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Agent skill

Reorient

by swingerman in swingerman/engineer

Use mid-task when the working thread is lost — after a context compaction, a long agent run, or coming back to a feature unsure of the role, the current checkpoint, or the next action.

MITAuto-check passedAgent Workflows

Install Reorient

skills CLI
$ npx skills add swingerman/engineer --skill reorient -a claude-code

Project install by default; add -g for ~/.claude/skills/.

GitHub CLI
$ gh skill install swingerman/engineer reorient --agent claude-code

Project scope by default; add --scope user for a personal install. Needs GitHub CLI 2.90.0 or later (public preview).

Manual copy
$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/swingerman/engineer.git skills-src && mkdir -p .claude/skills && cp -r skills-src/engineer/skills/reorient .claude/skills/reorient && rm -rf skills-src

Use ~/.claude/skills/ instead of .claude/skills for a personal install. The folder must contain SKILL.md.

Claude Code skills documentation · loads skills from .claude/skills/

Facts

Skill name
reorient
GitHub stars
154
Token cost
~1.5k tokens
SKILL.md length
724 words
Files
1
Skills in repo
27
Repo updated
First seen
Licence
MIT

At a glance

Use mid-task when the working thread is lost — after a context compaction, a long agent run, or coming back to a feature unsure of the role, the current checkpoint, or the next action.

  • Works in 5 steps: Resolve and locate → Reload the discipline contract, then the… → Emit the orientation block → …
  • — /engineer.reorient
  • SKILL.md covers When to use, Workflow, Optional: auto-invoke on… and References
  • Instructions only: no scripts, shell commands, URLs or credentials in SKILL.md

What it does

Reorient is an agent skill from swingerman/engineer. Use mid-task when the working thread is lost — after a context compaction, a long agent run, or coming back to a feature unsure of the role, the current checkpoint, or the next action. Triggers — "/engineer.reorient", "reorient", "re-anchor", "what should I be doing right now", "I lost track", "where was I".

Its SKILL.md is about 1.5k tokens, which your agent loads only when the skill is triggered. It is a single SKILL.md file with no bundled scripts.

It sits in Agent Workflows, covering Context engineering. The repository describes itself as: Disciplined Agentic Engineering — a methodology kit for Claude Code: acceptance-test-first specs, explicit checkpoints, and autonomy you can actually leave running. The engineer… The licence is MIT.

When your agent uses it

  • — /engineer.reorient
  • What should I be doing right now

Example prompts

  • “/engineer.reorient”
  • “reorient”
  • “re-anchor”
  • “/reorient”

Workflow steps

5 steps, taken from the step headings in SKILL.md.

  1. Resolve and locate
  2. Reload the discipline contract, then the task pointer
  3. Emit the orientation block
  4. Stuck-loop detection
  5. Stop

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit 32947eb. It shows what the files ask for, not the result of running them.

  • Tool permissions

    Pre-approves nothing: there is no allowed-tools line, so your agent's usual permission prompts apply.

    From allowed-tools in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

  • Runs code

    No scripts in the folder and no shell commands in SKILL.md.

    From the folder's file list and the shell code blocks in SKILL.md.

  • Network

    Links to these hosts (documentation or services it may open):

    • notion.so

    From URLs in SKILL.md, links to its own repository left out.

  • Credentials

    Names no API keys, tokens, secrets or passwords.

    From names ending in _API_KEY, _TOKEN, _SECRET, _KEY or _PASSWORD in SKILL.md.

Context cost

Reorient loads about 1.5k tokens when it runs. Until then it costs about 80 tokens; SKILL.md has 724 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it
~80
When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches
~1.5k

Estimates: characters ÷ 4, the usual rule of thumb; real counts depend on the model's tokenizer. Scripts and assets cost tokens only if the agent reads them.

Safety

Auto-check passed

The automated check found no risky patterns in SKILL.md.

Automated static check — not a guarantee. Review scripts before installing. It scans the text of SKILL.md for risky patterns (piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files, hidden Unicode, destructive commands); files beside SKILL.md are not scanned.

SKILL.md

The full file from swingerman/engineer at commit 32947eb, republished under its MIT licence (© swingerman). 724 words, ~1,539 tokens.

Download SKILL.mdSave it as .claude/skills/reorient/SKILL.md (or your agent's skills folder).
name
reorient
description
Use mid-task when the working thread is lost — after a context compaction, a long agent run, or coming back to a feature unsure of the role, the current checkpoint, or the next action. Triggers — "/engineer.reorient", "reorient", "re-anchor", "what should I be doing right now", "I lost track", "where was I".

reorient

Restore the working contract mid-task. After a context compaction or a long run, an agent loses role identity, invents constraints that do not exist, skips required steps, and loses the task thread. reorient reloads the durable state that should have survived — the discipline contract first, the task pointer second.

