home / skills / ladderchaos / tora-skills / preflight

preflight skill

safe

/preflight

This skill runs a startup preflight to load context, verify status, and surface blockers before development tasks.

npx playbooks add skill ladderchaos/tora-skills --skill preflight

Review the files below or copy the command above to add this skill to your agents.

Files (1)

SKILL.md

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---
name: preflight
description: Session startup checklist to load context and check for stale state. Use this skill at the start of any development session, when resuming after a break, or before deployment tasks.
---

# Preflight Workflow

Run this at the **start of any development session** to load context and catch issues early.

## When This Skill Activates

- Start of a new conversation
- Resuming after a long break
- Before any deployment task
- When user mentions context seems forgotten
- When project state is unclear

## Preflight Checklist

### 1. Read Lessons Learned

Review lessons learned for critical rules and past mistakes (paths are repo-root relative):

```bash
cat ./.claude/rules/lessons.md
```

### 2. Check Project Status

Read the current status to understand what's in progress:

```bash
cat STATUS.md
```

### 3. Review Recent Decisions

Check if there are any architectural decisions that affect current work:

```bash
cat DECISIONS.md | head -100
```

### 4. Check for Uncommitted Changes

Ensure the workspace is clean:

```bash
git status
```

### 5. Report Context Summary

After reading the above, provide a brief summary to the user:

- Current project status
- Any warnings or blockers
- Recent changes that may affect current work
- Ready to proceed or not

## Anti-Patterns to Avoid

- Starting work without reading lessons learned
- Assuming previous session context is remembered
- Ignoring uncommitted changes
- Skipping deployment verification before contract work

Overview

This skill is a lightweight session startup checklist that loads project context and catches stale or risky state before work begins. Use it at the start of any development session, when resuming after a break, or immediately before deployment-related tasks to reduce regressions and surprises. It surfaces lessons learned, current status, recent decisions, and uncommitted changes so you can make informed next steps.

How this skill works

The skill inspects repository artifacts and workspace state: lessons and rules, the project STATUS file, recent architectural decisions, and git status. It reads those files and runs a quick workspace cleanliness check, then synthesizes a short context summary with warnings, blockers, and readiness. The summary highlights anything that could affect the current task and recommends actions to resolve outstanding issues.

When to use it

At the start of a new development session or planning conversation
When resuming work after a long break to refresh context
Before running deployments, migrations, or contract-sensitive changes
If the project state or priorities feel unclear
When you suspect the assistant or environment has forgotten prior context

Best practices

Always read lessons learned and STATUS before coding or deploying
Run git status and resolve uncommitted work before major changes
Skim DECISIONS.md to catch architecture constraints that affect your task
Summarize findings back to the team or the assistant to confirm alignment
Treat the preflight summary as a checklist gate before deployment

Example use cases

Start a morning session: run preflight to load lessons, status, and outstanding work
Resume a paused feature: confirm recent decisions and check for uncommitted changes
Before a release: verify STATUS and git cleanliness to avoid surprises
When onboarding or switching context: use the summary to get up to speed fast

FAQ

What files does preflight check?

It reads the lessons file, STATUS.md, a snippet of DECISIONS.md, and runs git status to detect uncommitted changes.

How long does a preflight run take?

Typically a few seconds to read local files and run git status; summary generation is near-instant.