Docs
A collaborator returning after three weeks should not rebuild the project from stale chats. They should open one small file and be able to answer:
Current Project State
Snapshot
| Area | Current state | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Evidence scope | The report uses public studies published through 2025-12-31. | D-001 |
Active work
| Initiative | Status | Next action | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Findings synthesis | in-progress | Resolve three claims that lack page-level citations. | L-001 |
Blockers
None.
what the next session reads first
This is not a mock-up. It is the complete NOW.md from the shipped sample project, unedited — a research report with an evidence cutoff. D-001 and L-001 point into the decision and learning registries beside it.
Not only software, and not only GitHub — but also not everything. The last row is the honest one: a project nobody will return to has nothing to hand off, and installing a handoff record into it is busywork.
| Your project | Fits? | Start here |
|---|---|---|
| Code repository, several agents touch it | Yes — the core case | Install |
| Brand-new repository, nothing written yet | Yes | Install |
| Research corpus — papers, datasets, findings | Yes | Use cases |
| Writing or documents project | Yes | Use cases |
| A shared folder with no Git | Yes — Git adds history, it is not required | Install |
| A project you will not return to | No — nothing to hand off |
Preview first. --dry-run prints the exact file plan and writes nothing; run --apply only after you have read it.
uvx --from git+https://github.com/monomind-ai-lab/project-context project-context init --target . --dry-run
uvx --from git+https://github.com/monomind-ai-lab/project-context project-context init --target . --apply
pipx install git+https://github.com/monomind-ai-lab/project-context && project-context init --target . --dry-run
Installing is not adopting. The record earns its keep through four moments in every working session — and the agents handle all four.
The agent reads NOW.md, then searches DECISIONS.md and LEARNINGS.md for the task topic. Automatic where the harness discovers the installed skill; the managed block in AGENTS.md / CLAUDE.md covers the rest.
Trigger detection flags moments that produce a durable record — an accepted trade-off, a reproduced bug, a verified benchmark. The agent proposes; an ack confirms.
NOW.md is updated to what is now true. Decisions and learnings are appended only if they were earned — durable constraints and verified lessons, not a diary.
The doctor runs. Read-only, always: it flags stale state, broken links and dead delivery paths, and it never rewrites your judgement.
The full day-2 ritual, trigger examples and the first-week checklist → operate
The six safety promises, both install paths, per-harness setup, verifying, and uninstalling.
recordsWhat each file answers, what does not belong in it, and a good entry next to a bad one.
operateThe session loop in detail, trigger detection with ack, and the first-week checklist.
The repository many agents work in — and every collaborative project that is not code.
Clarity comes with context.