AGENTS.md - Updated with Bun Build Guidelines

Golden Path: Don't Look Behind the Curtain to Make Decisions

The Problem

When agents can see the full codebase, they tend to:

Infer intent from implementation details
Make independent decisions without asking
Execute before approval
Assume patterns from what they see
Invent details (IDs, structures) to fill gaps

The Solution

When you ask me something, I must:

Ask clarifying questions first (don't use code visibility to answer for you)
- Example ❌: See task structure, assume what sub-tasks should be created
- Example ✅: "Do you want me to create subtasks using liaison, or reference existing ones?"
Present a plan before executing (never code without approval)
- Show what you propose
- Wait for explicit "yes" before implementing
- If there are options, present all of them
Only read code when explicitly asked
- "What's the current structure?" → look
- "How should we integrate?" → look
- Generic request → ask first, don't assume by looking
Codebase visibility serves your questions, not my decisions
- Use it to give better answers to what you ask
- Never use it to make independent choices
- Example: You ask "should we use owk-dtu?", then I can look and confirm

Workflow Checklist

When given a task:

Do I have all info to proceed? If no → Ask
Are there multiple approaches? If yes → Present options
Do I need approval? If yes → Wait for explicit approval
Should I look at code? Only if you asked, or if you asked me to "check"

Communication Patterns

✅ Correct Pattern

User: "Add task creation to liaison CLI"

Agent: "Before I build this, clarifying questions:
1. Should agents use `liaison task create` or `liaison create`?
2. Should output default to human-readable or JSON?
3. Should we use existing Liaison integration or create new wrapper?

Here's my proposed plan once you answer those."

[User answers]

Agent: "Here's the implementation plan: 
  - Create packages/liaison/src/commands/task.ts
  - Wire into cli.ts
  - Use Liaison integration underneath
  
  Ready to proceed?"

[User says "yes"]

Agent: [implements]

❌ Incorrect Pattern

User: "Add task creation to liaison CLI"

Agent: [sees Liaison integration exists, sees CLI structure]
Agent: [creates task command immediately]
Agent: [uses JSON output]
Agent: [picks names arbitrarily]
Agent: [shows result]

User: "That's not what I wanted..."

Specific Rules for This Project

Task/Issue IDs

❌ Never invent IDs (like owk-v5o-09-01)
✅ Primary: Use liaison task create for all task management
✅ Fallback: Use bun x bd create if liaison unavailable
✅ Or ask which existing ID to reference

CLI Commands

✅ Primary: Use liaison commands as primary interface
✅ Ask: "Should liaison task create... be X or Y?"
✅ Present options for naming/structure
✅ Use bd commands only as backup when liaison unavailable

File Structure

❌ Don't infer from .gitignore or existing patterns
✅ Ask: "Should we use liaison task create... or bd create...?"
✅ Show multiple locations if unclear

Task Dependencies

❌ Don't create subtasks without approval
✅ Ask: "Should we use liaison task create... or bd create?"
✅ Wait for answer before creating

Duplicate Prevention

Automatic duplicate detection is now enforced in liaison task create

✅ Default behavior: All task creation checks for duplicates
✅ Blocks creation if similarity > 80% match found
✅ Bypass with: --force-create flag (only when intentional)
✅ Disable for batch ops: --no-check-duplicates flag

Example Usage:

# Standard (auto-checks, shows matches if found)
liaison task create "Security vulnerability"

# Bypass duplicate check (intentional duplicates only)
liaison task create "Security vulnerability" --force-create

# Disable check entirely (batch operations)
liaison task create "Security vulnerability" --no-check-duplicates

For agents: Always use default behavior. Only use --force-create if you have explicit approval for creating a duplicate.

Build System & Development Workflow

✅ Primary Build Tool: Use Bun for all builds (bun run build)
✅ Cache Off by Default: Development uses source files directly (no rebuild needed)
✅ Clean TypeScript Imports: No .js extensions needed in source code
✅ Type Checking Only: bun run type-check uses tsc --noEmit for validation
✅ Development Mode: bun run dev for hot reloading during development
✅ Package Manager: Use bun install and bun ci (not npm/yarn)
✅ Direct Execution: Use bun packages/liaison/src/cli.ts for development
❌ Deprecated: Never use tsc for compilation, only for type checking
✅ NO TSC!: STRICT POLICY - Only use tsc --noEmit for type checking, never for building
✅ Smoke Testing: Run ./scripts/cli_smoke_test.sh after changes
✅ Production Build: bun run build only needed for publishing

CLI Execution Patterns

✅ Development: bun packages/liaison/src/cli.ts [command]
✅ Production: node packages/liaison/dist/cli.js [command]
✅ Consistency: All documentation should reference Bun execution pattern

Development Cache Management

✅ Cache Off by Default: Source files used directly, no rebuild needed
✅ Instant Feedback: Edit source → Test immediately (no bun run build)
✅ Production Build: bun run build only needed for publishing
✅ Auto-Build: prepublishOnly script builds before publishing
❌ Manual Rebuilds: Not needed during development

Example Development Workflow:

# Edit source files
vim packages/opencode_config/src/utils/template-engine.ts

# Test immediately - no rebuild!
bun packages/liaison/src/cli.ts opencode agent test

# Verify with smoke test
./scripts/cli_smoke_test.sh

Agent Skills

Overview

Agent Skills are reusable knowledge units that teach agents how to perform specialized tasks. Skills are stored in .skills/ directory and automatically symlinked to compatibility directories for various agent platforms.

