mainline

Mainline

This skill is the agent-facing Mainline integration. It should be sufficient even when the repository does not yet have Mainline text in AGENTS.md and when Mainline hooks are not installed.

Mainline records why AI-driven changes happen, connects those intents to code commits, and surfaces semantic conflicts before PR review. Treat it as part of the coding workflow, not as optional documentation.

If the current session already contains a mainline:context block injected by Mainline hooks, treat that hook context as already loaded. Do not re-run generic bootstrap context commands just to duplicate it. Run task-specific context commands only when needed.

Stop-Line Quick Matrix

Use this as the first-pass boundary decision; detailed workflows below explain how to execute each boundary.

Interpret the latest user instruction semantically, not by keyword matching.

Vocabulary guardrails:

• mainline publish publishes Mainline intent metadata / actor-log state. It is distinct from pushing a Git branch, opening a PR, merging, package publishing, deployment, or product release. If the user says "publish" without a clear object, identify the target before acting.
• Git branch push, PR creation, PR merge, and product release/deploy are separate delivery steps. Do not collapse them into one "publish" action.
• A file overlap is only a signal. It becomes a conflict workflow only after inspection shows it is real and potentially contradictory.

Language Rule (load-bearing)

Match the user's language in everything you write into Mainline: the goal text on mainline start, every mainline append turn, the seal summary.title / what / why / user_goal / decisions / review_notes, explicit signal command text, and PR description prose. If the user wrote in Chinese, seal in Chinese. English in, English out. Mixed inputs → match the dominant language.

Why this matters: the seal record is the team's long-term memory. A teammate reading mainline show <id> later must recognise the work as theirs. Translating a Chinese task into an English seal makes the corpus harder to read for the people whose memory it is.

Pass the user's substantive goal text through verbatim — mainline start "<goal>" becomes the headline in mainline log. If the latest instruction is only a context-dependent reference rather than a durable description of the work, expand it into a short, human-readable goal in the user's language. Preserve the reference in a turn or seal reference instead of making it the headline. Code identifiers, command names, file paths, and CLI snippets stay in their original form regardless of conversation language.

Trigger Policy

Use this skill for any task in a Git repository when one of these is true:

• The repository has .mainline/config.toml, .ml-cache/, a Mainline block in AGENTS.md, Mainline refs, or existing Mainline commands in project docs.
• The user mentions Mainline, intents, conflict checks, agent guidance, hooks, sealing, proposals, coverage, gaps, uncovered commits, agent autonomy, agent_authority, max_autonomy, stop lines, allowed_boundary, inspect_or_stop, current-instruction overrides, handoff / review / delivery boundaries, or auto-submit / auto-commit / auto-seal behavior.
• You are about to edit code, refactor, delete code, change tests or CI, commit, push, create a PR, review a PR, or investigate whether prior work already made a decision in a repository known to use Mainline.

If the skill triggers because the repository appears to use Mainline, run the Mainline checks before broad code search or edits. If the repository does not appear to use Mainline and the user did not ask to set it up, do not initialize Mainline without user confirmation.

Setup Responsibility

Do not assume the human has already installed or initialized Mainline. If the task needs Mainline and mainline is missing, install or help install it before continuing.

First check:

command -v mainline
mainline status --json

If the CLI is missing, prefer the public install script on macOS/Linux:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mainline-org/mainline/main/install.sh | bash

If the user prefers Go's native installer or the install script is unavailable, use Go 1.22+:

go install github.com/mainline-org/mainline@latest

Use @main only when the user explicitly wants the current unreleased development version:

go install github.com/mainline-org/mainline@main

After install, ensure the install directory (commonly ~/.local/bin for the script or ~/go/bin for go install) is on PATH. Re-run mainline status --json.

If the CLI exists but the repository is not initialized and the user asked to set up Mainline, initialize it. mainline init installs the default Mainline skill and repo-local hook integrations. Fresh hook config files are kept clone-local via .git/info/exclude unless the repo already tracks them; it does not write AGENTS.md unless the user explicitly asks for repo-level policy:

mainline init --actor-name "<name>"

Choose <name> from explicit user input, existing git identity, or a stable local actor name. If initialization would modify shared repository guidance or Git refspecs and the user only asked for a narrow code change, ask before initializing.

