Godmode

Outcome

Establish what is true now, choose one bounded workflow, and leave locally verifiable continuity without placing operational memory in tracked project files.

Entry: one path

1. If the session hooks already delivered a brief (identity, last checkpoint, open obligations, standing laws, the host's enforcement table), that IS the entry: consume it. Do not run context status, resume or session open again for what it gave.
2. Run a verb only for what is missing or task-specific: resume --refresh after a compaction, a branch switch or an identity-drift finding; session open when no brief arrived (a host whose reach is not HARD, read from hooks status); context status --scan when filesystem drift matters; charter when the project's rules changed.
3. The CLI is the bundled scripts/godmode.py under the plugin root ($GROK_PLUGIN_ROOT, else $CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT, else two levels above this file), called through <plugin-root>/bin/godmode (bin\godmode.cmd on Windows); it probes python3, python, py and honours GODMODE_PYTHON. Never write a bare python into a command.
4. Separate observed facts, declared intent, assumptions, conflicts and open obligations, then route to the narrowest specialist below.

On a host whose reach is PARTIAL or SOFT, the path is six verbs: init once, session open, resume, remember, claim, checkpoint; stage a protected operation with authorize stage before it. On Grok a brief rides the next allowed call and a refusal reaches the model after the call; both are advisories.

Routing

• Use godmode-continuity for session recovery, inventory drift, checkpoints, handoffs, decisions, fixed invariants, or missing context.
• Use godmode-investigation for bugs, failures, regressions, evidence gathering, root-cause work, or repeated unsuccessful attempts.
• Use godmode-governance before Git history changes, branch/worktree mutation, database changes, releases, deployments, destructive filesystem work, or external writes.
• Use godmode-repair when the operator says an answer did not land, asks for clarity, repeats a question, or asks what is being waited on.
• Use godmode-skill-forge only after a repeated reusable capability gap is proven.
• Use godmode-second-look to independently recheck a change, session, PR, or diff that already carries an accepted claim or verdict, before it is relied on.
• Use godmode-changelog to check the changelog-fragment gate, merge fragments for a version, and build and check that version's release notes.
• Use godmode-code-of-law at the start of every session and before every new task, when GODMODE-CODE-OF-LAW.md exists at the project root.
• Use godmode-host-sync to check whether every installed host still has the hooks wired and to reconcile a drifted or newly detected host's manifest.
• Use godmode-codegraph to rebuild or read the local code dependency graph: blast radius of a change, who calls a symbol, which tests a change must retest.
• Use godmode-skill-eval to score a skill's routing and behaviour against its baseline and to ratchet a regression rather than write it into the snapshot.
• Use godmode-spec-lifecycle to take a spec from draft through review, reconciliation and approval without approving its own plan or hand-editing the compiled law.
• Use godmode-memory-gardener at session close to list duplicate or contradicting lessons, preview expiry before it runs, and promote a ripe lesson with a cited rationale.
• Use godmode-impact-gate before committing a multi-module edit: fan-out, import direction, fence and paired artifacts, with a recorded decision as the escape hatch.
• Use godmode-research to survey an outside codebase: licence first, receipted source reads, and both verdicts, never adopt or extend from a surface read.
• Use godmode-replicate to rebuild a studied mechanism under Godmode names, pinned by a test proven able to fail and cited on its host row.
• Use godmode-evidence when a claim keeps being downgraded or cited evidence drifted: exit-bearing cites, falsifiers, stale-citation repair, one resolution.
• Use godmode-triage to work open asks down to closed, promoted, mapped or parked.
• Use godmode-loop-warden to cap a fix-and-retry cycle and cut it off when it repeats.
• Use godmode-budget to check a session's or a release's spend against its ceilings.
• Use godmode-ci to run CI's checks locally in CI's order before a PR, by shard.

Do not invoke every specialist. One specialist owns each overlapping capability; use a second only when the request genuinely crosses its boundary.

Working contract

Before editing, state the active objective, relevant repository identity, current evidence, unresolved conflict, material assumption, and next safe action. Inspect before mutating. Preserve unrelated user changes. Keep the implementation surface as small as the complete solution allows.

Before reporting completion, run fresh verification that directly proves the claim. Then record a checkpoint with evidence and remaining obligations. Never convert a passing test, agent report, or plausible inference into a broader claim than it proves.

Privacy boundary

Never submit prompts, transcripts, source bodies, credentials, environment dumps, or private instructions to the archive. Store structured facts, hashes, relative paths, statuses, and evidence references only. Godmode is on demand: do not start a watcher, listener, proxy, daemon, update ping, or background process.

Enforcement honesty

Before saying that "the gate blocked" a tool, read hooks status. HARD means the host called the hook and a live deny was chronicled. PARTIAL, DEGRADED, SOFT or UNAVAILABLE means the host is not proven to call the hook: say that the CLI refused, or that the preview would refuse, and never that the host stopped the tool.

Closing

Close substantive work through session close once. An unattested HARD rule, an uncited claim, a half-done pair, a regression (a step green earlier this session and red since), or a declared perimeter check that never ran (perimeter add|run) blocks it. A check already run on this HEAD this hour is evidence: claim --verify reuses its attestation instead of running it again. config check, roles and operator validate declared configuration; locale check validates translated guidance.

Read godmode-command-surface.md only when the requested operation needs exact CLI syntax. On a host with no godmode hook support, read godmode-generic-adapter.md for the manual wiring path.