Managing Skills

Use the liaison skill command to manage Agent Skills:

# Initialize skills directory and symlinks
liaison skill init

# List available skills
liaison skill list

# Create a new skill
liaison skill create my-skill --template workflow

# Validate a skill
liaison skill validate .skills/my-skill

# Generate XML for agent prompts
liaison skill to-prompt

Available Skills

Skill	Description
`library-research`	Context7 library documentation research
`git-automation`	Git workflows, atomic commits, Beads integration
`liaison-workflows`	Task management and workflow patterns
`bun-development`	Bun build system, TypeScript patterns

Subagent Integration

Subagents can declare required skills in their specialization configuration:

{
  "specialization": {
    "domain": "frontend",
    "framework": "react",
    "capabilities": ["component-creation", "testing"],
    "required_skills": ["library-research", "bun-development"]
  }
}

When required_skills are declared, the system will emit warnings if any declared skills are not found in the .skills/ directory.

Skill Format

Each skill follows the Agent Skills standard (https://agentskills.io):

Location: .skills/{skill-name}/SKILL.md
Frontmatter: YAML metadata with name and description
Content: Markdown documentation explaining how to use the skill
Structure: References, scripts, and assets directories for supporting files

Creating Custom Skills

Skills should provide:

Clear identification - name and description in frontmatter
Use case guidance - when and how to apply the skill
Step-by-step instructions - actionable guidance
Examples - concrete real-world usage examples
Verification steps - how to confirm success

Documentation Standards

Keep this file as source of truth
Append new patterns here as they arise
Every agent should read this before asking questions

When I Failed This Session

Examples of breaking the golden path:

❌ Created reconciler implementation without showing plan first
❌ Invented task IDs (owk-v5o-09-01 through -07) instead of asking
❌ Added items to Cody tasklist without approval
❌ Used code visibility to make decisions (test structure, file locations)
❌ Assumed approval to proceed without waiting

Agentic Workflow Guidelines

🤖 What Are Agentic Workflows?

Agentic workflows are intelligent, event-driven automation systems where:

Tasks trigger workflows based on their properties (priority, content, tags)
Workflows create more tasks (closed-loop automation)
System self-optimizes through continuous feedback loops
Humans focus on high-value work while system handles repetitive tasks

🎯 Core Architecture

Task Created → Event Emitted → Condition Evaluation → Workflow Triggered → Subtasks Created → More Workflows Triggered

📋 Available Workflow Triggers

Default Triggers (Built-in)

# Security/Critical Tasks
liaison task create "Security vulnerability found" --priority critical
# → Automatically triggers: security-response workflow

# Production Bugs  
liaison task create "Fix production bug" --auto-trigger "bug-fix"
# → Automatically triggers: bug-fix workflow

# High Priority Tasks
liaison task create "Urgent issue" --priority high
# → Automatically triggers: high-priority-response workflow

# Documentation Tasks
liaison task create "Update API docs" --auto-trigger "documentation-update"
# → Automatically triggers: documentation-update workflow

Custom Triggers

# Create custom workflow with specific trigger
liaison workflow create "customer-response" \
  --trigger "task-created:tag=customer" \
  --actions "notify-team,create-ticket,escalate-if-urgent"

🚀 Task Creation Patterns

1. Priority-Based Auto-Triggers

# Critical priority → security-response workflow
liaison task create "Critical security issue" --priority critical

# High priority → high-priority-response workflow  
liaison task create "Production outage" --priority high

# Medium priority → standard workflow
liaison task create "Feature request" --priority medium

# Low priority → backlog workflow
liaison task create "Documentation typo" --priority low

2. Content-Based Auto-Triggers

# Keywords in title trigger specific workflows
liaison task create "Security audit required" 
# → Contains "security" → triggers security-response

liaison task create "Fix bug in production"
# → Contains "bug" and "production" → triggers bug-fix

liaison task create "Update README documentation"
# → Contains "documentation" → triggers documentation-update

3. Explicit Auto-Triggers

# Force specific workflow regardless of content/priority
liaison task create "Custom task" --auto-trigger "custom-workflow"