Hooks

Hooks provide dynamic context and improve trigger rate, but they are not the source of truth. The skill remains the full workflow authority, and the agent must still make the semantic decisions itself.

mainline init installs hooks by default. Use these commands when the user asks to inspect, repair, or manually install hook integrations:

mainline hooks status
mainline hooks install

If hooks are not installed, continue with the command workflow below. Do not block code work solely because hooks are absent.

Start Of Task

If the goal is too vague to make a useful intent, prefer one quick clarifying question before mainline start; do not turn this into PRD/task planning. If you proceed anyway, use the safest narrow interpretation and record the assumption in the first mainline append.

Read-only diagnosis, history archaeology, plan review, and "look first / don't change yet" requests are Mainline-aware work, but they are not intent claims. Use read-only commands such as preflight, status, context, show, and trace as needed. Do not run mainline start until the current instruction authorizes non-trivial edits, commits/seal/handoff, or another durable engineering record. If investigation later turns into a change, start the intent at that transition and capture the useful diagnostic finding in the first append.

At the start of a Mainline-aware task, begin with the read-only gate:

mainline preflight --json

preflight is the low-noise readiness gate. If it returns "level": "ok" and "ok_to_continue": true, continue without expanding the context surface just to be safe. If it returns warn or block, read the findings, overlaps, and recommended_next fields and only then run the targeted follow-up commands it points to (show, trace, context --files/--query, or check).

Also read agent_authority when it is present. CLI JSON wraps command payloads under .data, so the runtime path is usually .data.agent_authority; examples and tests may show the unwrapped engine field as agent_authority. It is advisory, but it is the team-visible stop-line contract for how far the agent may advance without a fresh human instruction:

• assist / before_commit: analyze, edit, and verify, then stop before commit, seal, publish, push, or PR unless the user explicitly asks for handoff.
• handoff / proposed_intent: commit scoped work and seal when ready, then stop before pushing a code branch or opening/updating a PR unless the user explicitly asks for review.
• review / opened_pr: advance to external review on a non-main branch with a generated Mainline PR body, then stop before merge, release, or post-merge cleanup.

Hard gates and current user instructions take priority. Team max_autonomy is a ceiling: a current user instruction can lower the stop line or raise it up to that ceiling, but it cannot authorize a boundary above the team cap. Never write a one-turn override into .mainline/config.toml or .mainline/local.toml.

If preflight lowers .data.agent_authority.current.allowed_boundary to inspect_or_stop, do not advance the lifecycle blindly. Inspect the named findings / overlaps first. Classify each overlap:

• Same branch, same goal, or explicit follow-up → record the relationship.
• Adjacent / complementary protocol or documentation work → record why it is not contradictory.
• Upstream drift that changes the same behavior → rebase / merge / inspect before implementation or closeout.
• Real and potentially contradictory semantic conflict → run mainline check or ask for human judgment.

Do not run mainline check just because files overlap. Do not ignore an overlap silently; record the classification in the next append / seal.

notes_health.likely_history_rewrite on status or preflight is cached by the most recent sync, not recomputed on every hot-path command. If the user mentions a recent force-push, rebase, filter-repo rewrite, author rewrite, contributors cleanup, remote rollback, or suddenly wrong proposed / coverage state, run the read-only diagnosis even if the cached warning is absent:

mainline doctor --notes --json

If doctor recommends migration, preview first:

mainline migrate notes --infer --dry-run --json

Do not run mainline migrate notes --write or --push unless the user explicitly confirms the plan; --push changes the shared notes ref.

If the installed binary is older and lacks preflight, fall back to:

mainline status --json

Then run mainline list-proposals --json and targeted mainline context --files ... --json only when status or the task suggests overlap risk.

