mvschwarz/openrig skills

Browser automation CLI for AI agents. Use when the user needs to interact with websites, including navigating pages, filling forms, clicking buttons, taking screenshots, extracting data, testing web apps, or automating any browser task. Triggers include requests to "open a website", "fill out a form", "click a button", "take a screenshot", "scrape data from a page", "test this web app", "login to a site", "automate browser actions", or any task requiring programmatic web interaction.

Use when designing, building, operating, or diagnosing an ongoing application whose live backend or control loop includes OpenRig agents, including applications with a Markdown, YAML, or JSON agent control plane or a thin surface over specialist agent roles.

Use when a bounded real-world procedure has a deterministic happy path but brownfield, variable, or partially knowable state; when an operation must resume from verified evidence; or when deciding whether agent judgment or ordinary code should own a procedure's control loop.

Use when creating, refreshing, packaging, inspecting, promoting, or deprecating a named per-seat starting point — Agent Starter manifest authoring, the 6-state lifecycle (captured → named → inspectable → used → promoted → deprecated), provenance honesty, and refusal rules. NOT a VM image; a managed starting point composed from agent role + startup context + optional native session source + provenance.

Use when designing or auditing how an agent becomes useful after launch — AGENTS.md overlays, role files, skills, rig specs, workflow specs, startup checklists, refocus messages, "rig context" surface. Covers the 4 failure modes that make startup context fail (old rig spec misses current operating mode; current agents never told about new guidance; startup file as dumping ground; orchestrator transmits implementation without preserving product intent).

Use before launching a team during agent-guided setup, or when a user asks to configure OpenRig command permissions, reduce repeated native approval prompts, or apply a selected rig/seat permission policy.

Quickly capture product ideas, feature requests, or insights from meetings and conversations. Rapid documentation with smart categorization and deduplication.

Use when a Claude Code session is about to compact, has just compacted, reached its context limit, resumed after /compact, or must rebuild its working picture of a long-running seat from its own restore map, its JSONL transcript and the files it touched.

Gather and distill context from meetings, competitors, regulatory sources, and internal discussions. Produces background.md for a feature and updates shared context docs when new knowledge is discovered.

Use when designing, reviewing, or debugging how an agent's context window gets filled, pruned, or shared — choosing what loads at boot versus on demand, sizing an install or an always-loaded file, fixing an agent that drifts, repeats itself, or forgets constraints mid-task, planning compaction or summarization, deciding single-agent versus subagents, engineering handoffs between agents, or picking a tool loadout. NOT for rewording a prompt's tone, choosing which model to pin, or debugging business logic — those are adjacent moments this skill does not serve. Historical 2024–2025 snapshot; not normative for present-day frontier models — see the Status section.

Use when addressing a registered remote OpenRig host, choosing its transport, or interpreting a cross-host result.

Use when you have a task and must decide WHO does it — yourself, a spawned subagent, or another agent in the topology that already holds the context — or how to brief the agent you hand it to, which depends on the model it runs. The rule: how much would a blank slate have to read in to do this correctly? A lot → route to a context-holding agent; a little → subagent; unsure → a real agent or yourself. NOT the mechanics of fanning out (that's dispatching-parallel-agents / subagent-driven-development) — this is the who/whether decision, and the failure mode that makes teams abandon subagents.

Use when changing OpenRig's own source in a clone of the openrig repository: finding which package or file owns a behaviour, choosing which tests to run, testing a change without disturbing the OpenRig daemon your own session runs on, judging whether a diff touches a high-risk area, or preparing a pull request. Not for operating rigs (openrig-skills) or designing rig topologies.

Use when a development pod begins or hands off implementation, QA, or design work.

Systematically explore and test a web application to find bugs, UX issues, and other problems. Use when asked to "dogfood", "QA", "exploratory test", "find issues", "bug hunt", "test this app/site/platform", or review the quality of a web application. Produces a structured report with full reproduction evidence -- step-by-step screenshots, repro videos, and detailed repro steps for every issue -- so findings can be handed directly to the responsible teams.

Generate a 1-2 page executive summary for a feature — orients sales, leadership, and engineering from a single document.

Use when the system around you does not make sense yet: you just booted into a seat and do not know how the pieces fit; someone said rig, pod, seat, fleet, topology, or slice and you are not certain what they mean here; you are unsure what kind of rig you are in or what it is for; you do not know how skills reach you or where context comes from; or you are about to act on a guess about how OpenRig works. Gives the runtime mental model fast, so you stop guessing.

Use when classifying a slice closeout (auto-continue / human gate / park), routing a real decision to a human, or designing a human queue/dashboard surface. Treats humans as durable network participants with attention surfaces, queues, and decision records — escalation lands as a durable attention item, not a chat message. Approval is NOT required for every clean closeout; the default RSI conveyor continues unless an explicit human gate is reached.

Use when a mission, slice, dashboard, or task references Markdown as path#h2-slug or path#h2-slug/h3-slug outside the OpenRig context-pack library.

