agent-team-foundation/tree

Tree — Operational Skill

This skill is the operational handbook for the tree product. If you have not yet loaded the first-tree entry-point skill, load that first — it explains what a Context Tree is and why you would use one. This skill covers how to drive the first-tree tree CLI.

When To Use This Skill

Load this skill when the task involves any of:

• Running a first-tree tree <command> subcommand
• Onboarding a repo, a shared tree, or a workspace root to a Context Tree
• Writing or verifying NODE.md files, soft_links, or ownership frontmatter
• Publishing a tree repo to GitHub or refreshing bound source/workspace repos
• Wiring Context Tree CI (CODEOWNERS, PR review, SessionStart hooks)

Core Concepts

The tree CLI centers on three concepts:

• source / workspace root — a repo (or a workspace of repos) whose work should consult a Context Tree
• tree repo — the repository that stores the NODE.md + leaf-node files
• binding — the relationship that wires a source/workspace root to a specific tree repo

Most commands accept or classify one of these three shapes.

Default Onboarding Workflow

1. Run first-tree tree inspect --json.
2. Run first-tree tree init — it handles both cases:
   • no existing tree → creates a sibling tree and binds it
   • existing tree → pass --tree-path <path> or --tree-url <url> and it binds
3. If the current root is a workspace, pass --scope workspace. init syncs currently discovered child repos by default; rerun first-tree tree workspace sync after adding new repos.

init internally delegates to bind (and to bootstrap when scaffolding a new tree), installs the bundled first-tree skill in both the source and the tree repo, and refreshes binding metadata in both locations. Use bind directly only when you need explicit --mode control (e.g. workspace-member binds).

CLI Commands

Primary (start here)

| Command | Purpose | |---|---| | first-tree tree inspect | Classify the current folder and report bindings / child repos | | first-tree tree status | Alias for inspect (human-friendly name) | | first-tree tree init | Onboard a repo or workspace — creates a new tree, or binds to an existing one when given --tree-path / --tree-url | | first-tree tree verify | Validate a tree repo: frontmatter, owners, soft_links, members, progress | | first-tree tree upgrade | Refresh the installed skill payloads or tree metadata from the bundled package | | first-tree tree publish | Publish a tree repo to GitHub and refresh locally bound source/workspace repos |

Advanced (agent / power-user)

These are primitives init composes, plus CI helpers and member-management utilities. Reach for them only when the primary commands don't cover the case.

| Command | Purpose | |---|---| | first-tree tree bootstrap | Low-level tree-repo bootstrap for an explicit tree checkout. Use when the current repo itself is the tree (--here) or when init's scaffolding default is wrong. | | first-tree tree bind | Lower-level primitive used by init --tree-path. Exposes --mode standalone-source / shared-source / workspace-root / workspace-member that init normally infers. | | first-tree tree integrate | Install the first-tree skill + source-integration block in the current repo without touching any tree repo. | | first-tree tree workspace sync | Bind newly added child repos to the shared tree, or rerun the workspace-member binding step manually. init --scope workspace already syncs currently discovered repos by default. | | first-tree tree review | CI helper: run Claude Code PR review against tree changes | | first-tree tree generate-codeowners | Regenerate .github/CODEOWNERS from tree ownership | | first-tree tree inject-context | Output a Claude Code SessionStart hook payload from NODE.md | | first-tree tree invite | Invite a new member to the Context Tree (human, personal_assistant, or autonomous_agent) | | first-tree tree join | Accept an invite and join a Context Tree | | first-tree tree help onboarding | Show the onboarding narrative |

For full options on any command, run first-tree tree <command> --help.

Recommended Invocation

npx first-tree tree <command>

This is the recommended human-facing one-off invocation. The CLI auto-checks for updates on every invocation; pass --skip-version-check to suppress the check for latency-sensitive callers like SessionStart hooks.

To refresh source/workspace integration or tree metadata from the current package:

npx first-tree tree upgrade

If you only need to wipe and reinstall the four shipped skill payloads under .agents/skills/* and .claude/skills/*, use npx first-tree skill upgrade instead.

Ownership

• Every directory has a NODE.md declaring owners in its frontmatter.
• Empty owners: [] inherits from the parent.
• owners: [*] means anyone may edit.
• Otherwise only the listed owners may approve changes.

Ownership model and node-naming rules: see the ownership-and-naming.md reference in the first-tree entry-point skill.

Related Skills

• first-tree — entry-point skill: methodology, references, and routing between product skills. Load this first.
• breeze — load if the task involves the breeze daemon or notifications.
• gardener — load if the task involves any tree-maintenance runtime: drift sync (gardener sync), verdict comments on source-repo PRs (gardener comment), or responses to sync-PR review feedback (gardener respond).