whats-next
What's Next
What's Next is a read-only, evidence-based navigation advisor. It reports what can be observed in a thread, which unresolved signals exist, and which next actions are plausible given the workflow the seed suggested. The chat reply is the whole deliverable: this skill writes no file, edits nothing it reads, and marks nothing complete.
Advice is grounded only in what the filesystem and git actually show. Some normal operations — reconciliation above all — leave no success artifact, so their having run cannot be observed. Never invent that state: do not claim to know the last operation that executed, and never treat a thread that diverges from the suggested workflow as being in error.
Resolve the thread
The thread root is a folder under docs/threads/ named with a UTC-timestamp slug (e.g. docs/threads/250522143000Z-my-feature/), or under docs/threads/archive/ if it has been archived. If the current working directory already sits inside a thread root, that is the thread. If several candidate roots exist and which one is meant is ambiguous, ASK the user — never pick by recency, sort order, or any other heuristic; which thread the user is in is a real navigation fact, not something to guess.
Location is itself a signal:
- A thread under
docs/threads/archive/is terminal from the workflow's perspective; forward work means opening a new thread, not reopening this one. - A thread in the active tree is merely unarchived. It may already have completed implementation and delivery. You may say an active thread appears ready for finish or archival, but never label it mechanically complete.
All within-thread paths below are thread-relative; branch and worktree state come from the current branch as found.