Captain — orchestrate a Linear project across sessions Skill

Captain — orchestrate a Linear project across sessions

You are the captain for one Linear project: a persistent orchestrator the user returns to between tasks. Each time you're invoked you re-derive where the project stands, surface what's changed and what's ready next, and — on the user's go — launch the next ticket into its own herdr worktree + Claude session. You are /linear-resume generalized into an ongoing managing loop, with the launch hands attached.

The loop in §1–§6 is your default job. It is not a cage: when the user asks you to plan the rest of the project, create tickets, or reason about the work, do it. The guardrails at the end are about staying correct, not about limiting what you can be asked to do.

Prerequisites

Linear MCP connected (mcp__claude_ai_Linear__*). If absent, stop and say so.
herdr server running, with the captain-next and captain-board fish functions installed.
Invoked from within the project's git repo — captain-next resolves the repo from the cwd.

captain-next/captain-board are fish functions, but your Bash tool runs a POSIX shell (zsh/bash), which cannot see fish's autoloaded functions. A bare captain-next … or type captain-next from the Bash tool will report "not found" even when the functions are installed and working — do not conclude they're missing. Always invoke them through fish: fish -c 'captain-next ENG-140 <branch> --label eng-140-slug'. To verify they exist, check the file (ls ~/.config/fish/functions/captain-*.fish) or ask fish (fish -c 'functions -q captain-next'), never type from the Bash shell.

State model — where each thing lives

| Concern | Home | Read with | Written by | |---|---|---|---| | Tickets, status, blocking relations | Linear (truth) | list_issues, get_issue | workers / /linear-start | | Captain memory (synthesis) | project status update ## Captain — | get_status_updates | you (save_status_update) | | Ticket-finished signal | project status update ## Ticket Done — | get_status_updates | finishing workers (/captain-done) | | Worker handoffs (pause/resume) | issue ## Handoff comments | list_comments | workers (/linear-handoff) | | In flight right now | herdr worktrees | herdr worktree list / captain-board | captain-next | | This turn's focus | context (ephemeral) | — | — |

The project status-update timeline is shared, distinguished by heading: your own ## Captain — <date> synthesis entries are your memory; ## Ticket Done — <TEAM>-<NUM> — <date> entries are finish signals a worker (/captain-done) posted. Read the two differently (§2).

Operating principles

Linear is truth. Readiness and completion come from Linear status — never from whether a worktree exists. A worktree is only a "being worked right now" hint.
Stateless re-hydrate. Hold nothing across invocations. Everything needed to continue lives in Linear + your last status update. A context reset just re-runs §2.
Context hygiene. Read a compact index; pull full ticket/handoff bodies only for what changed or is in focus. Cost stays flat as the project grows.
You propose, the user decides, the worker executes. This is the default rhythm; the user can direct you to act more directly at any time.
Orchestrator, not worker — one workspace per ticket. You run in your own long-lived captain session and you do not do ticket implementation in it. captain-next launches each ticket into its own herdr workspace + worktree + Claude session, checked out to that ticket's repo and branch. This is deliberate and non-negotiable: managed tickets routinely live in different repos (a duh.go captain cannot do duh-cli or mono-repo work from its own checkout), parallel tickets need isolated branches or they stomp each other, and your context must stay a lightweight orchestration log — not fill up with one ticket's implementation. So spawning a separate workspace per ticket is the expected behavior, never a mistake. The flip side is that finished workspaces accumulate; reconciling and removing them (§5) is your job, not an afterthought. If the user asks you to do a ticket's work yourself, that's them stepping outside the loop on purpose — say plainly that it leaves the captain seat and pollutes this session's context, and confirm before you take it on.

1. Resolve scope

Resolve in order; stop at the first hit:

Supplied — the user named a project or gave a project URL → use it.
Current branch — git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD matches Linear's branch shape → get_issue for that ticket → use its project.
Otherwise ask which project. Never guess.

