North Star

Style: Mode-B-lite. Artifact-gated skill — inert unless docs/north-star.md exists.

Purpose

Keep all work aligned to the project's vision. When a project has been onboarded (docs/north-star.md exists), this skill reads it and checks that tasks, decisions, and fixes serve that vision — catching drift before it compounds. It is the canonical example of the artifact-gated pattern: ship complete, stay dormant until fed.

When to invoke

• docs/north-star.md exists AND a task / decision / fix is in progress.
• Operator says "check the north star", "is this on-vision", "does this drift".
• During Specify / Plan / Decisions / Tasks / a non-trivial fix (alongside FR-20 zoom-out).

Do not invoke when

• docs/north-star.md does NOT exist → silent no-op by default. The one narrow exception is the one-time D5 offer (step 6, at most once, only when the operator is clearly doing project work); after it fires (or is declined) stay silent. Never prompt repeatedly, never create the file. (Project simply hasn't been onboarded; that's fine.)
• Trivial mechanical edits.

Required inputs

Procedure

1. Existence gate (MANDATORY FIRST STEP). If docs/north-star.md does not exist → this skill contributes no check: skip steps 2-5. Default is silent no-op; the ONLY sanctioned output on the absence path is the one-time D5 offer (step 6). Do NOT create the file. Do NOT nag.
2. Read docs/north-star.md (vision, audience, in/out scope, success, constraints).
3. Align-check the current work: does it serve the vision; is it in-scope; does it fit the audience (internal vs client); does it respect the constraints?
4. Flag drift — via the Required output block below. If the work diverges (out-of-scope, wrong audience, against a constraint), say so plainly and recommend the on-vision alternative.
5. Ambiguity → ask the operator in chat (FR-19); do not silently reinterpret the vision.
6. Offer-once (D5) — sole absence-path output. Applies only when step 1 found no docs/north-star.md AND the operator is clearly doing project work AND no prior offer was made (if unsure whether one was, do not offer). Offer once: "No North Star is set — want to capture one (/onboard)? Or continue without." Silence or decline → permanent silent no-op for the rest of the project.

Required output — alignment verdict (3 lines)

Every activation that reaches step 3 MUST emit this block — in chat (Mode A context) and verbatim into the gate/ticket note when one is written. A north-star claim without the block is unverifiable and does not count as a check.

North-star: <On-vision | Drift | Blocked (locked-decision conflict, FR-11)>
Dimension:  <vision | scope | audience | constraint | success-metric> — <which line of docs/north-star.md, one clause>
Recommendation: <proceed | on-vision alternative in one line | question for operator (FR-19)>

On-vision still emits the block (Dimension: the strongest match; Recommendation: proceed) — silence is indistinguishable from a skipped check.

Output artifacts

Failure cases

Escalation path

• Drift vs a locked decision → stop and ask operator (FR-11/FR-19).
• Vision needs updating → project-onboarding ("update my North Star").

Anti-patterns

• Do not activate (beyond the single one-time D5 offer, step 6) or create the file when docs/north-star.md is absent.
• Do not nag every turn when unset (offer at most once — D5).
• Do not reinterpret/rewrite the vision on the operator's behalf.
• Do not block trivial work that doesn't touch the vision.

Clean-room note

Original Fusebase Flow content. See docs/source-map.md. No third-party code, prompts, or skill files copied.