/hunt

name: hunt
description: Compose a shift from the ready catalog under one time budget, guided or automatic, reviewed first or run directly.
license: MIT

Compose a shift for the host-opened project: settle the work, the ending, and the hours, then either show it for approval or cut it and start.

Resolve the installed plugin root to an absolute `$NIGHTSHIFT_PLUGIN_ROOT` — `${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}` on Claude Code, `$PLUGIN_ROOT` on Codex when set, otherwise the absolute path this skill was attached from (`skills/hunt/SKILL.md`). Run every command below through `"$NIGHTSHIFT_PLUGIN_ROOT/runtime/ns"` — native Windows: `& "$NIGHTSHIFT_PLUGIN_ROOT\runtime\windows\ns.ps1"` in the PowerShell tool, same verbs — which resolves the host and the workspace; `ns help` lists the verbs, and `ns bind` prints the six resolved facts (`TASK_ROOT`, `NIGHTSHIFT_WORKSPACE`, `NS`, `NIGHTSHIFT_PLUGIN_ROOT`, `HOST`, `SOURCE`); `$NS` below is that `NS`. Never a bare relative path: the working directory persists between calls.

Read `$NIGHTSHIFT_PLUGIN_ROOT/skills/nightshift/references/compose/execution-modes.md` before composing: it carries the state map, who selects work, when the clock starts, direct-mode authority, the tooling policy, and how several entries become one shift. If `$NS/` does not exist yet, tell the owner to run Setup, then return.

0. Read the sentence first

The owner's sentence is binding intent. There is no keyword list.

A time budget, an actionable objective, and clear direct-execution intent — regardless of wording — are a complete prompt: compose it and run it. Examples of a complete prompt: *"use the next 20 hours adding features and enhancing existing ones"*; *"8 hours clear lint and test debt"*; *"make checkout less ugly, run it"*.

• Complete → Automatic, run directly. Do not offer catalog cards. Do not ask who selects, when to

start, or "same as last time." Write the shift policy from existing tools, no new elevation, and remembered verification, unless the sentence already granted a policy or allowance.

• Incomplete → Ask only a field that is still missing, then continue.
• The owner asked to pick from the menu, or named Guided → section 1.

1. Ask who selects

Entries live one per file in `$NIGHTSHIFT_PLUGIN_ROOT/skills/nightshift/references/compose/shifts/`. **Start with what the catalog holds, not with every contract in it:**

"$NIGHTSHIFT_PLUGIN_ROOT/runtime/ns" catalog-index

One line per entry — slug, ending, title, purpose — read straight from the files. An entry added today is discovered today, and one that was deleted stops being offered. There is no second list to keep in step, and the helper ranks nothing: which entries suit the objective is your judgement.

**Then read in full only the entries you are actually going to use.** A complete objective needs the two or three contracts it names, not thirty. Read a contract before you compose it — its ending, refusals, verification and supported stacks bind the shift, and none of that is in the index line. `shift-catalog.md` beside the folder explains the two endings and carries the Maintainer night preset; it does not list the entries.

If the helper is missing or fails, list the directory and read the entries yourself: discovery is the point, and a job that exists in the folder but never reaches the owner is the failure to avoid.

Offer two first-class modes when the prompt did not already choose:

• **Guided** — one offer line per entry, with its ending marked, plus one line for any

preset `shift-catalog.md` names. The index gives you every one of them; read a contract in full when the owner picks it, not before.

• **Automatic** — inspect the work target per `execution-modes.md` (in artifact mode that includes

`$NS/receipts/`, not a git log) and compose the entries that support the stated objective. Quality, coverage, and dependency work do not hijack a feature or design objective. Show evidence only in review-first mode; run-direct does not pause.

**More than one may be chosen** — a night can clear the lint backlog and then hunt coverage until the whistle. Respect every entry's compatibility restrictions when combining; never combine entries that claim the same single-writer state.

Compose, cut and arm only through the Start preflight; it refuses, and names the repair, when the work target cannot be resolved, work-mode is missing or malformed, or `$NS/receipts` exists but is not a usable directory. Never `git init` a notes folder to get past a refusal.

The GitHub issue-hunt entry is offered with the rest of the catalog. It consumes only drafting-table entries the Import issues skill created (canonical Source URL and `Status: proposed`); list them by reading `$NS/drafting-table.md`. Promote a selection by cutting the item — never a copy — with `"$NIGHTSHIFT_PLUGIN_ROOT/runtime/ns" import-issues --promote …`, or do the cut here when that helper cannot parse the file. It does not replace defect hunt or product evolution, and never searches or writes back to GitHub. Never select it when work mode is artifact.

The other repository-shaped jobs are out of scope there too: Never select defect hunt when work mode is artifact. Never select documentation drift when work mode is artifact. Never select TODO and FIXME debt when work mode is artifact. Never select coverage hunt when work mode is artifact. Never select tooling quality-debt entries when work mode is artifact.

`ns normalize-output` and `ns inventory` are read-only reports a shift may lean on when the host carries them — if present, optional, never required. The first turns a supported tool format into one compact summary for the receipt and the ledger; the second lists each workspace package's manager, lockfile, declared scripts, configs, and which named tools are runnable. Automatic composes and works a shift without either.

2. Ask when execution starts

When the prompt did not already carry clear direct-execution intent, ask **