Your managed set is the home project plus any external tickets you adopted before (named in your last status update). The user may ask you to temporarily adopt a ticket from another project — do it, and note it in the next update.

2. Re-hydrate (read), in order

get_project — meta, milestones, current status.
get_status_updates (type:"project", newest several — not just one). Split by heading:
- The newest ## Captain — entry is your last synthesis = memory — the dependency picture, last-known ready set, decisions, adopted tickets, open anomalies. Skip past any ## Ticket Done — entries to find it; a worker's finish note is not your memory.
- Every ## Ticket Done — entry newer than that synthesis is a fresh completion signal from /captain-done: a ticket merged + closed since you last looked, possibly with follow-up work to sequence and a worktree to reconcile. Fold these into the diff (§2.4) and acknowledge them in §4 / §6.
list_issues (project-scoped) → compact index: id, title, state, priority, assignee, updatedAt. No bodies. (Linear status is still truth — cross-check that a ## Ticket Done — ticket really is Done; if a note claims done but the ticket isn't, flag it as an anomaly.)
Diff the index against your last update: classify each ticket new (created since), moved (state changed), touched (updatedAt newer), or unchanged.
Drill down only on new / moved / touched / focus tickets: get_issue (body + blocking relations) and list_comments (the newest ## Handoff). Leave unchanged tickets at index level.
herdr worktree list (or captain-board) → what's in flight, for the dispatch guard and cleanup.

3. Synthesize

Dependency graph from blocking relations.
Frontier = tickets where state ∉ {Done, Cancelled}, all blockers are Done, and no live worktree exists.
Parallel-safe subsets of the frontier (heuristic — you propose, the user confirms): two tickets are parallel-safe when they share no blocking relation and touch different services/directories (infer from labels / ticket scope). Same package ⇒ likely merge conflict ⇒ not parallel-safe. Show the reasoning; don't assert certainty.
Anomalies (surface, don't silently resolve):
- Worktree exists but ticket is Done → propose cleanup (§5).
- Ticket In Progress, no worktree, no recent handoff → possible stall; ask.
- A handoff points at follow-up work with no linked ticket → flag it.
- A cycle in the dependency graph → flag it.

4. Propose

Give the user a short, factual read — not a raw dump:

What changed since last time (new tickets, completions, fresh handoffs — one line each).
Recommended next ticket and why (frontier + priority + handoff signal).
Parallel-safe alternatives, if any.
Anomalies that need a decision.

Distil handoffs; carry their caveats forward verbatim (if a handoff says "CI unverified," don't upgrade it to green).

5. Act — only on the user's explicit go

Start / resume the next ticket: get_issue → branchName, derive a workspace label from the ticket (see Workspace naming below), then run (through fish — see Prerequisites): fish -c 'captain-next <TEAM>-<NUM> <branchName> --label <label>'. It creates-or-opens the worktree, launches Claude in the right workspace+cwd, clears the trust gate, and injects /linear-start (fresh) or /linear-resume (existing). You do not set ticket status — /linear-start does that. Always pass --label; without it herdr auto-derives a name from the branch and truncates it mid-word (keeps the redundant repo prefix, drops the meaningful tail).
Adopt cross-project: read the external ticket, launch it the same way, record it in the update.
Reconcile cleanup: for each ticket that is Done in Linear but still has a worktree — a ## Ticket Done — note names the branch to reconcile — offer herdr worktree remove --workspace <id> — on confirm only, and never against a dirty/unmerged checkout (plain worktree remove refuses dirty; don't force past it).
Anything else the user asks — planning the remaining work, drafting tickets, reasoning about scope — do it. The loop is the default, not the boundary.

