or /reflect |
| Readiness or profile question | /qa or the repo's readiness surface |
| "What happened / why does it matter" | /orient --deep or /shape |
| Skill or harness primitive change | /harness-engineering |
Stay in lane
Orient reads; it never acts. Don't deliver, groom, refactor, reflect, debrief,
mine transcripts, or mutate state. Don't label the repo "ready" or "validated" —
route that to the owning skill. Don't store session memory; durable state lives
in backlog, commits, and receipts. Don't spin up provider lanes unless scope is
broad, stale, or contested. Scoped AGENTS.md governs — respect it.
Verification
Editing this skill in the Harness Kit source repo:
cargo run --locked -p harness-kit-checks -- check-frontmatter --repo .
Invoked in another repo, that command isn't required — acceptance is the
report's cited live evidence and a next move the operator can act on.
