os-whats-next

os-whats-next

Answer "what do we do now" with the next move, not a map. The user does not need the dependency graph - they need what got finished, what to take next, and why, in plain words. This skill decides; os-step-by-step walks the user through their part; os-done-or-not reports what came of it.

Language

Write in the language the user speaks in this session, detected from the conversation. Commands, file names and identifiers stay English.

When to use

Triggers: the description above, plus a session just ended wanting a next move.

Step 1 - read the state, quickest first

Stop as soon as you can answer.

1. The last report - ~/.claude/open-steps/reports/<project>/latest.md: a handover written for exactly this moment.

2. Local state - uncommitted changes, unpushed commits, current branch.

3. Open pull requests - one call: gh pr list --json number,title,mergeStateStatus,reviewDecision,isDraft.

4. The backlog - always. The issue tracker when one is already connected (never authenticate or install one), otherwise task files in the repo: BIG-PICTURE.md, PLAN.md, TODO.md, docs/plan*. Next work comes from the backlog, not from imagination. No backlog anywhere → say so.

   Where os-big-picture keeps that file, only the "What is next" section is the backlog. The feature table above it is an inventory, and a row that has not changed in months is a finished feature, not a task. Reading work out of it is inventing work, which rule 4 below forbids. A row under "Worth retiring" is a real candidate, but it is a decision to put to the user, never a task to start.

   That file carries its own age: a measured date at the top and a date beside every stage. Never take a number out of it. Take only the "What is next" list, the "Worth retiring" rows, and each Stage with the date beside it. Before you put a "Worth retiring" row to the user, measure it again. From the project root, run bash <this skill's folder>/../os-big-picture/scripts/census.sh .. The . is the project, not the skill folder. If the script is missing or does not run, say so and call that row "not checked". When the stage dates are months behind the newest commit, say how old they are. Dates that stopped moving mean the reports stopped, not that the work did.

Say which sources you did not read: an unread source is not an empty source.

Step 2 - finish what is finished

A pull request with green checks and an approval is not a decision - it is unfinished business. Verify it through os-check-work's accept rules and merge it in this same pass. Two things stop the merge: a failed claim, and a task instruction that merges happen on command only - an orchestrator may own the merge. Report it as done, never as a question.

Step 3 - sort what remains into two lists

List	Belongs there when
I can do this alone	everything needed is at hand: no decision, no secret, no approval, no device
Needs you	a decision, an approval, a secret, a purchase, or a device only the user has

Blocked work gets no section of its own. Fold it into the reasoning, in plain words - "X waits on an outside check; I watch it" - the user trusts the recommendation, not the graph.

The shape - ten lines, like every report in this pack

<Lead: one sentence on where things stand - including what this pass merged.>

**I can do alone:** <up to three items, five words of why each>
**Needs you:** <up to three items, one line each - or drop the list>

**Next I take: <the one task> - <plain words: what it closes or unblocks>.**
<One line: what was not checked.>

When a quick small win and a big item are both real candidates, offer the choice through your tool's question picker where it has one (in Claude Code, AskUserQuestion). Give two to four options, the recommended one first and marked. Where there is no picker, write the same question and options as plain text, the recommended one first and marked. On the pick, prepare the launch: a prompt complete enough to paste or a command complete enough to run, and one line saying what comes out. Never run it yourself.

How many at once

Before offering to start several, prove they will not collide - all three:

Check	They collide when
Same files	both touch the same files, module, or migration sequence
Same shared resource	one working copy, branch, database, container project, port
One feeds the other	the second needs the first one's output

Any check failing → one at a time, saying which failed. All passing → say so. Never claim parallel safety you did not verify - "I did not check" is honest; a collision discovered mid-run is not. Where the project isolates parallel work - a working copy per task, separate container projects or ports - name that as the precondition instead of assuming it.

Hard rules

1. Three items per list, maximum - more → say how many were left out and on what basis you chose.
2. Every item names its source - the report, a pull request, a backlog entry, a failing check. Your own idea is marked a suggestion, and lists are never padded: two real items beat five with filler.
3. One recommendation, always - even when offering the small-versus-big choice, one option carries the mark and one line of plain-words reasoning.
4. Finish, then prepare - never start. Merging a verified-ready pull request is finishing. New work is prepared as a ready-to-run launch and waits for the pick.
5. Say what you did not check - especially the backlog. Silence reads as "nothing there".
6. Plain words - no engineering identifiers except where they name an action.

Known gotchas

• Deferred-until-Monday is not a task on Saturday: do not re-propose it early.
• A stale tracker is worse than none - say when you read it. The same is true of the map, and it hides it better: its measured columns refresh themselves while the stages behind them age.
• A draft pull request is unfinished work, not a merge to put to the user. If the session that opened it has ended, the draft goes in the I-can-do-alone list. If another session still works on it, leave it to that session and say so.
• A quiet feature in the map is not a task. It is quiet because it is finished; the skill that wrote it already checked that something still uses it.
• A needs-you pick goes to os-step-by-step, never explained inline.
• "Ready to merge" is still a claim: the verify step is what makes it true - skipping it to move faster is how wrong work lands.