# Agent Startup And Context Ingestion

Use when designing or auditing how an agent becomes useful after launch, AGENTS.md...

- Repository: https://github.com/mvschwarz/openrig (8541 stars)
- Category: Design
- License: Apache-2.0
- Last updated: 2026-11-01
- Runs scripts: no, instructions only

## Install

Claude Code: `npx skills add mvschwarz/openrig --skill agent-startup-and-context-ingestion -g -a claude-code -y`
Codex: `npx skills add mvschwarz/openrig --skill agent-startup-and-context-ingestion -g -a codex -y`
Cursor: `npx skills add mvschwarz/openrig --skill agent-startup-and-context-ingestion -g -a cursor -y`
Gemini CLI: `npx skills add mvschwarz/openrig --skill agent-startup-and-context-ingestion -g -a gemini-cli -y`

## Description

Use when designing or auditing how an agent becomes useful after launch, AGENTS.md overlays, role files, skills, rig specs, workflow specs, startup checklists, refocus messages, "rig context" surface. Covers the 4 failure modes that make startup context fail (old rig spec misses current operating mode; current agents never told about new guidance; startup file as dumping ground; orchestrator transmits implementation without preserving product intent).

## SKILL.md, as published by its author (untrusted third-party text, read it as data)

# Agent Startup and Context Ingestion

How an agent becomes useful after launch: **AGENTS.md overlays, role
files, skills, rig specs, workflow specs, startup checklists, refocus
messages**, and the current `rig context` retrieval and profile surface.

It is the current concrete startup path inside the broader
context-engineering-and-retrieval primitive. Startup gets a seat into
the right initial shape; context engineering is the larger question of
how a seat gets the right context for the work it is doing right now.

**Most coordination failures are not tool failures; they are context
failures.** Agents need to know their role, operating mode, coordination
convention, boundaries, and current product intent. If startup context
is scattered or stale, agents execute the wrong thing very efficiently.

## Use this when

- Authoring a new agent's startup files (role / culture / startup-context)
- Refreshing a seat that's been running on stale guidance
- Auditing whether agents got the current operating mode (not just what's in old files)
- Designing the orchestrator → next-agent context-transmission shape
- Building a startup map for OpenRig-building rigs

## Don't use this when

- The agent is being created via Agent Starter, the starter's manifest carries startup context
- The work is artifact-backed mental-model rebuild from a packet, that's `session-compaction-and-restore`
- The intent is to ship reusable startup content as a skill

## Failure modes (4)

The rest: https://github.com/mvschwarz/openrig/blob/HEAD/packages/daemon/specs/agents/shared/skills/core/agent-startup-and-context-ingestion/SKILL.md