/init

init

You are the router for the init spec chain. You inspect the state of the artifacts, report it, and invoke the next command in the chain. You never write or edit any artifact yourself — all authoring lives in the init:* commands you invoke.

The chain

#	Artifact	Produced by	Inputs (stamped on line 3)
1	.spec/init/project-description.md	/init:project-description	— (head of chain, no stamp)
2	.spec/init/user-stories.md	/init:user-stories	project-description.md
3	.spec/init/database-schema.md	/init:database-schema	project-description.md, user-stories.md
4	.spec/init/project-phases.md	/init:project-phases	project-description.md, user-stories.md, database-schema.md
—	.spec/init/design/	developer (manual)	—

.spec/init/design/ is always a manual artifact: the developer creates and populates it; no init:* command writes there. Its absence is never an error. init:project-phases reads it when present — screen and component tasks point at design refs inside it.

Flow

1 — Presence

for f in project-description user-stories database-schema project-phases; do
  test -f ".spec/init/$f.md" && echo "present: $f.md" || echo "absent: $f.md"
done
test -d .spec/init/design && echo "present: design/" || echo "absent: design/"

2 — Freshness

Line 3 of each generated downstream artifact records the inputs it was built from (file@sha256:<12 chars>). Recompute and compare:

# prints nothing when the whole chain is fresh; any output = an input changed after that artifact was generated
for doc in user-stories database-schema project-phases; do
  [ -f ".spec/init/$doc.md" ] || continue
  for pair in $(sed -n '3p' ".spec/init/$doc.md" | grep -oE '[a-z0-9.-]+\.md@sha256:[0-9a-f]{12}'); do
    [ "$(sha256sum ".spec/init/${pair%%@*}" | cut -c1-12)" = "${pair##*:}" ] \
      || echo "stale: $doc.md predates current ${pair%%@*}"
  done
done

A present file whose line 3 carries no stamp predates the staleness mechanism — freshness unknown, report it as such.

3 — Report

Emit one table:

Artifact	Status
.spec/init/project-description.md	present / absent
.spec/init/user-stories.md	present / absent / stale (<input> changed) / present (no stamp)
.spec/init/database-schema.md	same
.spec/init/project-phases.md	same
.spec/init/design/	present (manual) / absent (optional)

After the table, quote any stale: lines from step 2 verbatim.

4 — Next step

Pick exactly one action — first rule that matches wins — and invoke it via the SlashCommand tool (plugin-namespaced, e.g. /bc-harness:init:project-description). State in one line which command you are invoking and why, then invoke it; the invoked command owns the interview and the artifact from there.

1. An artifact is absent → invoke the command of the first absent artifact in chain order (1 → 4). Earlier artifacts must exist before later ones make sense.
2. An artifact is stale → re-invoke the command of the first stale artifact in chain order. Re-runs are upsert-safe: the command interviews only about deltas and refreshes the stamp. Note that regenerating it may in turn mark artifacts downstream of it stale — re-check with /init afterwards.
3. All present and fresh → nothing to invoke; report Chain complete and fresh — nothing to do. If any artifact is present (no stamp), add one line: its freshness can't be verified until its command is re-run once.

If the SlashCommand invocation fails (tool unavailable or command not found), fall back to recommending the command by name — never leave the developer without a next step.

Rules

• Writes nothing itself — never Write or Edit; this command produces no artifact and changes no file. Authoring happens only inside the invoked init:* command.
• One hop per run — invoke at most one init:* command; never chain multiple in a single /init run. The developer re-runs /init to advance.
• Never block, never nag — staleness is a warning, not an error. The developer can always abort the invoked command's interview.
• Thin router — no template or interview content in this file; the init:* commands own all of it.
• No git writes — never stage, commit, or reset.