coding-friend

Decision advisory via structured interview — never writes code or plans. Use when the user wants help DECIDING — e.g. "should I", "is X worth it", "which approach", "help me decide between A and B", "am I overthinking this", "what would you recommend", "pros and cons of". Unlike /cf-plan (builds) or /cf-ask (looks up code), this only advises.

Quick Q&A about the codebase → docs/memory. Use for focused project questions — e.g. "how does X work?", "where is Y defined?", "what's the flow for Z?", "explain this module", "why is this done this way?". Unlike /cf-research, one answer.

Save a conversation checkpoint (goal, decisions, breaking changes, next steps) for a DIFFERENT conversation. Triggers: "save a checkpoint", "checkpoint this conversation", "capture context", "snapshot the conversation", "cf-checkpoint". Unlike /compact (same chat) or /cf-remember (project facts). Slash-only — does NOT auto-invoke.

Load a saved checkpoint as working context, then do the next ask. Triggers: "resume from checkpoint", "load checkpoint", "continue from checkpoint", "cf-checkpoint-from", "restore conversation context". First word is the slug; `--recap` prints a summary. Does NOT create checkpoints (use /cf-checkpoint).

Smart conventional commit with diff analysis. Triggers: "commit this", "commit my changes", "save my work", "create a commit", "git commit", "stage and commit".

UI design workflow — scan patterns, design new UI, or modify UI consistently. Use to redesign a component/page, change colors/typography/style, or extract the design system. Triggers: "make it look like", "update the styling", "redesign this", "match the existing style", "add a dark mode", "make it more minimal".

Quick bug-fix workflow — reproduce, find the root cause, fix via cf-implementer, verify, auto-review. TRIGGER — the user reports a bug or broken behavior: "fix this", "it's broken", "not working", "there's a bug", "this crashes", "debug this", "it throws", "failing test", "regression", "unexpected behavior"; a pasted stack trace or error message. SKIP — new features (use cf-plan or cf-tdd), performance complaints (use cf-optimize), and recurring or hard-to-reproduce bugs after a failed fix (use cf-sys-debug).

Answer questions about Coding Friend itself — skills, agents, hooks, CLI, config, memory, hosts, parameters. TRIGGER — "what skills are available?", "how does coding friend work?", "list all skills", "how do I use cf-plan?", "what is cf-tdd?", "is the CLI required?", or any question about a cf-* name, flag, hook, or config key. SKIP — general coding questions unrelated to Coding Friend, and requests to run a skill (invoke that skill instead).

Work through deferred side-tasks in docs/later/. Triggers: "do the later tasks", "process docs/later", "work through the backlog", "what did we defer", "resolve deferred items", "cf-later-do". Routes to /cf-fix or /cf-plan; removes the file only after verified-done. Slash-only — NOT auto-invoked. Does NOT capture new items (that is capture-later.sh).

Extract educational notes for the human from the conversation (unlike /cf-remember, which stores project memory for AI recall). TRIGGER — substantial new technical knowledge, a debugging breakthrough, an architecture decision explained, or a complex explanation worth keeping; the user says "explain what we learned", "make notes on this", "cf-learn". SKIP — trivial edits, typo fixes, routine operations, or knowledge that belongs in project memory rather than learning notes (use /cf-remember).

Structured performance work — baseline, analyze, optimize, measure, compare. TRIGGER — "this is slow", "make it faster", "optimize", "performance", "bottleneck", "too many queries", "high latency", "memory leak", "speed up", "timeout", "N+1", or any request to reduce time, memory, or query count with numbers to prove it. SKIP — minor refactors, readability or style changes, and correctness bugs that are not performance-related (use cf-fix).

Brainstorm and write an implementation plan before coding. TRIGGER — the user wants to plan, build, create, or implement something: "let's build", "let's create", "add feature", "implement", "set up", "design a solution", "architect", "scaffold", "plan out", "what's the best way to build"; any multi-step or multi-file work that needs sequencing. SKIP — a single obvious edit, a reported bug (use cf-fix), deciding whether to build at all (use /cf-advise), or resuming an existing plan (use /cf-plan-resume).

