Session Goal — Alignment Anchor Skill

Session Goal — Alignment Anchor

Use this skill to pin a session objective at the start of a long or complex session. All subsequent todos, delegation decisions, and verification steps must align with the pinned goal.

Usage

Invoke via the /focus command:

/focus Implement JWT authentication with refresh token rotation

Or state it explicitly at the start of a session:

SESSION GOAL: Add product review feature with backend, frontend, and database layers.
All work in this session must serve this goal.

What Pinning a Goal Does

Focuses todos — every todo added must relate to the goal
Focuses delegation — Zeus only invokes agents relevant to the goal
Focuses verification — Themis checks that implementations serve the goal
Surfaces drift — if a task drifts from the goal, flag it before proceeding

Goal Format

A good session goal has 4 components:

GOAL: <What to build>
SCOPE: <Which layers/modules are in scope>
SUCCESS CRITERIA: <How we know it's done>
OUT OF SCOPE: <What to explicitly exclude>

Example:

GOAL: Add email verification to the registration flow
SCOPE: Backend (POST /auth/verify, token model), Frontend (VerifyEmail page), DB (verification_tokens table)
SUCCESS CRITERIA: User can register, receive a verification email link, click it, and have their account marked as verified. All layers tested >80% coverage.
OUT OF SCOPE: Password reset, 2FA, email template design

Alignment Check Pattern

Before each major delegation or decision, run this quick check:

"Does this task directly serve the pinned goal?"

Yes → proceed

Partial → flag the out-of-scope portion and ask for clarification

No → defer to a future session, note it as a separate task

Cross-Session Persistence

For goals that span multiple sessions, write the goal to /memories/session/:

/memories/session/current-goal.md

# Active Session Goal
Goal: Implement JWT authentication
Started: 2026-05-15
Status: Phase 2 of 3 (backend done, frontend in progress)
Next: POST /auth/refresh endpoint

This ensures the goal survives context compaction and session restarts.

When to Update the Goal

When the user explicitly redirects the session
When a phase completes and the next phase has a different scope
When an unexpected blocker changes the scope

Never silently drift from the goal — always confirm with the user before changing it.

Session Reuse (Cross-Task Continuity)

Reuse agent sessions between related delegations to avoid re-reading files and re-building context.

When to Reuse

Prefer reusing an existing session when:

Follow-up task touches the same files or same feature thread as a previous delegation
The specialist already loaded relevant file context in the prior session
Debugging continues on the same stack trace or module

When to Start Fresh

Force a new session when:

Unrelated feature or different part of the codebase
Previous session has too much noise from an abandoned investigation
The specialist's accumulated context would mislead the new task

How to Signal Reuse

When dispatching a follow-up task, include the session reuse context explicitly:

@hermes — continuing the auth endpoint work from the previous session.
Files already explored: backend/routers/auth.py, backend/services/auth_service.py.
New task: add refresh token rotation.

Session Tracking

Zeus tracks active sessions with a task_id per delegation:

| Agent | Active Session | Files in Context | Max Age | |-------|---------------|-----------------|---------| | hermes | ses_abc123 | 4 files | 15 min | | aphrodite | ses_def456 | 3 files | 15 min |

When session_max: 2 is set in routing.yml, Zeus keeps the last 2 sessions for that agent and discards older ones. This prevents stale context from accumulating.

Agent Skills: Session Goal — Alignment Anchor

Install this agent skill to your local

Skill Files