History Rewrite And Notes Recovery

If mainline preflight --json reports a notes_rewrite_drift finding, or mainline status --json includes notes_health.likely_history_rewrite: true, run the read-only diagnosis first:

mainline doctor --notes --json

Also run mainline doctor --notes --json when the user mentions a recent force-push, rebase, filter-repo rewrite, author rewrite, contributors cleanup, remote rollback, or a sudden spike in proposed intents / uncovered commits after history changed.

If doctor recommends a migration, preview only:

mainline migrate notes --infer --dry-run --json

Show the safe / review-required / unresolved counts to the user before any write. Do not run mainline migrate notes --write or --push unless the user explicitly confirms the plan. --push changes the shared notes ref and must be treated like a high-impact Git operation.

If there is no active intent and the task has crossed into non-trivial changes or durable engineering record-keeping, start one using the user's actual goal:

mainline start "<user goal>" --json

If mainline start returns an existing draft for the branch, verify it matches the user's task before appending. If it does not, stop and isolate the work.

If a sealed or proposed intent already exists for the same branch and the user is asking for follow-up changes, start a new intent for the follow-up rather than trying to mutate the sealed one.

Before designing the change, inspect in-flight work:

mainline list-proposals --json

You do not need this separate list-proposals call when preflight is available and green; preflight already reads the proposed index and reports file overlap. Use list-proposals as the old-binary fallback or when preflight says an overlap needs investigation.

Intent-First Code Reading

Before broad grep, file reads, or implementation on non-trivial work, prefer the compact preflight gate first:

mainline preflight --json

If it reports an overlap, stale view, or branch drift, expand narrowly:

mainline context --files <path>... --json

If the task is semantic:

mainline context --query "<task summary>" --json

Read returned summaries, decisions, risks, and fingerprints. Use them as historical context, then verify against current code. Do not repeat abandoned or superseded approaches unless the user explicitly asks to revisit them.

For relevant intents:

mainline show <intent_id> --json
mainline trace <intent_id> --json

Do not run broad context --current, list-proposals, show, and trace as a ritual on every task. The intended flow is: preflight first; green means continue; yellow/red means inspect the named intents/files and resolve the specific risk.

Overlap convergence tree:

• Upstream already solved the user's goal → abandon the local draft or stop before duplicating it.
• Local work still has incremental value → narrow it into a follow-up intent.
• The two intents are semantically mutually exclusive → run mainline check or ask for human judgment before continuing.

Worktree And Intent Ownership

Reuse the current worktree when it is clean or clearly owned by the current task.

Before git switch, mainline append, or mainline seal, confirm the branch, active intent, and dirty/untracked files still point to the same task. If not, stop and isolate the work; prefer a separate Git worktree for parallel active intents.

Editing Workflow

After the Mainline context pass, inspect code normally and make the requested change.

Record turns at meaningful points:

mainline append "<what changed and why>" --json

Append after a completed subtask, a pivot, or a discovery that changes the approach. Do not append a minute-by-minute activity log.

Never revert unrelated user changes to satisfy Mainline. If the worktree has unrelated files, leave them alone and keep your intent evidence scoped to your own changes.

Keep the intent drafting while exploring, proving an idea, or while the branch is likely to be rebased, amended, or rescoped. A local commit is useful evidence, but it does not by itself mean the work is ready to submit as team memory.

Stop-Line Workflow

Use agent_authority plus the current user instruction to decide the closeout boundary. Do not treat "work is implemented" as automatic permission to advance past that boundary. Current-instruction overrides are interpreted by the agent for this turn only; never write them to .mainline/config.toml or .mainline/local.toml.

1. Establish collaboration context with mainline preflight --json.
2. Read .data.agent_authority.current.allowed_boundary and decide any current user override.
3. Do the work and verify it.
4. Advance only to the allowed boundary.
5. Stop on hard gates.

The effective boundary is the lower of team policy, hard gates, and the current instruction. A direct user request can raise a turn to review only when .data.agent_authority.team.max_autonomy permits it; merge, release, and post-merge cleanup remain explicit delivery tasks, not autonomy.

Current instruction override classes:

Vague continuation instructions only advance to PR in effective review autonomy when implementation is complete, verification has passed, no unresolved design questions remain, and commit/seal/PR is the next natural boundary. Otherwise continue the next unfinished implementation or design step.