Resume an existing /cf-plan from where execution last stopped. Triggers: "resume the plan", "continue the plan", "pick up where we left off", "finish the plan", "resume <slug>". Requires a plan under docs/plans/. Does NOT create new plans (use /cf-plan).

Review a saved /cf-plan folder with a fresh reviewer before implementing; triggers "review the plan", "plan review", "second opinion on the plan", "check the plan before implementing", "cf-plan-review"; --fix/--inline applies Critical/Important findings without asking; does NOT review code (use /cf-review).

Save project knowledge to docs/memory for AI recall (unlike /cf-learn, which writes educational notes for the human). TRIGGER — "remember this", "save this to memory", "document what we did", "capture this decision", "write this down", "note this", "record this convention"; after a non-obvious bug fix → bugs/, an architecture decision → decisions/, a new convention → conventions/, a feature flow or gotcha → features/. SKIP — trivial fixes, simple config changes, or educational exchanges (use /cf-learn).

In-depth research with web search and structured output. Triggers: "research this", "look into this library", "investigate how X works", "compare these options", "best practices for", "deep dive into", "study this technology".

Dispatch a multi-agent code review of the current changes and report Critical / Important / Suggestions / Summary. TRIGGER — "review this", "review my changes", "check the code", "code review", "any issues with this?", "review before merge", "review the diff"; reviewing specific files, commits, or branches; automatically after cf-plan, cf-fix, and cf-optimize complete. SKIP — reviewing a plan document (use /cf-plan-review), quick questions about how code works (use /cf-ask), and formatting-only changes. --fix applies Critical/Important findings, --commit also commits.

Collect and act on an external AI review. Reads the result file, presents findings, offers to fix. Triggers: "review in", "collect review", "check review results", "cf-review-in", "import review".

Generate a review prompt for an external AI (Gemini, Codex, ChatGPT, or a human). Triggers: "get a second opinion", "external review", "review out", "send for review", "cf-review-out", "prepare review for gemini".

Scan the project and populate memory (architecture, conventions, stack, features). Triggers: "scan the project", "scan the codebase", "bootstrap memory", "populate memory", "analyze the project". Token-heavy — always warn before proceeding.

Save the current session to docs/sessions/ for cross-machine resume. Triggers: "save this session", "continue on another machine", "export this conversation", "sync this session", "bookmark this session".

Verify, commit, push, and create a PR. Triggers: "ship it", "push and create PR", "let's ship", "create a PR", "open a pull request", "ready to merge". Supports --dry-run.

Systematic 4-phase debugging — root cause, hypothesis testing, regression-guarded fix, mandatory bug doc. TRIGGER — non-trivial or recurring bugs: "still broken", "same error again", "came back", flaky/intermittent/race, "used to work, now broken", hard-to-reproduce, works locally but fails in CI, "find the root cause", "investigate", "diagnose", "why is this happening"; prefer over cf-fix once a fix has already failed. SKIP — trivial typos, one-line fixes, obvious config errors, or first-time simple bugs (use cf-fix).

Gate before writing production code — direct implementation by default, TDD (RED→GREEN→REFACTOR) with `--add-tests` or config `tdd: true`. TRIGGER — any new feature, implementation, or refactor: "implement this", "build this feature", "create a function", "add a new endpoint", "write the implementation", "refactor this", "write a test", "add tests", "create a component", "implement the API", "add a route"; also when planning shifts into writing code — load this first. SKIP — docs-only changes, config edits, non-code files, or questions with no requested change.

Personal teacher — after a task, explains what happened as a conversational narrative (approach, alternatives, tradeoffs, pitfalls, lessons). Unlike /cf-learn (structured notes), this is a deep-dive so the human understands what happened and why.

Completion gate — demands fresh verification evidence (test run, command output, manual check) before any claim that work is done. TRIGGER — about to say "done", "complete", "fixed", "passing", "ready to commit" or "ready to ship", or to summarize finished work; the end of any cf-tdd, cf-fix, cf-plan, or cf-optimize run; the user asks "is it done?" or "does it work?". SKIP — mid-task progress notes, exploratory or read-only answers, and plans that have not been implemented yet.

Catch up after absence — summarize git history for a user. Triggers: "warm up", "catch me up", "what happened while I was away", "summarize recent changes", "what changed since I left".