Read-only and advisory. It changes nothing, produces no artifact, and emits no handoff — like next, the orientation block is the whole output; a handoff would only restate it. The third skill exempt from the agentic summary contract.

reorient is the mid-task, feature-scoped counterpart to next (project-scoped, session-start).

When to use

  • Right after a context compaction (a SessionStart hook can auto-invoke it).
  • Mid-task, when unsure of the role, the current checkpoint, or the next action.
  • Returning to a feature after an interruption.

Not for: session-start "what should I pick up across the project" (next); loading a feature not yet started (prime-context); validating artifacts (consistency-check).

Workflow

Step 1 — Resolve and locate

Resolve the methodology root + manifest via ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/dae_resolve.py (see references/resolving.md). Locate the feature (slug arg or branch name). If no feature is in scope, say so and suggest next instead. Layout disambiguation: if the project has BOTH a features/NNN-*/ and a specs/NNN-*/ tree (a speckit migration in progress), say which one holds this feature; and if more than one acceptance-IR convention exists (features/NNN/.build/spec.json vs an acceptance-pipeline/ir/ per-GWT layout), name the one in force — so re-anchoring doesn't rediscover the split. (speckit-consolidate unifies it.)

Step 2 — Reload the discipline contract, then the task pointer

Read, read-only, in this order:

  1. Role + autonomy — CHARTER.md + manifest: the autonomy level in force, and what the agent may and may not decide. Counters invented constraints.
  2. Current checkpoint + exit criteria — the Checkpoint Exit Contract (Foundation Design Section 8) for the checkpoint progress.md shows in progress: its goal, its exit criteria, and which are already met. Run ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/dae_progress.py <feature-dir> and show its breadcrumb — the same pipeline-position line the checkpoint skills surface at Step 0.
  3. Non-negotiables — verification independence and charter-mandated mutation: steps that must not be skipped regardless of cost. The cost of a step is never a reason to skip it.
  4. Current task + next action — the progress.md CURRENT header.
  5. Feature contract — feature.md outcome + scope. Counters goal drift.

Also run ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/dae_handoff.py <feature-dir> — report any checkpoint marked done without a complete handoff as a discipline gap.

Also run ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/dae_reconcile.py <feature-dir> (read-only): if it reports needs_reconcile: true, this feature's PR is already merged (gh-detected — covers squash-merge and git.manual) and the local state is stale. Do not re-anchor on a phantom in-progress checkpoint — surface that it shipped and recommend /engineer.post-merge to reconcile. reorient is read-only, so it never applies the flip itself.

Show full SKILL.md (282 more words)Show less
Step 3 — Emit the orientation block

Output one tight block, nothing else:

You are <role> at autonomy <level>.
Feature NNN-slug — Checkpoint N (<goal>).
Exit criteria: <m>/<n> met — unmet: <list>.
Current task: <task> -> next action: <action>.
Must not skip: <non-negotiables>.
Constraints: <charter / autonomy limits>.
Step 4 — Stuck-loop detection

Before stopping, scan the feature's recent handoffs for a stuck loop. A loop is "stuck" when three or more consecutive handoffs from the same skill share:

  • the same status (typically interrupted or complete-with-unmet-criteria), AND
  • the same recommended-next, AND
  • substantially the same findings_summary / failure signature (e.g. same error class, same blocker name, same infra failure type).

A stuck loop is the agent re-attempting the same operation expecting different results. nexthq saw 60+ identical ticks over 12 hours on a Functions emulator blocker — the autonomous loop never escalated to the human.

Threshold is tunable via manifest.autonomy.stuck_loop_threshold (default 3).

When detected: STOP. Do not silently re-run. Emit (just this once — break the no-handoff rule) a session-summary-style escalation handoff that:

  • Names the repeated failure signature.
  • Lists the N affected handoffs by filename.
  • Sets human_action_needed: decision and human_action_kind: unblock-stuck-loop.
  • recommended_next: "human review required — N consecutive identical failures from <skill>".

The escalation handoff lives in .engineer/handoffs/ (it's project-scope, not feature-scope progress). The human picks the unblock — a different approach, a charter amendment, an environment fix, or a deferred re-try.

Step 5 — Stop

If Step 4 found no loop: reorient orients; it does not act. The human resumes the work. No handoff.

If Step 4 escalated: the escalation handoff is the output. The loop is broken — wait for the human.

