/whereami

Show project state in one glance — phase, active goal, agents in flight, subsystem progress, gate checklist, freshness. Reads docs/whereami.md. Run at session start before /sprint to orient.

Copy the command

/whereami

/whereami default

Type it bare, or paste it with loose context after — Claude figures out the rest.

Solves

Project state lives across whereami and iteration goals and chronicles and git. No single-glance view.

Payoff

Phase and active goal and agents in flight and gate progress — one page.

Takes in

Optional freshness flag

Returns

Current phase and iteration
Active agents
Subsystem status
Gate progress

Runs with

/sprint /whats-the-plan

Needs first

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Called by

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Deep dive — 16 sections · ~963 words · original SKILL.mdScroll for tutorial ↓

What it does

A one-glance answer to "where is the project right now?" read from docs/whereami.md. You see phase, goal, agents, subsystems, gates, and freshness. Scannable in about 20 seconds. The skill never writes. /session-end owns the writes.

Tier gate (bassclef#740 Task 1.8). /whats-the-plan ships at tier: standard. Lite adopters skip it. Print skip note. Resolve tier via lib/tier-check.sh.

Read the full skill

The complete instructions live at .claude/skills/whereami/SKILL.md in your repo after bassclef-sync. Open with your editor for phases, rules, and worked examples.

Where in the SDLC

Also relevant in: Concept, Build, Ship, Operate.

Why this phase: Project-state snapshot for orient-before-plan. Read at session boot; updated at session close. Sits above the plan across the lifecycle.

Skills catalog — browse all skills grouped by lifecycle phase
Tier system — what each tier gives you

FAQ

Terms from bassclef vocabulary that appear on this page.

load-bearing: A part of the system that other parts depend on — remove it and downstream things break. Bassclef uses the word for artifacts that other artifacts read: a canvas is load-bearing when a spec cites it, a spec is load-bearing when Builder uses it. Plain equivalent: 'actually used' or 'counted on'.
chronicle: A narrative log of what a session shipped — what worked, what did not, what got deferred. Written at session-end. Bassclef's chronicles live under `docs/chronicles/YYYY-MM-DD-slug.md`. Chronicles are how future sessions understand context that the code alone cannot show. See: /docs/skills/session-log
whereami: The authoritative project-state snapshot — current phase, active goals, subsystem status, gate progress, session recap history. Read at session-start; updated at session-end. The one file every new session should read first to know where the project stands. See: /docs/skills/whereami
hook: A shell script bassclef wires into Claude Code's tool-invocation lifecycle. Hooks fire at events like PreToolUse (before an Edit lands) or SessionStart (when a session opens). Hooks enforce rules mechanically — a rule says 'don't do X'; a hook fires and BLOCKs if X happens.
rule: A markdown file auto-loaded into every session's context. Rules pin discipline the agent applies to every response (plain-English writing, blocked-items protocol, temperance gates). Different from a hook — rules are steering; hooks are enforcement.
skill: A user-invocable command (like `/kiss` or `/temperance`) that runs a specific bassclef workflow. Every skill lives at `.claude/skills/<name>/SKILL.md` with frontmatter + procedure. Adopters type the slash command; Claude Code loads the skill and runs it.
adopter: A repo that has bassclef installed — either via `bassclef init` (lite tier from npm) or via the symlink pattern (standard tier with an Anthropic key). Bassclef's discipline: never break adopters. Every change to a downstream-observable surface ships with a compat shim.
bassclef-upstream: The private repo where bassclef substrate is authored. Ships to a public `bassclef` npm package + a public `bassclef-web` docs site. Adopters read the public tier; the operator maintains upstream.

Shipped by @kingofrock · Read the essays