| name | aiwf-status |
| description | Use for narrative-shaped state questions — "what's next?", "where are we?", "what are we working on?", "current status?", "what's in flight?", "give me a summary", "what's urgent right now?", "any high-priority gaps?". Runs `aiwf status`, which prints a one-screen snapshot of in-flight epics + their milestones, open decisions (proposed ADRs and D-NNN), open gaps, the last 5 events from git history, and tree-health counts. Curated for human readers, not for programmatic filter queries — for those, use `aiwf list`. Read-only; no commit. |
aiwf-status
A one-screen project snapshot for human readers. Reach for this whenever the user asks a vague narrative-state question — "what's next?", "where are we?", "what are we working on?", "status?", "what's in flight?", "give me a summary". Don't compose multiple aiwf check / aiwf history calls and read raw frontmatter when one verb answers the question.
For programmatic tree queries — every milestone with status X, all entities by parent Y, every open gap, filter by kind — prefer aiwf list. That is the hot path for filter-shaped prompts; this skill covers narrative snapshots only. The two verbs split the read surface deliberately: list answers structured queries, status answers human-state questions.
What it does
aiwf status walks the planning tree and renders five sections:
- In flight — every epic with status
active, plus every milestone underneath it. The currently-running milestone is marked →; done milestones get ✓. Each milestone row that carries acceptance criteria shows a per-status badge (ACs M/T met (N open)) and the milestone's TDD policy when set (tdd: required/advisory/none).
- Open decisions — ADRs (
ADR-NNNN) and decisions (D-NNNN) with status proposed. The decisions that haven't been ratified, rejected, or superseded yet.
- Open gaps — gaps with status
open, with the milestone or epic each was discovered in.
- Recent activity — the last 5 commits whose messages carry an
aiwf-verb: trailer. Date, actor, verb, subject. Cross-entity, no filter.
- Health — total entity count, error count, warning count from
aiwf check. If non-zero, points at aiwf check for details.
By design, the verb shows only in-flight state at the top level — closed epics, accepted ADRs, addressed gaps, and cancelled work are not surfaced. The view is forward-looking. For history of a specific entity, use aiwf history <id>.
Scoping to one workstream (--area)
aiwf status --area <A> scopes the snapshot to a single workstream: the entity-derived sections — in-flight epics (and their milestones), planned epics, open decisions, open gaps — keep only entities whose effective area equals <A> (root kinds by their own field, epics carrying their milestones along). Recent activity, warnings, and health stay global — they are cross-cutting tree-health signals, not per-area concepts. An undeclared --area value prints a one-line note to stderr and scopes everything out (reads never reject). Reach for it when the user asks "what's in flight in the platform workstream?".
Filter vs. group. --area narrows to one workstream. Separately, when aiwf.yaml declares an areas block, plain aiwf status (and --format=md) automatically partitions the In-flight and Roadmap epic sections into a subsection per declared area, plus an always-shown untagged complement labelled by areas.default (or a Uncategorized fallback); an unused declared area is omitted. With no areas block, output is exactly as before. Grouping and --area are alternatives — --area suppresses grouping (the view is already one workstream). The same partition drives aiwf render roadmap and render --format=html.
Scoping to one priority level (--priority)
aiwf status --priority <level> scopes the Open decisions and Open gaps sections to gaps/decisions whose own priority equals <level> (urgent|high|medium|low). Unlike --area, epics and milestones are never touched — priority is scoped to gap/decision only, and an ADR entry in Open decisions never carries one. <level> is a closed, hardcoded set: an out-of-range value is a usage error naming the allowed levels, not a silent empty scope. Reach for it when the user asks "what's urgent right now?" or "any high-priority gaps?".
When to use
When the user asks about state but doesn't name a specific entity:
| User says | Run |
|---|
| "what's next?" | aiwf status |
| "where are we?" | aiwf status |
| "what are we working on?" | aiwf status |
| "current status?" | aiwf status |
| "what's in flight?" | aiwf status |
| "show me the status" | aiwf status |
When the user names a specific entity, prefer aiwf history <id> — that gives the timeline for that one thing.
