Auto-Context — Situational Awareness Protocol (Meta-Skill)

Before you act, understand where you are. This skill ensures the AI loads critical project context automatically before any major action, preventing wasted effort, duplicate work, and misaligned implementations.

Installation

OpenClaw / Moltbot / Clawbot

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When to Activate

This skill triggers automatically based on the current action. Do not wait for the user to ask — proactively load context when any of these conditions are met.

Trigger	Why	Minimum Context
Starting a new task	Understand priorities, avoid conflicts	Critical + High
Implementing a feature

Know the plan, constraints, recent changes | Critical + High |
| Refactoring code | Understand what changed recently, what's planned | Critical + High + Medium |
| Debugging an issue | Check recent changes, known issues, discoveries | Critical + High + Medium |
| Planning or scoping work | Full picture of roadmap, backlog, progress | All levels |
| Session start or resume | Rebuild mental model from last session state | Critical + High |
| Before a handoff | Ensure nothing is missed in transition | All levels |

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Context Files to Read

Read these files in priority order. Stop early if the task is narrow and lower-priority files are clearly irrelevant.

Priority	File	Purpose	Read When
Critical	INLINECODE0	Current tasks, backlog, and priorities	Always
Critical

roadmap.md | Phase status, milestones, project direction | Always |
| High | task_plan.md | Active task breakdown and implementation plan | File exists |
| High | .cursor/handoffs/*.md | Recent handoff notes (read last 3 by date) | File exists |
| Medium | findings.md | Research results, discoveries, decisions made | Relevant to task |
| Medium | CHANGELOG.md | Recent changes and their rationale | Relevant to task |
| Low | .cursor/sessions/*.md | Session summaries (read last 2 by date) | Planning or debugging |

Alternate Locations

Some projects use different paths. Check these fallbacks if primary paths are empty:

Primary	Fallback
INLINECODE7	INLINECODE8, INLINECODE9
INLINECODE10

docs/roadmap.md, ROADMAP.md |
| task_plan.md | docs/task_plan.md, .cursor/task_plan.md |
| findings.md | docs/findings.md, .cursor/findings.md |

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Context Loading Strategy

Step 1: Load Critical Files (Always)

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If either critical file is missing, warn the user:

"No TODO.md found. Consider creating one to track tasks."

Step 2: Load High-Priority Files (If They Exist)

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Step 3: Load Medium/Low Files (If Relevant)

Only read these when the current task benefits from historical context:

• - Debugging? — Read findings.md and INLINECODE20
• Planning? — Read everything including session files
• Quick fix? — Skip medium and low entirely

Step 4: Synthesize and Present

After loading, produce a context summary (see format below) before proceeding with the task.

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Staleness Detection

Check modification dates on all loaded files. Flag files that may contain outdated information.

Age	Status	Action
< 24 hours	Fresh	Use as-is
1-7 days

Current | Use as-is, note the age |
| 7-30 days | Stale | Warn: "{file} last updated {N} days ago — verify before relying on it" |
| > 30 days | Outdated | Warn: "{file} is {N} days old and may no longer reflect project state" |

To check file ages on macOS:

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On Linux:

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Context Summary Format

After loading context, present a concise summary using this template. Keep it tight — the goal is awareness, not repetition.

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If no context files exist at all, output:

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Integration Points

This skill connects to other workflow commands and should run as a precursor.

Command	How Auto-Context Integrates
INLINECODE21	Loads full context before beginning work; populates task plan
INLINECODE22

Reads roadmap and TODO to validate intent against project direction |
| /workflow | Provides the "understand" phase of any workflow automatically |
| /progress | Uses TODO.md and task_plan.md to assess completion status |
| /handoff-and-resume | Reads last handoff to rebuild state on resume |
| /session-summary | Cross-references loaded context with session actions for accuracy |

Execution Order

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Quick Reference

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NEVER Do

1. 1. NEVER skip critical files to save time — leads to duplicate work and conflicting implementations
2. NEVER load every file regardless of task — wastes tokens and dilutes focus with irrelevant info
3. NEVER ignore staleness warnings — stale context causes decisions based on outdated assumptions
4. NEVER read files without summarizing — raw file dumps overwhelm; always synthesize first
5. NEVER assume context from memory alone — sessions are stateless; always re-read files
6. NEVER silently proceed when no context exists — user should know they're operating blind
7. NEVER read handoffs/sessions beyond the limit — last 3 handoffs and last 2 sessions are sufficient