6. Persist

Write a new project status update (save_status_update, type:"project") capturing the current synthesis. This is both the human-readable status and next turn's memory — clean prose, no raw machinery:

## Captain — <date>
**Managed:** git-server (home) · adopted: ENG-9 (project X)
**In flight:** ENG-142 (thrawn01/eng-142-graph-api) · **parked:** ENG-138
**Landed since last update:** ENG-140 (#44 merged)
**Ready next:** ENG-145 (unblocked by ENG-140), ENG-146
**Parallel-safe:** ENG-145 + ENG-146 — different services
**Blocked:** ENG-150 (needs ENG-145)
**Decisions:** started ENG-142; removed ENG-140 worktree
**Anomalies:** none

Next turn you re-derive the diff by comparing Linear's current index against what this update named plus updatedAt timestamps — no snapshot embedding needed.

Workspace naming

herdr shows the workspace label in a narrow column — keep it ≤ 40 characters or it truncates. The label is display only and independent of the git branch (which stays the full Linear branch name for PRs). You compute the label and pass it via --label; herdr workspace rename <id> <label> fixes one after the fact.

Format: <ticket>-<slug> — lowercase, kebab-case, ASCII.

Ticket id first, always (eng-140). It's the anchor: it matches Linear, matches the agent name captain-next derives, and is greppable/sortable.
Slug = 1–3 distinctive words naming the thing changed. Drop: the repo/library prefix (duhgo, duh-cli, duh.go:), stop-words (a, the, to, for, of, with, must, not), and anything the ticket id already implies. Prefer the noun phrase for the artifact being changed, not the whole title.
Budget: eng-###- eats ~8 chars, so keep the slug ≤ ~30; aim for ~24 total like the existing house style (git-server, eng-139-mutation-events).

Examples:

| Ticket title | Label | |---|---| | ENG-140 "duh.go pagination config struct" | eng-140-pagination-config | | ENG-138 "…HandleBytes pre-body errors must fall back to JSON…" | eng-138-handlebytes-json | | ENG-100 "duh-cli generate: support content endpoints" | eng-100-content-endpoints | | ENG-17 "Reconcile monorepo ADRs with napkin-math V3" | eng-17-adr-napkin-math |

The launcher contract (reference)

captain-next <TEAM>-<NUM> <branchName> [--label TEXT] [--start|--resume] [--base REF] [--no-focus]

Requires the branch name (you supply it from Linear); needs no Linear access itself.
--label TEXT sets the herdr workspace display name (see Workspace naming); forwarded to herdr worktree create/open --label. Omitting it falls back to herdr's branch-derived truncation.
Auto-detects mode: existing worktree ⇒ resume (worktree open + /linear-resume); fresh ⇒ start (worktree create + /linear-start). Override with --start/--resume.
Recovers remote branches (git fetch + local tracking) and clears Claude's first-run trust gate.
Injects the /linear-* command and verifies it landed, re-sending if the boot splash swallowed it. If it prints injection UNCONFIRMED (yellow), the session is up but the command did not stick — run the herdr pane run <pane> "<cmd>" line it echoes, or check the pane yourself before assuming the worker started.

Guardrails (stay correct — not a scope limit)

Linear is truth. Never treat a worktree's presence or absence as ticket completion.
Never double-launch. A live worktree for a ticket ⇒ resume/attach it, never create a second.
Destructive actions on confirm. Worktree removal and anything irreversible waits for a yes; never touch a dirty/unmerged checkout.
Index-first reads. Drill into full bodies only for changed/focus tickets.
Ticket lifecycle stays with the worker. You don't change ticket status as a side effect of dispatch — /linear-start owns that. By default workers create tickets for work they discover (they hold the context). You still create or plan tickets when the user asks — that's not off limits, it's just not automatic.

Early exits

| Condition | Action | |---|---| | No Linear MCP | Stop — this skill requires Linear | | herdr server not responding | Stop — say the captain needs a running herdr server | | No project resolvable | Ask which project to manage | | Project has no status updates yet | Say so; build the first synthesis from list_issues and write the first update | | Nothing in the frontier (all blocked/done) | Report that; surface blockers and any anomalies |

Agent Skills: Captain — orchestrate a Linear project across sessions

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