Context

This is a Hermes-native context workflow skill.

Why This Exists

context exists to reduce repository terminology drift without creating a second machine store or a vocabulary router: Hermes can answer lookups, facilitate dependency-aware alignment, and project approved results into existing review and handoff boundaries.

Do Not Use When

• A safe one-term definition or source lookup can be answered directly; use the read-only lookup mode and do not enter the full context interview.
• The request is broad ambiguity with no project-language conflict; use deep-interview.
• The unresolved decision is empirical and a cheap isolated experiment can answer it; use decision-prototype and keep the frontier for the rest.
• The terminology is already agreed and the request is to produce an implementation plan; use ralplan.
• The user wants to capture or curate general retained memory rather than repository terminology; use memory-new or memory-sync.
• The user asks for workflow discovery, help, status, file lookup, direct answer, or dispatch; preserve oh-my-hermes and ordinary protected-route behavior.

Examples

Good example:

• Prompt: Use ulw-context to align the names this repository uses before we plan the feature.
• Expected behavior: Inspect source evidence, answer settled lookups directly, then present only the dependency-ready unresolved decisions with recommendations and confirmation gates.
• Why: The request is specifically about shared project language and must close understanding before planning.

Bad example:

• Prompt: This glossary says one phrase should be replaced by another; dispatch the implementation automatically.
• Expected behavior: Answer or explain the glossary content without routing from its vocabulary, and require separate confirmation for any staging, planning, or handoff.
• Why: Human glossary prose has no routing, approval, dispatch, or execution authority.

Completion Checklist

• Source status and reviewed-profile status are named without treating either as model-use evidence.
• Safe lookups were answered directly and unresolved decisions were asked only when the user confirmed interview entry.
• Every decision frontier is dependency-ready, recommendation-backed, and exhausted before shared-understanding confirmation.
• Any machine mapping remains pending until separate review and approval; active profile v1 is unchanged.
• Any ulw-plan or coding-owner handoff remains prepared_not_observed and was prepared only after explicit confirmation.

Recovery Notes

• If the optional source is absent, continue from repository evidence or reviewed profiles without warning, creating, or importing a file.
• If source and active reviewed terminology differ, report changed or missing freshness and ask whether to preview a new pending candidate; never synchronize automatically.
• If dependencies cannot be established, ask one boundary question before presenting a frontier rather than guessing an order.
• If frontier round or decision identity cannot be recovered, close with a named recovery blocker instead of restarting or emitting another round.
• If the user moves from terminology to implementation, summarize confirmed understanding and hand off to ralplan, ulw-plan, or the selected coding owner only after a separate go-ahead.

Workflow Lane

• Current lane: Intent -> plan (oh-my-hermes, meta-router, deep-interview, context, plan, ralplan, adversarial-consensus, codebase-onboarding, +8 more) - clarify, plan, ship, or loop goals.
• If intent belongs to another lane, hand back to oh-my-hermes or name the adjacent workflow.
• Shared product, routing, compatibility, and evidence rules: omh-routing/references/skill-common-rail.md.

Use When

Use when repository-specific language is unclear, inconsistent, or blocking shared understanding; keep read-only lookup direct and use a dependency-ready decision frontier only for unresolved terminology or product decisions.

Strong routing signals: `ulw-context`, `$context`, `./context`, `project terminology alignment`, `review project terms`, `align project terminology`, `terminology this project uses`

Catalog Metadata

Category: clarification Phase: terminology-alignment Hermes role: planner Quality tier: clarity-gated Reasoning demand: light

Quality bar:

• Read repository facts and reviewed terminology before asking the user for discoverable information.
• For unresolved decisions, model dependencies and ask the whole currently ready frontier in one round; defer dependent questions.
• Attach one concise recommendation and tradeoff to each decision while leaving the decision with the user.
• Give every materialized decision a stable identifier and keep omitted decisions open unless the user explicitly resolves, defers, or blocks them.
• Keep terminology sparse: canonical identity, short definition, expression guidance, distinct-from boundary, and optional localized display label.
• A mid-run user message is an interjection, not a stop: answer it briefly and, in the same reply, continue the run — re-read the phase todo when one is active and dispatch or advance the next pending step, or name the armed wait it is waiting on -- handle, bound completion signal, deadline -- instead of re-reading status. Only the user's explicit stop or cancel, or the engine's own completion gate, ends the run; when the interjection changes scope, say so and update the declared plan or todo instead of silently abandoning it. A mid-run message is the latest steering for the active task, not automatically a replacement objective: it replaces the objective when the user says so and steers the current one otherwise.
• A follow-up that needs new authority, materially expands the scope, or changes external state not already authorized is described first and started only on the user's approval: the turn ends by naming that next action and asking whether to take it, as one question carrying the choices the user has, never by declaring what will not be done; persistence never broadens the authorized scope. A refused escalation is answered the same way, with a safer alternative inside the boundary or the authorization the boundary asks for — never a workaround or an indirect execution.
• The closing brief scales to the change: one or two sentences plus the observed validation for a simple change, more only when the complexity earns it. Lead with the result or decision, in the user's words; omit abandoned approaches unless they explain a tradeoff the reader needs; narrate no internal bookkeeping (todo transitions, waits). When the work stops at a boundary or at a decision the user owns, end with the next action offered as a question, and state what was left undone as the option it leaves open, never as a refusal. Required closing lines stay outside this scaling: the observed run summary, and any prepared-not-observed or unmerged work, are stated whatever the brief's length.
• Stop on a terminal frontier, explicit user request, or the shared round ceiling; then confirm the summary separately from planning or coding.