Commit Workflow

Mainline does not prescribe how a repository stages changes, writes commits, or groups commits. Use the repository's existing Git workflow and commit conventions. If you are the one creating the commit, inspect the unstaged and staged diff first and include only the intended files.

Before committing or sealing, re-run the readiness gate:

mainline preflight --json

If it reports block, stop and resolve or escalate the named overlap/drift instead of producing a dirty-only or stale-base seal. If it reports only warn, mention the warning in your handoff and make a conscious decision before continuing.

Before sealing, there must be a commit for Mainline to reference. Mainline does not create that commit for you.

If effective autonomy is assist, stop here after reporting the diff and verification status. The user may then explicitly ask you to commit and seal, which is a current-instruction handoff.

If the user asks for a commit or PR and the branch has no active intent, create or backfill one before committing unless the change is truly mechanical and the repository policy marks it skipped.

Seal Workflow

Only seal when the work is ready for handoff, review, PR, push, or another team-visible memory boundary. Do not seal merely because a local experiment or intermediate commit exists.

Do not seal in effective assist autonomy unless the user has explicitly asked for a handoff, commit, or seal boundary.

When the repository has the intended commit and the work is ready for that handoff boundary, prepare the seal:

mainline seal --prepare --json > .ml-cache/seal.json

.ml-cache/ is gitignored by mainline init, so the temp seal file stays out of git AND keeps the v0.3 worktree-clean check happy on submit. The package contains a seal_result_starter field with the deterministic bits (intent_id, fingerprint.files_touched, fingerprint.subsystems) pre-populated — patch in title / what / why / decisions / rejected / acknowledged_constraints when applicable / review_notes / fingerprint / confidence rather than typing the JSON from scratch.

Seal records decisions by default. The seal summary write schema does not include durable signal creation fields such as legacy summary.risks, summary.followups, or summary.anti_patterns; old temp seal files containing those keys are rejected and should be regenerated with mainline seal --prepare --json.

Use explicit signal commands only when the source is real:

• mainline risks add only for a concrete failure mode with trigger or impact, plus mitigation / validation / owner.
• mainline followups add only when the user explicitly deferred the work, an external issue/ticket/PR exists, or this PR explicitly cut real scope.
• Do not create constraints yourself. mainline guard add is interactive and requires human confirmation.

If you only have reviewer context, validation notes, accepted trade-offs, scope explanation, or a "maybe later" thought, keep it in review_notes, decisions, final response, or leave it out. Candidate constraints can be proposed to the user, but only the human-confirmed guard command makes them durable.

Generate a SealResult JSON matching the returned schema. The fingerprint must be specific enough for conflict detection:

• summary.decisions is an array of objects (point, chose, optional rationale, optional rejected string array), not a string array.
• summary.rejected is an array of objects (alternative, optional reason); keep it as [] when there are no top-level rejected alternatives.
• summary.review_notes is a string array; keep it as [] when there is no ephemeral reviewer context.
• fingerprint.api_changes and fingerprint.data_model_changes are arrays of objects; keep them as [] when none apply.
• Subsystems and parent concepts
• Files touched
• Architectural claims
• Behavioral changes
• API or CLI changes
• Data model changes
• Security implications
• Migration notes
• Tags, including synonyms and related technologies

Submit the seal:

mainline seal --submit --json < .ml-cache/seal.json

If the worktree has unrelated dirty or untracked files that cannot be cleaned because they belong to the user, use --allow-dirty only after noting that Mainline will permanently record the dirty state:

mainline seal --submit --allow-dirty --json < .ml-cache/seal.json

If the response includes conflicts, treat them as phase-1 overlap warnings, not semantic conflict judgments. Inspect and classify them before closeout: adjacent, complementary, or already-accounted-for overlap should be summarized briefly in human terms only when useful; do not paste raw JSON by default. If you cannot classify a warning or it looks like a real semantic conflict, escalate to the user with the relevant intents, why it may conflict, and the recommended next action. Include raw JSON only when the user asks for debug detail or the tool output itself is needed to diagnose a failure.