Use when project policy calls for a human decision or update, a human delivery is pending or failed, or a reply must resume the right work.

Use when starting, building, handing off, restoring, or closing a mission or slice under the default lightweight SDLC.

YC-style product validation using six forcing questions. Pressure-tests a feature idea before it becomes a requirement — ensuring real demand, a clear wedge, and evidence behind assumptions.

Use when designing multi-agent topologies that run ON OpenRig — authoring RigSpec and AgentSpec files for new rigs, creating agent startup content (guidance / skills / culture), or diagnosing why a launched rig's agents aren't behaving as intended. NOT for changing OpenRig itself (use developing-openrig); NOT for ordinary CLI operation of an existing rig (use openrig-user). Covers the full authoring lifecycle from user intent to validated, launchable rig.

Use when opening OpenRig fleet terminals into cmux — turning a rig, pod, mission, slice, or saved view into live agent tiles via `rig terminal --provider cmux`, or driving cmux on an agent's request. Same OpenRig view semantics as openrig-herdr (the verbs, honest-partial/degrade, read-only cross-rig, scroll/copy, same-size-only duplicates); cmux is the **best-effort** provider (herdr is the default and the proof-gated one). Prefer openrig-herdr unless cmux is specifically wanted.

Use when opening OpenRig fleet terminals as a herdr wall — turning a rig, pod, mission, slice, or saved view into live interactive agent tiles via `rig terminal`, watching another rig read-only, or driving herdr on an agent's request ("open all my rigs + a mission as views"). Covers the `rig terminal open|views|status` verbs, the honest-partial/degrade reading of the result, the read-only-by-construction rail for cross-rig views, scroll/copy out of the box, and the same-size-only duplicate-pane limit. herdr is the default, proof-gated provider.

Use when you do not know WHERE something belongs: you learned a lesson and are unsure which file takes it; you are about to create a new doc, folder, or convention; you are asking "should this be a skill, a note, or a chain file?"; you inherited a seat and want to know what SHOULD exist; or you are about to duplicate knowledge that already has a home. Also the trace-to-root: how a seat orients by reading one filename at each level from where it stands up to the fleet.

Use when an agent running inside OpenRig needs the right skill or context for fleet recovery, seat handover, new-seat orientation, a watchdog wake, cross-host reach to an agent on another machine, rig packaging, an OpenRig upgrade, systematic debugging, queue triage, or implementation planning; also when the agent doesn't know what applies or nothing is projected on cold boot. Installing, starting or updating OpenRig, getting back to a team or bringing a stopped one back from a person's own session is the rigs skill.

Use when a user wants a continuing software team for a real repository, or has a first OpenRig team and needs a repeatable path for reviewed work and later tasks.

Use when an agent is preparing or performing an OpenRig CLI/daemon upgrade and must preserve live seats, verify each mutation, or reconcile managed plugin and skill files without overwriting local work.

Use when a specific `rig` command, subcommand, or flag is already known and you need its exact syntax, JSON shape, defaults, or error meaning. NOT for natural capability discovery, open-ended how-do-I questions, or choosing which OpenRig move applies.

Use when coordinating assignments, selected review boundaries, or blocked work across a rig.

Use when you have just been primed into an EXISTING seat through a planned handover — a different agent retired and handed you the seat plus its earned context — and you need a world model of what just happened to you. Covers how a handover differs from compaction and from a fresh launch, the inherit-the-seat-not-the-identity rule, treating the handover packet as testimony you verify (and refusing stale ghost prompts, and verifying your OWN identity surfaces), why a seat is a COMPOUNDING LINEAGE (inherit the state, acquire the predecessor's epistemology, then improve and re-deposit so the next generation is better), how to query your predecessor, your duty to stream feedback and re-deposit your earned wisdom, and how to route to role-specific onboarding. NOT the driver-side handover mechanic (retiring-and-inheriting-a-seat) and NOT unplanned compaction/crash recovery (claude-compaction-restore / session-compaction-and-restore).

Use when you are a seat on the oversight pod (a standing monitor-mode rig that keeps OTHER rigs healthy), configuring or running the drift detectors, or choosing whether to intervene vs escalate. Covers the pull-not-poll posture, the v0 detectors (premature-park, process-drift, off-task, token-burn), the intervention ladder (orchestrator-ping -> refocus -> human escalation), and the cheap+deep model economics. NOT for orchestrating your OWN rig (orchestration-team) and NOT the intervention primitive mechanics (watchdog).

Multi-perspective review of a feature plan or requirements doc before development begins. Evaluates from strategy, design/UX, and engineering angles to catch gaps early.

Use when ending a turn, finishing a slice, blocked on another agent's work, or escalating to a human — durable work handoff via queue items so the system keeps moving across compactions, missed messages, and interruptions. Covers the hot-potato terminal-turn-rule (active work ends by passing the ball, not by going idle), default-nudge semantics, and when `--no-nudge` is appropriate for intentional cold park or human gate.

Use when a long-running agent may have lost the product outcome, when context was compacted, when work has crossed a major boundary, or when a fresh path-based trace is needed before the next consequential action. Not for fresh-session orientation, waking an idle seat, or checkpoints.

