agentic-cookbook/cookbook-start

Cookbook Start v2.0.0

Startup

First action: If $ARGUMENTS is --version, print cookbook-start v2.0.0 and stop — do not run the skill.

Otherwise, print cookbook-start v2.0.0 as the first line of output, then proceed.

Version check: Read ${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/SKILL.md from disk and extract the version: field from frontmatter. If it differs from this skill's version (1.0.0), print:

⚠ This skill is running v2.0.0 but vA.B.C is installed. Restart the session to use the latest version.

Continue running — do not stop.

Overview

Initialize a pipeline session for iterating through the cookbook's 38 guideline concerns one at a time. This creates a state file on disk so progress is tracked between invocations and sessions.

Usage

/cookbook-start planning <task description>
/cookbook-start implementation <task description>

The first argument MUST be planning or implementation. Everything after it is the task description.

If no arguments are provided, ask the user:

1. Phase: planning or implementation?
2. What is the task?

Step 1: Validate Arguments

Parse $ARGUMENTS:

• First word: phase (planning or implementation)
• Remaining words: task description

If the phase is not planning or implementation, print: "Phase must be 'planning' or 'implementation'." and stop.

If no task description is provided, ask the user: "What task are you planning/implementing?"

Step 2: Check for Existing Pipeline

Check if .cookbook/pipeline.json exists.

If it exists, read it and print:

⚠ An existing pipeline was found:
  Phase: <phase>
  Task: <task description>
  Progress: step <current_step> of <total_steps>
  Completed: <N> applicable, <M> N/A

Resume the existing pipeline with /cookbook-next, or continue to overwrite it.
Overwrite? (yes/no)

If the user says no, stop. If yes, continue.

Step 3: Load Concern Count

Read ../agentic-cookbook/workflows/pipeline-concerns.json. If the file does not exist, print: "Pipeline concerns file not found at ../agentic-cookbook/workflows/pipeline-concerns.json. Is the cookbook repo available?" and stop.

Count the total number of entries.

Step 4: Determine Step Range

Planning phase: All 38 steps (1–38).

Implementation phase: Check if a completed planning pipeline exists (.cookbook/pipeline.json with phase planning and current_step > total_steps). If it does:

• Extract only the steps marked as applicable from the planning results
• These become the implementation steps
• Print: "Loaded <N> applicable concerns from the completed planning session."

If no completed planning session exists:

• Ask the user: "No completed planning session found. Run all 38 steps, or provide a list of step numbers to review?"
• If the user provides step numbers, use those
• Otherwise, use all 38

Step 5: Create Pipeline State

Write .cookbook/pipeline.json:

{
  "phase": "<planning|implementation>",
  "current_step": 1,
  "total_steps": <N>,
  "steps": [<list of step numbers to process>],
  "task_description": "<what the user described>",
  "started": "<ISO 8601 timestamp>",
  "results": []
}

For planning, steps is [1, 2, 3, ..., 38]. For implementation with a completed plan, steps contains only the applicable step numbers.

Step 6: Print Summary

=== Cookbook Pipeline Started ===
Phase: <planning|implementation>
Task: <task description>
Steps: <N> concerns to evaluate
State: .cookbook/pipeline.json

Run /cookbook-next to begin step 1.

Core Engineering (steps 1–15): always apply
Testing (steps 16–22): always apply
Opt-in Concerns (steps 23–38): ask per concern

Guards

• Do not modify any files in ../agentic-cookbook/. Only read from it.
• Do not start evaluating concerns. This skill only initializes the pipeline. /cookbook-next does the evaluation.
• Do not read guideline files. The pipeline skills load one file per step — not here.