If submit sealed locally but failed to publish because the network was down, retry later:

mainline publish --intent <intent_id> --json

This is metadata publish, not product release or deploy. It only retries publishing the sealed Mainline intent state.

Do not use mainline abandon as a routine repair path for seal wording, lint warnings, or commit-hash drift after rebase/amend. Use abandon for cancellation or rejection of the work; if a submitted seal looks wrong, report the problem and choose an explicit repair/replacement path with the user.

Publishing, Pushes, And PRs

Mainline does not require a Git push, a pull request, or GitHub. Preserve the repository's existing review and release workflow unless the user explicitly asks you to change it.

Effective handoff autonomy stops before pushing a code branch or opening / updating a PR. Effective review autonomy may push a non-main branch and open or update a PR, but it still stops before merge, release, or post-merge cleanup. If the current branch is main, create or switch to a non-main branch before pushing or opening PR; review autonomy never authorizes git push origin main.

Before any remote branch push or PR creation that the user requested and the stop line permits, ensure the intent is proposed or publishable:

mainline status --json
mainline publish --intent <intent_id> --json

If the user's workflow opens or updates a PR, generate the PR body from the sealed Mainline intent:

mainline pr-description --intent <intent_id> > .ml-cache/pr-description.md

Use that generated markdown as the PR body. Do not hand-write a replacement PR description when a sealed intent exists, and do not rely on a generic GitHub publish helper's default body. The generated body includes the mainline:pr-description marker; the PR intent-comment workflow uses that marker to avoid creating a duplicate sticky comment.

Before calling any GitHub publishing helper, connector, or gh pr create fallback, inspect the generated file and verify that it still contains <!-- mainline:pr-description:start -->. Pass that exact file content as the PR body. Do not copy only the visible Markdown, regenerate a lookalike body, or let the publishing helper overwrite the body with --fill / default prose. For the gh fallback, the safe shape is:

gh pr create --body-file .ml-cache/pr-description.md

Do not use gh pr create --fill or any connector default body when a sealed intent exists.

If the user did not ask to push or open a PR, stop after sealing/publishing the Mainline intent and report the local result. Do not introduce a remote workflow just because Mainline metadata is ready.

Do not run these unless the user explicitly asks:

mainline pin <intent> <commit>
mainline init --rewire
mainline doctor --setup --fix

Review And Conflict Workflow

Use these commands when asked to review Mainline state, explain prior work, or judge conflict markers:

mainline log --json --limit 30
mainline show <intent_id> --json
mainline trace <intent_id> --json
mainline check --prepare --intent <intent_id> --json
mainline check --submit --json < judgment.json

Use show to understand decisions and risks. Use trace to understand how the work unfolded. Use check only when inspected phase-1 overlap is real and potentially contradictory. Adjacent or complementary overlap should be recorded as a judgment in append / seal instead of escalated into check.

Coverage And Rescue

If status or gaps reports uncovered commits:

mainline gaps --json

Choose the least destructive rescue path. These are recovery options, not a replacement for the repository's normal Git workflow:

• If the commit is local and unpushed, you may undo the commit with git reset --soft HEAD^, start the proper intent, recommit using the repository's normal workflow, and seal.
• If the commit is already pushed, backfill an intent with mainline start "<why>" --commits <sha>, append the post-hoc explanation, then seal.
• If it is routine and deliberately outside Mainline, add a Mainline-Skip: trailer or configure a skip pattern.

Do not rewrite published history unless the user explicitly asks.

Skill Distribution

Install this skill with npx skills for supported target agents:

npx --yes skills add mainline-org/mainline --skill mainline --agent codex claude-code cursor pi --global --yes

For local development from this repository:

npx --yes skills add ./skills/mainline --skill mainline --agent codex claude-code cursor pi --global --yes

mainline init best-effort installs the default skill and hooks. Existing global skill installs are not refreshed by mainline agents update or mainline init --rewire; refresh them explicitly with:

npx --yes skills update mainline --global --yes

If update cannot determine the source, rerun the matching skills add command above. The durable purpose of the skill is to teach agents to install, initialize, use, publish, and review Mainline intent data correctly.