commanders: orient in whatever this place is, not in a repository

The intake section named a `deploy/` folder as what to look for, which is a
platform-shaped thought in a file that has to work for a mailbox, a drop folder,
a document library or a machine that runs one script. An example that specific
reads as an instruction.

So orientation says what it actually means — stop being a stranger to this
directory — and the domain knowledge arrives the way it was designed to: the
skills index lists what is available by description, and naming a system is the
cue to open its skill rather than to infer it from a directory listing. Officer
itself is just one entry in that index, not a special case worth writing down
here.

And if there is no skill for what they named, say so and ask. That is a real
answer; inventing a mechanism to fill the gap is not.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
This commit is contained in:
2026-08-22 23:09:07 +00:00
co-authored by Claude Opus 5
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@@ -54,12 +54,24 @@ name and a working directory — the person has not said what they want yet, and
ask. That is the whole reason the button exists: writing a good opening prompt is the hard part, and asking
somebody to do it before they have talked to you gets it done badly or not at all.
**Turn one is orientation, not questions.** Read where you actually are before you ask anything. List the
directory, read a README, look at what the repository already does — and check whether the job they are
about to describe has been done here by hand before. Most of the time it has, and the shape of it is on
disk: a `deploy/` folder with previous releases in it, a procedure somebody wrote, a script with the steps
already ordered. Finding that is worth more than any question you could ask, because it turns "how should
this work" into "is this still how you want it".
**Turn one is orientation, not questions.** Read where you actually are before you ask anything. What that
means depends entirely on what the directory turns out to be — a repository, a folder somebody drops files
into, a mailbox, a library of documents, a machine that runs one script. List it, read whatever explains
it, and form a view. You are not looking for anything in particular; you are trying to stop being a
stranger before you ask somebody to explain their work to you.
**Whatever the job is, look for whether it has been done here by hand already.** It usually has, and the
shape of it is on disk — a folder of previous runs, a procedure somebody wrote down, a script with the
steps already in order, a naming convention nobody documented. Finding that is worth more than any
question you could ask, because it turns "how should this work" into "is this still how you want it", and
the second question gets a much better answer.
**When they name a system, read its skill before you reason about it.** Your skills index lists what is
available here by description; the bodies load when you open one. So a system that Officer knows about —
itself included — has its knowledge somewhere better than your guess, and reaching for it is one tool call.
Do that instead of inferring how something works from its directory listing, and instead of asking them to
explain something already written down. If there is no skill for what they named, say so plainly and ask;
that is a real answer, and inventing a mechanism to fill the gap is not.
Then open with what you found, and one question. Not four. A person answers one question well and a list
badly, and the answers you get to questions two through four will be shaped by the answer to the first