Optional: auto-invoke on compaction

A project may add a SessionStart hook (source: compact) that nudges /engineer.reorient after every compaction. See ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/examples/session-start-reorient.md. The hook is optional project config, not part of this skill.

References

  • Foundation Design — the Checkpoint Exit Contract (Section 8); agentic summary exemptions (Section 5)
  • Sister skill: next — the project-scoped, session-start counterpart

© swingerman, MIT. Rendered from Markdown: HTML in the file is shown as text, images as links, and headings moved down two levels. Raw file

Files

Just SKILL.md in engineer/skills/reorient of swingerman/engineer.

Open the folder on GitHubat commit 32947eb

Compare with similar skills

Reorient next to the 5 skills that share the most tags, products or categories with it. Stars are the repository's; “used in” counts other GitHub owners with a copy.

Reorient compared with similar skills
SkillStarsUsed inTokensAuto-checkLicenceRepo updated
Reorient this skillswingerman/engineer154—~1.5kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Context Mode Output Sandboxmksglu/context-mode26k—~4.1kAutomated safety check: PassCustom licence
Memori Long-Term MemoryMemoriLabs/Memori17k—~2kAutomated safety check: NotesCustom licence
Picoclaw Skill Creatorsipeed/picoclaw30k—~4.4kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
ccc Semantic Code Searchcocoindex-io/cocoindex-code2.7k—~938Automated safety check: PassApache-2.0
Context Mode for Antigravity CLImksglu/context-mode26k—~850Automated safety check: PassCustom licence

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Categories

Questions about Reorient

What does Reorient do?

Use mid-task when the working thread is lost — after a context compaction, a long agent run, or coming back to a feature unsure of the role, the current checkpoint, or the next action. Reorient is an agent skill from swingerman/engineer. Use mid-task when the working thread is lost — after a context compaction, a long agent run, or coming back to a feature unsure of the role, the current checkpoint, or the next action.

When should I use Reorient?

Reorient fits situations like: — /engineer.reorient; what should I be doing right now.

How do I install Reorient in Claude Code?

Run `npx skills add swingerman/engineer --skill reorient -a claude-code`. Or copy the skill folder (engineer/skills/reorient in swingerman/engineer) into .claude/skills/reorient in your project. Claude Code loads it when a task matches its description.

How do I install Reorient in Codex?

Run `npx skills add swingerman/engineer --skill reorient -a codex`. Or copy the skill folder (engineer/skills/reorient in swingerman/engineer) into .agents/skills/reorient in your project. Codex loads it when a task matches its description.

Can I use Reorient in Cursor, Gemini CLI or GitHub Copilot?

Cursor, Gemini CLI, GitHub Copilot and OpenCode also load SKILL.md folders. With the skills CLI, run `npx skills add swingerman/engineer --skill reorient -a cursor` (or -a gemini-cli, github-copilot or opencode for the others). To copy it by hand, put the folder in .cursor/skills/reorient, .gemini/skills/reorient, .github/skills/reorient and .opencode/skills/reorient in your project.

What does Reorient need to run?

SKILL.md names no scripts, command-line tools or credentials: Reorient is instructions for the agent only.

Does Reorient access the network?

SKILL.md names 1 domain. As links in the text: notion.so. This is read from the text; nothing was executed.

Is Reorient safe to install?

Our automated static check of SKILL.md found no risky patterns, such as piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files or hidden Unicode. It is not a guarantee. Review the folder before installing.

What licence does Reorient use?

Reorient is published under the MIT licence (the repository's licence). It allows redistribution, so the full SKILL.md is shown on this page.

How many tokens does Reorient use?

About 1.5k tokens (SKILL.md is roughly 6.2k characters). Agents keep only the skill's name and description in context until a task matches; then they load SKILL.md in full.

What are the alternatives to Reorient?

Skills that share tags, products or a category with Reorient: Context Mode Output Sandbox (mksglu/context-mode, 26k stars), Memori Long-Term Memory (MemoriLabs/Memori, 17k stars), Picoclaw Skill Creator (sipeed/picoclaw, 30k stars) and ccc Semantic Code Search (cocoindex-io/cocoindex-code, 2.7k stars). The comparison table on this page puts their stars, adoption, token cost, safety result and licence side by side.

Who maintains Reorient?

swingerman (a GitHub user) maintains it in swingerman/engineer, which has 154 GitHub stars. The repository holds 27 skills in this directory. The repository was last updated on September 23, 2026.

Source: swingerman/engineer on GitHub. Facts on this page come from the repository at the commit we read; the author's words are quoted as theirs.