- name
- refocusing
- description
- - Use when a long-running agent may have lost the product outcome, when context was compacted, when work has crossed a major boundary, or when a fresh path-based trace is needed before the next consequential action. Not for fresh-session orientation, waking an idle seat, or checkpoints.
- metadata
- openrig: stage: product
Refocusing
Invoke the skill as refocusing, its frontmatter name. OpenRig seeds it in the
Claude and Codex global skill roots and includes selected plugin skills in managed
loadouts. Existing externally managed copies remain authoritative. If the harness
has not discovered it yet, read this installed skill file and run its script directly;
hook registration alone does not prove native skill discovery.
Refocus preserves a long session's earned expertise while re-grounding it in current intent and lived context. It is not a restart, wake, or phase checkpoint.
During an actionable managed restore, consume the current topology and work trace that actually arrived with the request. Do not rerun Python merely to duplicate it. If no current trace arrived, name that delivery gap. A packet pointer, compact summary or truncated extract is not a full source read. Use the native file-read tool for required notes and full sources, and complete the existing restore audit; partial file reads do not establish completed refocus or restoration.
For a new trace outside that delivered context, follow the command guidance below.
Resolve the bundled script's absolute path from the directory of this loaded skill.
Stay in your current working directory; do not cd into the skill directory, which
can change the inferred work node. Run the trace as one plain command, replacing
the example path with the actual absolute path written out in the tool call:
python3 "/absolute/path/to/refocusing/scripts/trace-to-root.py" --trees both --depth light
Do not combine this command with shell variables, environment assignments, command substitution, exit-status printing or file-reading loops. Read the named source files separately with the native read tool. Combined shell loops or variables can require native approval even when the intended operations are read-only; a plain command is not a guarantee that approval will never be needed.
For managed compaction, refocus during the restore request or its read-depth audit. The earlier acknowledgement-only boundary is not permission to restore.
Use --trees topology|work|both to select context domains and --depth light|full to control how
much each node contributes. Light work traces compose intent: and name notes; full traces include
the complete node and notes bodies. The script resolves topology.root and workspace.root with
rig config get. When a known current node must be supplied, pass --work-start or
--topology-start with its literal absolute path in the same plain command. Do not
substitute the project root for a mission or slice node and claim that mission was traced.
A catalogued project's root can sit outside . The refocus hook passes the daemon's
catalogued project roots as , and the work trace ascends to the deepest known root that
contains the node. Run by hand, pass the project root with (repeatable) or
. Don't point at the project instead: the CLI reads
that variable as too.