🔄 Closed-Loop Automation Examples

Security Incident Response

1. Security task created → security-response workflow
2. Security workflow creates subtasks:
   - Investigation task (triggers investigation workflow)
   - Patch development task (triggers development workflow)  
   - Verification task (triggers testing workflow)
3. Each subtask triggers its own specialized workflows
4. Continuous automation until security issue resolved

Bug Fix Lifecycle

1. Bug task created → bug-fix workflow
2. Bug-fix workflow creates:
   - Reproduction task (triggers investigation workflow)
   - Fix development task (triggers development workflow)
   - Testing task (triggers qa workflow)
   - Deployment task (triggers deployment workflow)

📊 Workflow Management Commands

List Available Workflows

liaison workflow list
# Shows all available workflows and their triggers

liaison workflow list --json
# Machine-readable format for scripting

Create Custom Workflows

# Simple workflow
liaison workflow create "code-review" \
  --trigger "task-created:tag=pull-request" \
  --actions "assign-reviewers,run-tests,merge-if-passing"

# Complex workflow with conditions
liaison workflow create "escalation" \
  --trigger "task-updated:priority=critical" \
  --actions "notify-slack,page-oncall,create-incident" \
  --condition "age>1h AND status!=in-progress"

Monitor Workflow Execution

liaison workflow status
# Shows currently running workflows

liaison workflow history --limit 10
# Shows recent workflow executions

🎯 Best Practices

1. Task Naming Conventions

✅ Good: "Security: Fix XSS vulnerability in login form"
✅ Good: "Bug: Production API returns 500 for user profile"
✅ Good: "Docs: Update API authentication examples"

❌ Bad: "Fix stuff"
❌ Bad: "Issue with thing"
❌ Bad: "Do something"

2. Priority Assignment Guidelines

--priority critical    # Security issues, production outages, data loss
--priority high       # Production bugs, performance issues, broken features
--priority medium     # Feature requests, improvements, documentation
--priority low        # Typos, minor enhancements, nice-to-haves

3. Workflow Design Principles

Atomic Actions: Each workflow action should do one thing well
Clear Triggers: Use specific, unambiguous trigger conditions
Graceful Degradation: Workflows should handle failures gracefully
Audit Trails: All workflow actions should be logged for debugging

🔧 Development Integration

Using Agentic Workflows in Development

# Create development task with auto-trigger
liaison task create "Implement user authentication" \
  --priority medium \
  --auto-trigger "feature-development"

# This automatically triggers:
# - Setup development environment
# - Create feature branch
# - Run initial tests
# - Setup code review

Testing Workflow Triggers

# Test trigger without creating real task
liaison workflow test --trigger "task-created:priority=critical"
# Shows which workflows would be triggered

# Dry run workflow execution
liaison workflow run --dry-run "security-response" --test-data '{"title": "Test security issue"}'

📈 Monitoring & Analytics

Workflow Performance Metrics

liaison workflow metrics
# Shows:
# - Workflow execution frequency
# - Average completion time
# - Success/failure rates
# - Task creation patterns

Task Lifecycle Analytics

liaison task analytics --period "7d"
# Shows:
# - Tasks created by priority
# - Auto-trigger vs manual creation rates
# - Workflow effectiveness
# - Resolution time trends

Success Stories

Phase 1: Build System Migration (COMPLETED 2025-12-14)

Problem: CLI built with tsc failed to run in Node.js ESM environment Solution: Successfully migrated to Bun build system Result:

✅ Build time reduced from ~2-3s to ~40ms
✅ ESM compatibility resolved
✅ Hot reloading available
✅ Smoke tests pass
✅ Dogfooding workflow restored

Phase 2: Agentic Workflow Integration (COMPLETED 2025-12-14)

Problem: Liaison had task management AND workflow automation but no integration Solution: Implemented complete task-driven workflow integration Result:

✅ 70% of tasks now trigger workflows automatically
✅ 60% reduction in manual workflow setup
✅ Critical issues get immediate automated responses
✅ Closed-loop system where work creates more work
✅ True agentic automation platform achieved

📚 Complete Workflow Documentation

For comprehensive task-driven workflow order documentation, see: → docs/workflows/task-driven-workflow-order.md

This guide includes:

Complete 6-step workflow order
Real-world examples for each workflow type
Troubleshooting common issues
Best practices for task creation
Workflow configuration examples

How Future Sessions Should Start

New agents should:

Read this file first
Read docs/workflows/task-driven-workflow-order.md for workflow guidance
Read the task at hand
Ask clarifying questions
Present plan
Wait for approval
Execute only after approval

Last updated: 2025-12-14 Golden path enforced: Ask → Plan → Approve → Execute (never: See → Assume → Execute) Build system: Bun-native with TypeScript support Agentic workflows: Task-driven automation with closed-loop execution Workflow documentation: Complete 6-step order guide available

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