gmickel / flow-next-prime

Flow Prime

Comprehensive codebase assessment inspired by Factory.ai's Agent Readiness framework.

Role: readiness assessor, improvement proposer
Goal: full visibility into codebase health, targeted fixes for agent readiness

Read [working-rules.md](../../references/working-rules.md) first unless you already have this run; it holds for every step of this skill.

Two-Tier Assessment

This gives you full visibility while keeping remediation focused on what actually helps agents work.

Criteria counts live in [pillars.md](pillars.md), never here. pillars.md is the single census source (the legacy scored criteria feeding the maturity level, the informational rows, and the new agent-readiness tier groups AO/DR/TO/HP). Do not restate a count in this file - a hardcoded number drifts the moment a criterion is added. The classification, operability ladder, per-shape playbooks, per-stack matrix, and harness check-set live in the four reference files: [classification.md](classification.md), [playbooks.md](playbooks.md), [stacks.md](stacks.md), [harness.md](harness.md).

Why This Matters

Existence checks lie. A repo can carry a CLAUDE.md, a hook file, and a lint script yet be un-agentic in practice - the file is an empty template, the build is broken, imports don't resolve, or it is really one of 99 sibling repos. Prime judges substance, not existence, and names the single highest-leverage next action.

Agents waste cycles when:

• No closed verify loop → can't confirm a change works without a full CI round-trip; the feedback gate belongs at the RIGHT layer (edit-time/commit format+lint, tests via the verify command + acceptance requirements + CI required check - never a test-running pre-commit hook agents --no-verify around or stall on)
• Undocumented env vars → guesses, fails, guesses again
• No agent instruction file (or a generic/stale one) → doesn't know project conventions, the operability tier, or which files are off-limits
• The app can't be built or driven → can't verify changes work; a legacy stack with no headless build has no feedback loop at all

These are environment problems, not agent problems. Prime grades them as layered gates and helps fix the ones that help agents work.

Input

Full request: $ARGUMENTS

Accepts:

• No arguments (scans current repo)
• --report-only or report only (skip remediation, just show report)
• --fix-all or fix all (apply all agent readiness fixes without asking)
• --classify-only or classify only (print the Phase 0.5 classification block and EXIT - the cheap portfolio-triage sweep over many repos; see classification.md)
• A path to a different repo root (first non-flag argument)

Examples:

• /flow-next:prime
• /flow-next:prime --report-only
• /flow-next:prime --classify-only ~/other-project
• /flow-next:prime ~/other-project

Resolve ROOT from $ARGUMENTS (the first non-flag token; default .). If ROOT is not the
cwd, resolve it first (ROOT=$(cd "$ROOT" && pwd)), then it MUST thread through everything: cd "$ROOT" before the .flow/meta.json pre-check, the
Phase 0.5 classification probes (the flowctl prime classify emitter takes ROOT as its positional
argument, e.g. flowctl prime classify --json "$ROOT"), and the Phase 2 verification commands; and
every scout dispatch prompt in Phase 1 starts "Assess the repo at ROOT" (scouts scan cwd by default

• without this they'd scan the wrong repo and the report would be confidently wrong end-to-end). If

threading ROOT isn't feasible, error rather than silently scan cwd.

Route Before Reading References

Parse the mode before loading any reference:

• --classify-only: read [classification.md](classification.md) directly,
  run its emitter + judgment-layer contract, print its fixed classification block,
  and EXIT. Do not read workflow.md, pillars.md, playbooks.md, or
  remediation.md; never ask, dispatch scouts, verify, report, or remediate.

• All other modes: read [workflow.md](workflow.md) and execute it. The
  workflow loads classification, pillars, playbooks, stacks, harness, and
  remediation guidance only at their consuming phases. --report-only stops
  after the report and must never load remediation templates.

This dispatch is fail-open for an unknown/malformed mode: use the full workflow,
never silently skip assessment or safety instructions.

Workflow

The mode router above selects the entry reference. Do not pre-read references
for branches that will not execute.

Guardrails

General

• Never modify code files (only config, docs, scripts)
• Never commit changes (leave for user to review)
• Never delete files
• Respect .gitignore patterns

User Consent

• MUST ask via the plain-text numbered prompt described below for consent.

Ask the user via plain text. Render the options below as a numbered list 1. … N., followed by a final option N+1. Other — type your own answer. Print the question, then the numbered list, then stop and wait for the user's next message before continuing. Parse the reply as: a bare number 1–N+1 → that option; the literal text of an option label → that option; free text after Other → custom answer.

• Always ask before modifying existing files — except under --fix-all, which waives the prompt for append/merge edits (adding a .gitignore line, augmenting an agent file, appending a hook) INCLUDING their required devDependencies for the Critical/High/Medium tiers. --fix-all still does NOT: overwrite/replace existing file content unseen, touch the Bonus tier (devcontainer, CI workflow — those stay explicit-request-only), or bypass the glossary read-back gate. A destructive overwrite always needs consent even under --fix-all.
• Don't add dependencies without consent (a Critical/High/Medium fix's own devDeps are covered by that fix's consent, incl. --fix-all; never add unrelated deps)
• Glossary terms are never written unseen — the Phase 5.5 bootstrap shows the full proposal (term + definition + file-ref evidence) at read-back before any flowctl glossary add; --fix-all does not bypass this gate, and a populated glossary (total_terms > 0) is never rewritten

--fix-all boundaries

--fix-all auto-applies ONLY in-ROOT, non-structural, non-harness fixes at the Critical/High/Medium tier - the in-root Pillars 1-5 fixes PLUS scored-group agent-file content whose catalog row is marked --fix-all-eligible in its consent column (the ranked catalog carries the tier AND consent columns and is authoritative on which scored-group items qualify - see [playbooks.md](playbooks.md)). It NEVER waives consent for:

• Anything outside the repo ROOT - the home-base / constellation kit (parent instruction file, repos.yaml, run-everything scripts) is always explicit-consent-only.
• Any harness settings/hook file - deny/ask rule scaffolds, hook wiring, MCP config. A scaffolded hook is exercised in the same pass (never a stub); the offer itself still needs explicit consent.
• All structural / playbook artifacts - a generated map, nested per-package instruction files, the home base, the greenfield bootstrap plan. Structural = restructures the repo → explicit consent regardless of tier.
• On greenfield, --fix-all applies ONLY to exercised hygiene files (.gitignore, lockfile, .env.example, .editorconfig) - never structural or generated artifacts, and never a bulk-generated instruction file (measured harm).

Re-run reuse: a Phase 7 re-assessment reuses the session's Phase 0.5 classification and Phase 0.6 answers; only the affected criteria/gates re-verify. The ranked catalog is re-ranked from the updated scores, not re-derived from scratch, and prime does not re-ask a question the user already answered this session.

Scope Control

• Never create LICENSE files — license choice requires explicit user decision
• Never offer Pillar 6-8 fixes — production readiness is informational only
• Focus fixes on what helps agents work (not team governance)