Output
Default text:
aiwf status — 2026-04-28
In flight
E-01 — Migrate notes from git to R2 [active]
✓ M-001 — prep and schema [done]
→ M-002 — auth wiring [in_progress] · ACs 2/3 met (1 open) · tdd: required
M-003 — content migration [draft]
M-004 — cutover [draft]
Open decisions
ADR-0001 — Adopt OpenAPI 3.1 [proposed]
Open gaps
G-001 — needs error handling (discovered in M-001)
Recent activity
2026-04-28 human/peter promote aiwf promote M-002 in_progress
2026-04-27 human/peter add aiwf add milestone M-004 "cutover"
Health
9 entities · 0 errors · 1 warnings · run `aiwf check` for details
For scripting: aiwf status --format=json --pretty. JSON envelope with the same data, structured. The envelope's worktrees array is always populated when ≥1 worktree exists (omitted from default JSON via omitempty when zero); structured consumers see the same data the human-narrative output surfaces, no flag needed.
Worktrees in the default output
When ≥2 git worktrees exist for the repo, aiwf status inserts a one-line-per-worktree Worktrees section directly under In flight. Each row names the entity each worktree is driving (epic / milestone / gap) with its status, the relative age of the last commit, and a dirty flag when the working tree has uncommitted changes. Single-worktree projects see no section (no value to add).
The trunk worktree (main) gets its own row at the end with a compact path • main • trunk (no in-flight scope) form so the operator can see at a glance that no entity is being driven on trunk.
The short view points at aiwf status --worktrees for the full breakdown.
When a sibling epic-branch worktree's own copy of a milestone disagrees with the
one on the current checkout — the epic branch has moved on but hasn't merged
back yet — that milestone's own row in the In-flight list is annotated inline
(e.g. [draft] · done on the epic E-NNNN worktree) naming the more current
status and where it lives, instead of silently showing the checkout's possibly
stale copy as ground truth.
Worktree-organized view (--worktrees)
aiwf status --worktrees swaps the text output for a worktree-organized layout — per-worktree sections with full entity expansion. Reach for it when the user asks "where's my work?", "which worktree is on what?", "what's in flight where?", or after the user just used git worktree list and wants to join that against entity state.
The output uses a per-worktree section shape:
- Header:
Worktree: <path> (bold)
- Branch + age + dirty:
⎇ <branch> • last commit <age> • dirty (dimmed; dirty highlighted when applicable)
- Optional metadata line:
created <age> • last entity touch <age> (only when those differ from last commit)
- Driver row depends on entity kind:
- Epic-driver worktrees expand the full epic: every milestone (including completed) and every gap the epic closes or whose milestones surfaced.
- Milestone-driver worktrees show the parent epic as a breadcrumb header, then the driven milestone with
→ (driven) marker, then the milestone's depends on:, ACs:, and Surfaced gaps: lists.
- Gap-driver worktrees (typical for wf-patch worktrees on
patch/g-NNNN-... branches) show just the gap row.
- Stale worktrees (driver entity is terminal): same shape with an inline
STALE — driver is terminal; cleanup: git worktree remove <path> marker.
- Trunk worktrees (no driver correlation, typically
main): one-line No in-flight scope (trunk) — or, when in-flight entities exist with no worktree driving them, an Other in-flight: sub-section listing each (branch + age when a non-checked-out branch exists for it, else (no branch, on trunk)).
The worktree → entity correlation uses a hybrid cascade: first the worktree's git log main..<branch> is walked for scope-defining aiwf-verb: events (authorize, promote → in_progress/active, promote --phase); among multiple candidates the most-recent active-state event wins. If no scope events, the most recent aiwf-entity: trailer wins. If no aiwf commits at all, the branch name is parsed against the conventional shapes (epic/E-NNNN-..., milestone/M-NNNN-..., patch/g-NNNN-...).
Worktrees are sorted: in-flight first, then trunk, then stale at the end. Status glyphs and badges are colored (green met/done, yellow in_progress, cyan open/draft/proposed, red cancelled), so the eye lands on activity first.
The --worktrees flag affects only the text output; the JSON envelope already carries the same worktrees array by default.
After reading the output
After running aiwf status, narrate the state to the user in plain language — don't just dump the report and stop. Typical follow-ups:
- If a milestone is
in_progress, mention it and offer to continue: "The auth milestone is in flight — want to keep building, or wrap it?"
- If a milestone has open ACs, name the count: "The auth milestone still has 1 AC open —
aiwf show <id> for the breakdown."
- If no milestone is
in_progress but milestones are draft under an active epic, suggest starting the next: "The content migration milestone is next — start it?"
- If there are open decisions that are blocking progress, surface them: "The OpenAPI ADR is still proposed — does it need ratification?"
- If there are open gaps and free time, mention them: "A gap was logged during the last milestone — want to address it now or defer?"
The verb is the data layer; the AI is the narration layer.