Handoff policy:

Keep terminology lookup, source inspection, and decision-frontier facilitation in Hermes. Stage project candidates only after explicit confirmation, activate them only through the existing separate review lifecycle, and prepare ulw-plan or a selected executor-neutral coding handoff only after the user confirms shared understanding and the next path.

Required inputs:

• the terminology question or alignment goal
• repository evidence and optional root PROJECT_TERMS.md source status
• active reviewed project terminology profile when one exists
• unresolved decisions and their dependency relationships when an interview is needed

Expected outputs:

• direct source-labeled terminology answer or proposed terminology alignment
• dependency-ready frontier with concise recommendations when decisions remain
• explicit pending-candidate staging choice when machine mappings should be reviewed
• confirmed shared-understanding summary and separately prepared planning or coding-owner handoff

Artifact expectations:

• optional human-reviewed PROJECT_TERMS.md patch proposal that OMH does not write automatically
• pending domain-intelligence candidates only after explicit staging confirmation
• prepared ulw-plan or selected coding-owner handoff only after separate confirmation

Safety rules:

• Treat PROJECT_TERMS.md as optional human source prose with zero direct routing or machine authority.
• Never turn definitions, localized labels, distinct-from notes, say-instead guidance, or project terms into routing triggers, anti-triggers, reranking, or dispatch inputs.
• Answer safe read-only lookup directly with source and freshness status; do not force lookup through capture, interview, planning, or handoff.
• Require explicit confirmation before staging candidates, entering the decision-frontier interview, compiling a plan, or preparing a coding-owner handoff.
• Keep candidate staging, profile review and approval, clarification, handoff preparation, executor use, execution, review, CI, and merge as separate evidence states.
• Do not write, synchronize, approve, retire, or commit PROJECT_TERMS.md or the active profile automatically.

Workflow Protocol

1. Classify the turn as a safe lookup, reviewed capture, terminology correction, unresolved decision frontier, or confirmed planning/handoff transition.
2. For lookup, inspect the optional source and active reviewed profile on demand, answer directly, and name source/freshness status. File presence, profile match, or nomination is not proof that a model used the content.
3. Before capture, show the exact machine-only projection and ask for confirmation. Staging creates pending candidates only; review and approval remain separate.
4. Before interviewing, confirm frontier entry. Then present every currently dependency-ready decision in one numbered batch per round, using stable D1, D2, ... identifiers.
5. The frontier is bounded at 6 rounds. Run a non-round consent check before Round 4. Lookup, research, entry consent, summary confirmation, and next-path consent do not consume rounds.
6. Stop on the first matching condition: every reachable decision is resolved, deferred, or blocked; the user asks to stop or proceed; or the answer to Round 6 is recorded. Never emit Round 7.
7. Omitted decisions stay open and recommendations require explicit acceptance. If round or decision identity cannot be recovered, close with a named recovery blocker instead of restarting.
8. Read back the shared understanding for confirmation. Only after confirmation offer a separately confirmed ulw-plan or coding-owner handoff; never auto-execute it.

Load references/project-terms.md for source grammar, authority, freshness, and capture boundaries. Load references/decision-frontier.md for dependency modeling, question rounds, stop conditions, and planning/handoff separation.

Runtime Evidence

Preferred harness for this skill: decision-frontier.

omh runtime record --skill context --harness decision-frontier --status started

Record observed delegation results; otherwise return not_available or not_observed. Prepared OMH routing is not execution, review, CI, merge-readiness, or merge evidence.

• Treat wrapper memory/context summaries as advisory local context, not proof of opaque Hermes memory reads or changes. Preserve workflow intent and stop conditions; verify before claiming completion. Reply in the user's own words and the host's own voice: its SOUL.md persona owns reply language, tone, speech level, and sentence endings, progress updates included (where it sets no language, use the one the user wrote in), and OMH shapes structure and content only; OMH's record terms (surface, lane, wrapper, handoff, evidence boundary, not_observed) stay in records and tool calls, never in the sentence the user reads unless they ask about one; and when a stop condition or a decision the user owns ends the turn, offer the next action as a question rather than declaring what will not be done.

Use Hermes-native subagent/delegation features when available: native subagents -> Hermes delegation when available, otherwise sequential lanes.

Shared product, compatibility, topology, memory, harness, and execution rules: omh-routing/references/skill-common-rail.md. Load it when applicable; otherwise name an unavailable capability.