Dev10x:afk

Dev10x:afk — Walk-Away Mode

Announce: "Using Dev10x:afk to harden auto-advance for this session."

Hardens friction_level: adaptive + active_modes: [solo-maintainer] so the agent does not re-litigate a decision the supervisor already made. Couples two rules:

1. Do not call AskUserQuestion unless the action is destructive (force-push to protected branch, mass delete, secret retrieval) or a hard upstream blocker (missing ADR, conflicting upstream, no auth credentials).
2. If you start to doubt the chosen plan mid-execution, push through and append the doubt to the PR description under a "Concerns surfaced during implementation" header. Do not pause.

See references/walk-away.md for the full contract downstream skills consult.

Orchestration

REQUIRED: Create a task at invocation. Execute at startup:

1. TaskCreate(subject="Enable walk-away mode", activeForm="Enabling walk-away")

Mark completed when the session config write returns (or is skipped because the flag already matches).

When to Use

Invoke this skill at the start of a session where the supervisor will be unavailable for hours. Typical entry points:

• Dev10x:afk then Dev10x:work-on bundle <milestone-url>
• Dev10x:afk then Dev10x:fanout over a queue of tickets
• Resuming an unattended run after compaction — the flag survives in session.yaml and is re-read on the next Phase 0

Instructions

Step 1: Read existing session config

Read .claude/Dev10x/session.yaml if it exists. Capture friction_level, active_modes, walk_away, and doubt_sink. If the file is missing, treat all four as unset.

Step 2: Compute desired state

The walk-away invariants:

friction_level: adaptive            # required
active_modes: [solo-maintainer]     # required (merged, not replaced)
walk_away: true
doubt_sink: pr-description

Merge solo-maintainer into the existing active_modes list if absent. Never overwrite a non-empty active_modes list with the single-mode form — preserve modes the user already enabled (e.g., research-spike, release-train). The merged list is the union.

If friction_level is currently strict or guided, walk-away downgrades it to adaptive — that is the entire point. Surface this to the user in the announcement so they can revert if it was unintentional.

Step 3: Read-before-write gate (GH-846)

Skip the write entirely if all four desired keys already match the on-disk values. This avoids spurious permission prompts and prevents clobbering co-edited entries.

Only when at least one key differs, write the merged config back to .claude/Dev10x/session.yaml using the Write tool.

Step 4: Report

Print a one-line summary of what changed:

• walk_away: true — first time enabling
• walk_away: already true — no-op, surface as confirmation
• friction_level: guided → adaptive — when downgraded
• active_modes: + solo-maintainer — when merged

Do not emit an AskUserQuestion confirmation. The invocation itself is the confirmation; firing a gate here would violate the contract this skill is meant to enforce.

Contract for Downstream Skills

Skills that emit AskUserQuestion MUST consult walk_away before firing. The classification rule:

Question class	Walk-away behavior
destructive (force-push, mass delete, secret retrieval)	Fire normally (ALWAYS_ASK)
blocking (missing creds, conflicting upstream, missing ADR)	Fire normally
strategy / confirmation / re-strategy	Suppress, auto-pick Recommended, log to doubt_sink
informational (which slug? which title?)	Suppress, pick best-guess, log to doubt_sink

Full classification rules and per-skill integration guidance live in references/walk-away.md.

Relationship to Friction Levels

walk_away is orthogonal to friction_level. The adaptive friction level already auto-selects (Recommended) options at gates, but it has two known failure modes that walk-away closes:

1. Gates without a Recommended option — adaptive still fires them. Walk-away suppresses anything that is not destructive or hard-blocking.
2. Mid-flight re-strategy prompts — adaptive does not prevent a skill from emitting a fresh AskUserQuestion after partial recon reveals scope. Walk-away forces the doubt into the doubt_sink instead.

See references/friction-levels.md § Walk-Away Layer for the precedence rules.

Anti-Patterns

• Calling Dev10x:afk mid-flight to silence an active prompt — this skill modifies session config, it does not retroactively cancel a pending AskUserQuestion. Answer the prompt first, then invoke Dev10x:afk to prevent the next one.
• Combining with friction_level: strict — the skill downgrades strict to adaptive. If you want strict gating, do not invoke walk-away.
• Using on a session where the supervisor is actively reviewing — walk-away suppresses informational gates too, which removes the ability for the supervisor to inject mid-session steering. Reserve for genuinely unattended runs.

Reverting

To exit walk-away mode mid-session, edit .claude/Dev10x/session.yaml directly and set walk_away: false (or delete the key). The next gate-emitting skill will read the updated value and resume normal adaptive behavior.