// Use when designing AI features and the real opportunity may be perception support, not delegated conversational work.
| name | hud-first |
| description | Use when designing AI features and the real opportunity may be perception support, not delegated conversational work. |
● main ↑3 │ build ✓ 2.1s ▁▂▂▃▄▅▆ │ tests 412/413 ✗ │ lint ✓ │ types ⚠2
That row is the skill. One line, six fields, no prompt, no dialog. You see system state through it, not at it. Lineage: Weiser (calm tech), Engelbart (IA), Tufte (data-ink, sparklines, small multiples).
| Copilot (anti-pattern) | HUD (target) |
|---|---|
| You talk to it | You see through it |
| Demands attention | Lives in periphery |
| Delegates judgment | Extends perception |
| Context-switch tax | Flow-state preserving |
| "Do this for me" | "Now I notice more" |
Name the copilot reflex. What chat would you open? What prompt would you type?
Extract the information need. What does the assistant need to know to answer? That is what you need to perceive.
Compose from the primitive palette:
▁▂▃▄▅▆▇█ in ≤8 cells, encoding a series (≤4 Hz)! * ● ◐ · (event:save)key value pair, separated by │ on a single row (≤1 Hz)✓ ✗ · ⚠ ● ○ ◐ ↑ ↓ (event:state)─ │ ┌ ┐ └ ┘ ├ ┤, only when a frame earns its cells (static)Budget: ≤3 primitives per row, ≤8 sparkline cells per primitive, one line per instrument. Beyond 3, the row is a dashboard, not a HUD.
When you catch yourself wanting a GUI affordance, reach for the terminal substitute:
j/k moves the highlight)j/k to move, enter to commitPass both terminal tests:
!43 │ if user.role == "admin":. Fail: a cx-review subcommand that prints a report.▁▂▃▄▅▆▇█ (or a similar fixed-glyph row) in ≤8 cells inside an existing line; when sparklines stack, they share a labeled baseline. Pass: tests 412/413 ✗ ▁▂▃▇. Fail: a separate ASCII bar-chart screen, or four stacked sparklines each rescaling to their own min/max.PKG STRIP N/N LATENCY (▁=0 █=600ms) TREND
auth/login ✓✓✓✓✓✓✓✓✓✓✓✓✓✓✓✓✓✓✓· 19/20 ▁▁▁▁▁▂▂▂ 142ms
auth/oauth ✓✓✓✓✓✓✗✓✓✓✓✓✓✓✓✓✓✓✓✓ 19/20 ▁▂▂▂▂▃▃▃ 211ms
billing/charge ✓✓✓✓✓✓✓✓✓✓✓✓✓✓✓✓✓✓✓✓ 20/20 ▁▁▁▁▂▂▂▂ 88ms
billing/refund ✓✓✓✓✓✓✓✓✓✓✓✓✓✓✓✓✓✓✓✓ 20/20 ▃▄▅▅▆▆▇▇ 503ms ⚠
↑ small-multiples in action: each row applies the same gutter-strip + shared-baseline sparkline + badge instrument to one PKG, so the eye scans vertically. The strip is strict 3-state (✓ ✗ · = pass / fail / skip); trend warnings ride in their own badge column, so 20/20 still means 20/20. The flaky test (✗ in the strip) and the slow-creep (sparkline standing visibly taller than its neighbors, ⚠ in TREND) are legible without prose annotations — the data already speaks.
Copilot reflex: "summarize the test run." HUD instruments: gutter-strip + sparkline + badge, row-repeated across packages.
| domain | copilot reflex | HUD instrument (terminal-native) |
|---|---|---|
| code review | "review this PR for bugs" | !42 ● if x == True: ▆cx |
| inbox | "summarize my email" | ▌ ●●● 02:14 CEO Re: Q3 review ▇▆▃▁ |
| debugging | "find the bug" | i=37 arr[0..n) hits ▁▁▂▃▇▂▁ ✗ at i=23 |
| writing | "rewrite this paragraph" | ~/essay $ █ passive ▃ │ readab ▇▆ │ "just"×4 │ 318w |
Inbox row leads with a ▌ color-band column (hue = folder); the writing row appends indicators to the shell prompt line. Each row picks ≤3 primitives and stays inside the existing line — the test-runner block above is the small-multiples form (one instrument, many parameters); this table is the protocol's transfer (one protocol, four instruments).
Routine, one-shot, you genuinely don't want to learn it (autopilot for straight-and-level). For expert work — judgment, debugging, prose — instrument, don't delegate.
Use when writing or editing a Slack message, email, pull request body, GitHub issue, Reddit post, agenda, or doc. Enforces a direct, warm, unfilled tone and removes AI tells. Always scores the final draft and runs a self-audit pass before delivery.
Reframe code design through functional programming principles for agent-assisted development. This skill SHOULD be used when the user says "think functional", "think FP", "make this pure", "separate effects", "where should this side effect go", "this function does too much", "how should I structure this for agents", "make this easier to review", "reduce context needed", or when planning module structure, store design, or code that agents will write and humans will review. Applies FP discipline within any language to maximize agent effectiveness and human reviewability.
Lift-and-shift port of a repository, library, API, protocol, or other software artifact to a different language, runtime, or platform, with the original source available as a reference. This skill SHOULD be used when the user says "port from X to Y", "lift and shift", "rewrite in Go", "rewrite in Rust", "translate this codebase", "convert to TypeScript", "language migration", "rewrite in another language", "carry over the algorithms", "borrow techniques from", "dirty room", "dirty-room design", "sc-dirty-room", or wants to reimplement an existing artifact while studying its internals to preserve algorithms, data structures, or idioms worth keeping. NOT for legally-constrained reimplementation — use /sc-clean-room when copyright isolation matters.
Audit and improve project memory files (CLAUDE.md, AGENTS.md, .claude.local.md) — assess against a quality rubric, then apply additions and removals. This skill SHOULD be used when the user asks to audit, improve, edit, fix, tighten, rewrite, or update a memory file, or to check whether one is too long, stale, or bloated.
Clean-room reimplementation of a repository, library, API, protocol, or other software artifact. This skill SHOULD be used when the user wants to create a functionally equivalent implementation of an existing artifact without copying its internal design or expression. NOT for refactoring existing code.
This skill SHOULD be used for structured extraction or batch queries against JSON (use jq), YAML (use yq), or Markdown (use mq), and for advanced text search with ripgrep flags or pipe composition (use rg).