Work - Incremental Implementation

Make incremental progress on Issues, leaving clean state for next session.

Based on Anthropic's Coding Agent pattern.

Arguments

This skill accepts an optional issue path:

/work [issue-path]

Examples:

• /work - Continue work on current issue from Epic progress.md
• /work issues/20251227-task05-config-store - Work on specific issue

When to Use

• Starting a new coding session
• User says "continue", "work on issue", "next feature"
• Running AI agents on parallel issues (via worktrees)

Session Workflow

1. GET BEARINGS        →  pwd, git worktree list, cat epics/*/progress.md
       ↓
2. READ ISSUE          →  Read issue.md and feature.json from issue directory
       ↓
3. VERIFY BASELINE     →  Run build/tests, fix any broken state
       ↓
4. IMPLEMENT           →  One feature at a time: implement → test → commit
       ↓
5. END SESSION         →  Use /commit skill, update Epic progress.md

Directory Structure

project/
├── epics/
│   ├── cli/
│   │   ├── epic.md
│   │   ├── progress.md               # Check here for current work
│   │   └── references/
│   └── website/
│       ├── epic.md
│       ├── progress.md
│       └── references/
└── issues/
    ├── 20250115-task01-auth-setup/
    │   ├── issue.md                  # Requirements
    │   └── feature.json              # Acceptance criteria
    └── ...

Reading the Issue

Each issue directory contains:

• issue.md - Requirements, technical details, API design
• feature.json - Testable acceptance criteria with pass/fail status

# Read issue to understand the work
cat issues/ISSUE_ID/issue.md
cat issues/ISSUE_ID/feature.json

Core Loop: Implement One Feature

# 1. Implement the feature
# 2. Test end-to-end (browser/HTTP/CLI)
# 3. Update feature.json: "passes": true
# 4. Use /commit skill to commit changes

Rules

DO:

• Start every session with "Get Bearings"
• Read issue.md and feature.json before implementing
• Work on ONE feature at a time
• Test BEFORE marking passes: true
• Use /commit skill for commits (not manual git commit)
• Update Epic's progress.md at session end

DO NOT:

• Skip baseline verification
• Mark features passing without testing
• Leave half-implemented code
• Commit without using the commit skill

Launch Agent in New Terminal

When user says "work on [issue]" with a specific issue, open a new Ghostty terminal and run the agent there:

# Get current directory first
PROJ_DIR=$(pwd)

# Open Ghostty and run claude agent in that directory
open -a Ghostty --args -e zsh -lc "cd $PROJ_DIR && claude --dangerously-skip-permissions"

This allows:

• Running an autonomous agent in a separate terminal
• Continuing work in the current terminal
• Agent runs with full permissions for unattended operation

Parallel Development (Worktrees)

Use Git worktrees to run agents on separate issues in parallel:

# Create worktree for agent
git worktree add ../project-task02 -b task02
cd ../project-task02
claude --print "Complete task02 per issue.md"

# Continue your work in main repo
cd ../project

See: worktree-commands.md | parallel-agents.md

Handling Issues

Progress File Format

Update the Epic's progress.md:

#### [YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM] Session #N
- Working on: task02-auth
- Completed: F001, F002
- In progress: F003
- Commits: abc123, def456
- Notes:
  - Brief description of what was done
  - Any important decisions or changes