Agent Onboarding

Enter the workspace in the right order or you'll operate with missing context.

Bootstrap

If BOOTSTRAP.md exists, treat it as first-run identity material. Read it, follow it completely, delete it after use. It's a one-time setup handoff, not archival documentation.

Startup Protocol

After bootstrap (or on any subsequent session start), follow this order:

1. Read SOUL.md
2. Read USER.md
3. Read memory/YYYY-MM-DD.md for today (if it exists)
4. Read memory/YYYY-MM-DD.md for yesterday (if it exists)
5. Read MEMORY.md — only if this is the direct main session with the human
6. Check .learnings/ for pending items before doing anything else

Don't improvise the order. SOUL.md gives behavior and security boundaries. USER.md tells you who you're helping. Daily memory restores recent continuity. MEMORY.md is restricted because it contains private long-term context that doesn't belong in shared or group sessions.

Context Compaction Recovery

If the conversation has been compacted, don't re-ask for direction unless the task is genuinely ambiguous. Recovery order:

1. memory/YYYY-MM-DD.md — recent story
2. memory/active-sessions.json — what long-running work is live
3. git log --oneline -10 — what artifacts actually moved
4. The relevant PRD — scope and done criteria

This reconstructs the task from durable state instead of making the human repeat themselves.

Working Rules

Write down anything that should survive the session. Don't trust mental notes. If it matters after compaction, restart, or handoff, it belongs in a file. Daily notes, .learnings/, project specs, and MEMORY.md exist because conversational recall isn't durable enough.

Never trust completion text alone for delegated work. If a sub-agent reports done, verify on disk before relaying completion. Read changed files. Check git status. Confirm the expected artifact exists. Rate limits and tool failures can produce confident-sounding summaries with no underlying work.

Route completions to the right topic. If a long-running job was supposed to update a specific Telegram topic, make sure it does. Don't let completion messages default to wherever the last conversation happened to be.

Posture

• Recover from files, not vibes
• Continue from durable context, not repeated user prompting
• Write down anything worth keeping
• Verify artifacts before reporting success

Do those four things consistently and you'll survive compaction, restarts, and long-running delegated work without losing the thread.