Use when converting PM intake into a slice SPEC.md with observable acceptance outcomes, explicit scope, and advisory sibling build dependencies.

Use when you are a sitting agent near your context threshold (~85%) and a PLANNED seat transition is due — retire deliberately and hand your seat to a fresh successor primed from a packet, rather than let compaction degrade you. Covers the handover packet, the append-only lineage ledger (one row per tenure), physical-seat continuity, the do-not-over-inherit framing, the optional warm-handoff window, and wake-v0 (consulting a retired predecessor). NOT for unplanned compaction/crash recovery (session-compaction-and-restore / claude-compaction-restore) and NOT the seat-binding primitive mechanics (seat-continuity-and-handover).

Use when assigned a review or when an authored review boundary is reached.

Use when authoring or installing a rig bundle (packaged, shareable artifact that instantiates an opinionated OpenRig topology + workflow), reasoning about the bundle vs extension boundary, or auditing a bundle for portability. Covers the 4 failure modes that prevent bundles from working anywhere but the operator's machine, and the inspect-before-install discipline.

Use when reasoning about the rig lifecycle operations family (create / start / stop / resume / restore / snapshot / release / unclaim / destroy), reading or trusting `rig ps` / lifecycle projections after recovery, or designing proof for a lifecycle scenario. Covers the 4 failure modes (auto-restore creates partial rig; projections report healthier than reality; provider auth treated as impl work; resume succeeds for one runtime fails another) plus the restore-honesty rule (failed resume is FAILED loudly — no auto fresh fallback).

Use when a person in their own Claude Code or Codex session mentions OpenRig, rigs or the rig command, or wants a team of coding agents (Claude Code, Codex) on their project. That includes installing, setting up, starting or updating OpenRig, seeing, getting back to or re-attaching to their OpenRig agents (including bringing a stopped team back), TUI or operator, starting or sharing a team, and joining this session to one. Operating a running rig from inside it (fleet recovery, seat handover, watchdog wakes, in-rig upgrades) is the openrig-skills skill.

Use when replacing a seat's occupant (rebuild/handover/swap), reasoning about stable-seat-identity vs fluid-occupant-identity, choosing an old-occupant disposition (retire/advise/shadow), or recording provenance for an occupant change. Two independent outcomes (continuityOutcome + seatBindingOutcome) and the 5 failure modes that prevent silent dishonesty.

Use when reasoning about what survives compaction/context-loss/restart/seat-refresh, designing a high-fidelity restore packet, or distinguishing native runtime resume vs fork vs artifact-backed mental-model rebuild. Covers the 4 failure modes that prevent honest restore (compacted seat drops hot potato; restore packet preserves details but loses product intent; runtime resume mistaken for handover or fork; rebuilt seat starts with stale instructions).

Use when authoring a rig spec member or `rig expand` payload that needs to start a new managed seat from a prior runtime conversation source — `session_source: { mode: fork, ref: { kind, value } }`. v1 supports `mode: fork` with `ref.kind: native_id` for Claude and Codex. The new seat persists a NEW post-fork token; the parent token is NEVER written onto the new seat. NOT for restoring an existing seat or for artifact-backed mental-model rebuild.

Use when older OpenRig instructions name software-for-agents or describe agent-in-the-middle or studio software under the former skill name.

Use when authoring rig specs, agent specs, workflow specs, startup/context fragments, operating-mode declarations, or designing the user spec library. Covers the 4 failure modes (spec instantiates topology but not workflow/mode; spec depends on local paths and fails on another host; agents modify specs as one-off files instead of preserving reusable intent; validation proves YAML shape but not whether topology can run) and the validation-vs-runtime-realization distinction.

Use when encountering any bug, test failure, or unexpected behavior, before proposing fixes

Use when implementing any feature or bugfix, before writing implementation code

Use when changing a rig while it is alive — `rig grow` / `rig expand` / `rig shrink` / `rig launch` / `rig remove` / `rig discover` / `rig bind` / `rig adopt` / `rig attach`. Covers the 4 failure modes (newly created seat lacks queue/startup/role; edges and permissions not updated; adopt/bind succeeds at tmux but not OpenRig identity; shrink/remove leaves stale topology references) and the rule that mutation must work while the rig is active, not just in clean fixtures.

Create UI mockups at three fidelity levels — ASCII wireframes for quick iteration, standalone HTML mockups for delivery with requirements, and live prototypes for interaction testing.

Use when checking the health of this rig's HashiCorp Vault or writing, reading, listing, deleting or explaining its secrets.

Use when about to claim work is complete, fixed, or passing, or before committing or creating PRs

Use when configuring `rig watchdog` policies, authoring wake/refocus/alignment-checkpoint messages, or choosing the right intervention level for a stale-owner situation. The 3-level continuity-check stack (wake / refocus / alignment-checkpoint), the discipline that prevents cadence pollution and bureaucracy theater, and the artifact-pool loop-edge pattern for evidence-aware waking.