Session Log — Joker

v0.9.1-2026-03-17-chat-purls.md

Immutable. Do not edit.

Date: 2026-03-17 Operator: Purls Version: v0.9.1 Session name: planning — smart session start discovery — 2026-03-17 AR name: AR planning — smart session start discovery — 2026-03-17

What happened

Research session investigating two questions:

Can Joker be forced to output a smart prompt before the operator speaks?
Can Joker and Harley communicate via MCP?

Research findings:

Claude Chat (Joker) has no native SessionStart hook. PROJECT-INSTRUCTIONS is the trigger mechanism.
Claude Code (Harley) has a real SessionStart hook — stdout becomes context for Harley automatically.
SessionStart hook fires on startup, resume, clear, and compact. Source field differentiates them.
Stop hook fires deterministically at end of every run — right mechanism for session-end enforcement.
AI-to-AI MCP communication exists (claude-ipc-mcp) but is heavyweight for solo dev use.
File-based handoff (CURRENT-CHAT.md / CURRENT-CODE.md) remains the right pattern for Joker→Harley.

Discovery run — RFC-0001 Smart Session Start: Full Mode 2 discovery completed for smart session start feature. RFC produced and written.

Files written this session:

D:\Claude\projects\scaffolder\docs\rfcs\RFC-0001-smart-session-start.md (status: proposed)
D:\Claude\OPEN-QUEUE.md (10 items, temporary location)
D:\Claude\projects\scaffolder\sessions\CURRENT-CHAT.md (updated)

Directory created:

D:\Claude\projects\scaffolder\docs\rfcs\

Decisions made

Context resolution order fixed: local files → conversation search → cold start
Harley Stop hook is deterministic — hook not CLAUDE.md
versions.json is scaffolder project sentinel for hook guard
Hooks are global (user-level ~/.claude/settings.json), not project-level
Smart prompt is never canned — operator’s first message is always the anchor

Open queue at session end (10 items)

See D:\Claude\OPEN-QUEUE.md for full list.

Discovery skill is module-biased — needs feature/context-aware framing
Joker must confirm local file access before attempting reads or writes
Queue threshold — prompt to write to file before context loss
File naming case inconsistency — needs audit and rule
Guardrail — prevent sc create inside existing project directory
Status bar at bottom of responses — smart, silent when empty
Audit /templates/ against skills — redundancy review
Storage policy — pruning, retention, config option per project
Architecture — projects as lightweight children of scaffolder
Full audit of all code, docs, structure, conventions before rework

RFC status at session end

RFC	Title	Status
RFC-0001	Smart Session Start	proposed

Carried forward from previous session

#303 — scaffolder CLAUDE.md folder structure
#296 — ADR for filesystem MCP
#304 / #305 — session enforcement skills
Session skills need zipping and uploading to Claude settings
v0.10.0 ~35 open issues — triage needed
PROJECT-INSTRUCTIONS.md in Claude Project needs updating to v0.10.0