Phase 3 — Inception Process Skill (workflow-inception-process)

[leeovery]

Summary

Third PR in the inception/discovery-map initiative. Phase 2 built the inception door (entry skill, bridge route, discovery awareness); this PR builds the room behind it — the conversational inception session that runs after /workflow-inception-entry invokes it.

After this phase, invoking /workflow-inception-entry epic {wu} works end-to-end if invoked manually:

• Curatorial conversation surfaces topics from the work-unit description.
• Routing inferred from cues (research vs. discussion); user can flip.
• Single STOP gate at confirm-and-persist; manifest writes batch into one commit alongside the finalised session log.
• Bridges back to /continue-epic via the existing inception-continuation route.

start-epic still doesn't auto-route to inception (Phase 4); refinement re-entry is still stubbed (Phase 6).

Files

New — skills/workflow-inception-process/ (1 backbone + 8 references, pure addition):

• SKILL.md — backbone with 10 steps (resume → init → guidelines → knowledge → query → loop → persist → review → compliance → conclude). Mirrors discussion-process structure; no background-agent step.
• references/initialize-inception.md — creates inception/ directory, seeds draft session log. No manifest writes (deferred).
• references/inception-guidelines.md — curatorial moves + hard rules + worked examples.
• references/routing-inference.md — cue lists + worked examples + how-to-propose discipline.
• references/session-loop.md — open → surface → infer → anchor → convergence-signal. No agents.
• references/confirm-and-persist.md — single STOP gate; per-topic init-phase + 3 sets; finalised log; one commit.
• references/document-review.md — lighter than discussion's (~30 lines): topics persisted, dropped recorded, no rationale drift.
• references/conclude-inception.md — bridge invocation. No `knowledge index` (inception is not a KB-indexed phase).
• references/template.md — initial session-log template per design.md "Session log shape".

Also resolves the dangling forward references on Phase 2's branch:

• workflow-inception-entry/references/invoke-skill.md → workflow-inception-process now exists.
• workflow-bridge/references/inception-continuation.md is reachable from conclude-inception.md.

Test plan

• Phase 1 manifest test suite still passes (214/214 — bash tests/scripts/test-workflow-manifest.sh).
• discovery.cjs runs cleanly on an empty dir (`no active epics`).
• Synthetic epic with two inception items renders correctly under `continue-epic` discovery output, items shape matches design (`status: in-progress`, `summary`, `routing`, `source: inception`).
• Manual end-to-end smoke: invoke `/workflow-inception-entry epic test-epic`, surface 2-3 topics, walk to confirm-and-persist gate, verify on-disk shape + commit + bridge.
• Manual resume smoke: kill mid-loop after `session-001.md` partly written; re-invoke; Step 0 detects + offers continue/restart.
• Manual refinement-stub regression: seed an inception item; entry skill's `validate-phase.md` still fires the Phase-6 stub.

Stacking

• Base: `idea/inception-pr-2-entry-bridge` (PR inception(skills): inception-entry skill scaffold + bridge plumbing #267).
• No merge to main until the initiative completes — see `discovery-map/INDEX.md` for the full stack and merge order.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code