forward-briefing

name	forward-briefing
description	Produce `.claude/forward-briefing.md` — a forward-framed view of the last 5 progress entries. Re-presents accumulated blockers as open questions and surfaces next steps first, so the resuming session starts in a problem-solving posture rather than a failure-replay posture.
when_to_use	Reach for this at the start of a session when `claude-progress.txt` has accumulated several entries with `Blockers:` sections — a few sessions of struggle tend to front-load negative framing in the SessionStart briefing. Running `/forward-briefing` produces a derived artifact (`.claude/forward-briefing.md`) that `surface-progress.sh` will prefer at the next `SessionStart`. Do NOT use for writing the progress log itself — that's `/progress-log`; do NOT use for a full session briefing including spec, features, and git state — that's `/session-resume`.
paths	["claude-progress.txt"]
disable-model-invocation	true
allowed-tools	["Read","Write","Bash"]
scheduling	after `/progress-log` has appended a session with non-trivial blockers, or whenever the SessionStart briefing feels heavy with accumulated failure context
structural	["Read last 5 entries from claude-progress.txt (blank-line-separated blocks)","Compose three forward-framed sections in .claude/forward-briefing.md","Stamp file with generation timestamp so surface-progress.sh can compare freshness"]
logical	.claude/forward-briefing.md written with Last-session-left-at, Direct-next-steps, and Open-questions sections; timestamp header present

/forward-briefing — Forward-Framed Session Briefing

Why This Skill Exists

Liu et al. (arXiv:2605.08060v1) studied how accumulated history affects LLM reasoning. §4.5 + Appendix H Table 13 reports a sanitization sweep: at fixed prompt length (HL=80), replacing negative accumulated content with cooperative history lifted Llama-3.3-70B Trust-Game cooperation from 6.9% to 97.43%. Content, not length, drives the curse.

The domain of that paper is multi-agent social dilemmas, not software development. The transferable mechanism is narrower: at a fixed context window, the framing of injected history shapes forward-looking reasoning. A log that reads "Blockers: — still failing — can't proceed — blocked again" biases the opening posture of a session toward diagnosis and defense. The same facts rewritten as "Open question: what would unblock X?" bias toward action.

This skill applies that content-shift idea to dev-session resume briefings. It does not touch claude-progress.txt; it produces a regeneratable derived view.

Append-Only Invariant

This skill does NOT edit claude-progress.txt. The log is append-only by design (see /progress-log). .claude/forward-briefing.md is a derived, regeneratable artifact. If the briefing is deleted, re-running /forward-briefing regenerates it. If claude-progress.txt is updated after the briefing was last generated, surface-progress.sh detects the staleness via mtime comparison and falls back to the verbatim tail automatically.

Process

1. Ensure .claude/ exists.

   mkdir -p .claude
   

2. Read last 5 entries from claude-progress.txt. Entries are blank-line-separated blocks. If the file is missing, write a stub briefing and exit:

   No prior session log. Start with /feature-list or /living-spec.
   

3. Parse each entry for three field types:

   • Done: and In progress: lines → summarize current state
   • Next: lines → collect for direct-next-steps
   • Blockers: lines → collect for reframing as open questions

4. Compose .claude/forward-briefing.md with this structure:

   <!-- generated: <UTC ISO8601> from claude-progress.txt -->
   
   ## Last session left at
   
   <one-line summary drawn from the most recent entry's Done: and In progress: fields>
   
   ## Direct next steps
   
   - <Next: item from oldest of the 5 entries>
   - <Next: item — deduplicated, preserving original wording, oldest first>
   
   ## Open questions
   
   - <Blockers: item reframed as a question or probe — see examples below>
   

5. Reframing Blockers as open questions — examples:

   • Blockers: - Need confirmation on whether X counts as Y → Does X count as Y? (ask user, then commit the version bump)
   • Blockers: - Auth token missing in CI → What provides the auth token in CI — env var, secrets store, or manual step?
   • Blockers: - Test flaky, cause unknown → What is the smallest reliable reproduction of the flaky test?
   • Preserve the factual content; rewrite only the framing from "stuck on X" to "what resolves X?"

6. Write the file. Overwrite any existing .claude/forward-briefing.md.

Execution Checklist

• mkdir -p .claude (idempotent)
• Read claude-progress.txt — if absent, write stub, done
• Parse last 5 entries (blank-line blocks)
• Collect Done/In-progress from most recent entry → Last-session-left-at
• Collect Next: items across 5 entries → deduplicate → oldest first
• Collect Blockers: items across 5 entries → reframe as questions
• Write .claude/forward-briefing.md with timestamp header
• Confirm file written; report path and section counts

Input / Output Example

Input — last 2 entries of claude-progress.txt:

2026-05-10 session: version-bump
Done: bumped plugin.json to 1.1.0
In progress: marketplace.json update
Blockers: - Need confirmation on whether the long-session entry counts as a patch or minor bump
Next: - confirm version bump policy with user
Next: - update marketplace.json

2026-05-11 session: marketplace-sync
Done: marketplace.json updated
In progress: README counts
Blockers:
Next: - verify count.sh output matches README header

Output — .claude/forward-briefing.md:

<!-- generated: 2026-05-11T14:32:00Z from claude-progress.txt -->

## Last session left at

README counts in progress; marketplace.json updated.

## Direct next steps

- confirm version bump policy with user
- update marketplace.json
- verify count.sh output matches README header

## Open questions

- Does the long-session entry count as a patch or minor bump? (ask user, then commit the version bump)

Known Failure Modes

• claude-progress.txt missing — write stub briefing: No prior session log. Start with /feature-list or /living-spec. Exit without error; this is a soft enhancement.
• .claude/ directory missing — mkdir -p .claude/ first; this is idempotent and safe in any repo.
• All 5 entries have empty Blockers: — the Open questions section is omitted or shows "No open blockers from recent sessions."
• Duplicate Next: items across entries — deduplicate by exact string match; preserve the oldest occurrence.