project

Neuralscape — Project

Choose the project that recall, remember, and save-session should scope to. In Claude Code the working directory usually determines this automatically; in Claude Cowork there's no working directory, so this skill is how you select a project.

Projects are implicit in Neuralscape — a project_id is just a scoping label. There is no separate "project" entity to create or delete: a project comes into existence the moment you remember the first fact under its project_id, and is removed by deleting its memories. So picking a brand-new name is a valid way to start a new project.

What to do

1. Resolve user_id — see the Identity block below.

2. List existing projects — call the MCP list_projects(user_id=<resolved>) tool. It returns a sorted list of project_ids the user can scope to: their own private projects plus all team-shared projects (so a teammate's shared project is selectable even if the user hasn't written to it yet).

3. Present the choices to the user:

   • The existing projects from step 2.
   • A (global) option — no project scope; memory operations hit global scope only.
   • "…or type a new name" — to start a new project. Remind them a new project is created implicitly on the first remember; nothing else is needed.

4. Validate a typed new name (do this first, before anything is recorded or persisted). Trim the input and reject it if it's empty / whitespace-only, or contains a newline or any control character — a malformed id must never become the active project or get written to .neuralscape-project (where it would be reused across sessions). On a bad name, explain briefly and re-prompt. Keep ids to a clean single-line slug (letters, digits, and simple separators like -/_).

5. Near-duplicate guard (before accepting a valid typed new name). If the user types a name rather than picking one from the list, normalize both the typed name and every existing project from step 2 — lowercase and strip everything that isn't a letter or digit (so Neuralscape, neural-scape, neural_scape, and neural scape all reduce to neuralscape). If the normalized typed name matches an existing project's normalized form but the raw spelling differs, don't silently create a variant — ask:

   You typed Neural-Scape, but neuralscape already exists. Use the existing one, or create Neural-Scape as a separate project?

   Default to the existing canonical spelling unless the user confirms they really want a new, distinct project. (A new name with no near-match needs no confirmation — just proceed.)

6. Record the selection as the active project for this session. State it back clearly (e.g. "Active project: neuralscape. I'll scope recall/remember/save to it until you switch."). For the rest of the conversation, pass this project_id to recall, remember, and save-session.

7. If the user picked (global), treat the active project as unset (omit project_id on subsequent calls).

8. Offer to persist the selection to disk (when a writable working directory is available — always in Claude Code; in Cowork only if the session has the repo mounted). Pinning the choice to a .neuralscape-project marker makes it stick across future sessions and lets the SessionStart hook (and every subdirectory) pick it up automatically — turning a one-session choice into a durable, repo-wide default. Offer it:

   Want me to pin this by writing .neuralscape-project at the repo root? Future sessions will use <id> automatically.

   If the user accepts:

   • Find the repo root — run git rev-parse --show-toplevel; fall back to the current working directory if it isn't a git repo.
   • Write at the repo root, never a subdirectory. A marker in a subfolder would pin only that subfolder and reintroduce the inconsistency this avoids. Write a single line containing the chosen project_id to <repo-root>/.neuralscape-project (use the Write tool).
   • Suggest committing it so teammates and every subdirectory share the same id.
   • Skip the offer when the selection is (global) (no id to pin), or when a .neuralscape-project with the same id already exists at the repo root.

   If there's no writable working directory (e.g. a Cowork session without the repo mounted), you can't persist to disk — keep the selection in conversation context for this session and suggest the user commit a one-line .neuralscape-project to their repo through their normal workflow if they want it to stick.

Identity block (how to resolve user_id)

list_projects accepts user_id but does not require it; under token auth the server scopes by the authenticated token identity regardless.

• If CLAUDE_PLUGIN_OPTION_USER_ID (or NEURALSCAPE_USER_ID) is set → pass that value.
• If neither is set (likely Claude Cowork) → you may omit user_id, or pass a placeholder like "cowork"; the OAuth token determines the real identity.
• Never block or error solely because user_id is unknown.

Notes

• If you persisted the selection (step 8), it's durable: a committed .neuralscape-project pins the id for every future session and subdirectory. If you didn't (or couldn't), the active project lives only in this conversation's context — re-select at the start of a new session. In Cowork without the repo mounted, in-context selection is the only option.
• To act on the selected project, follow up with /neuralscape:recall, /neuralscape:remember, or /neuralscape:save-session.