coach-start-session

name	coach.start-session
description	Start a new coaching session. Loads state from .coach/, checks tournament results for previous submissions, creates a new session directory with plan.md and log.md. Use at the beginning of each improvement cycle.

Start Coaching Session

Load state from .coach/ into context and create a new session.

Steps

1. Load state:

   • Read .coach/guide.md — the coaching playbook (objective, strategies, constraints).
   • Read .coach/state.json — current scores, latest submission, session count.
   • Read .coach/session_config.md — policy name, season, git config.
   • Read .coach/todos.md — improvement ideas and dead ends.

2. If git configured, pull latest:

   git pull
   

3. Check tournament results for the latest submission:

   • Run: cogames submissions --season <season> | grep <policy_name>
   • Fetch scores from Observatory: https://softmax.com/observatory/tournament/<season>/players
   • Log findings: did the last submission improve? What's our rank?

4. Finalize previous session if it was WAITING:

   • Read the most recent sessions/<timestamp>/log.md
   • If it says WAITING, write tournament findings into it and mark as finalized.

5. Create new session:

   • Directory: .coach/sessions/YYYYMMDD-HHMMSS/
   • Write plan.md: current scores, what to try, why.
   • Start log.md with timestamp and plan summary.

6. Report to user: current rank, best score, gap to top, what this session will try.