/precap — the recap written before the work

A precap is a recap from the future. You imagine the task is completely done, then write the account of the work it took and the end result, in past tense, as concretely as a real recap. Long-running agents lose the thread: context compacts, subtasks multiply, a detour starts to look like the task. A precap gives your future self a fixed reference to compare against. It does not predict the future; it records the imagined path, concretely enough that leaving it is detectable and revising it is explicit.

The difference between a precap and an educated guess is investigation. Every step in the path must point at something real in the repo, plan, or history. A step with no grounding is a hope.

Modes

• write (default): no precap.md for this task yet. Investigate, imagine, write, validate.
• check: a precap exists and work is under way. Compare reality against it and report.
• revise: reality diverged. Amend the precap without erasing what was imagined.