Setup Forge

Overview

Detects the available tools, sets the capability tier (Quick/Forge/Forge+/Deep) and writes the forge configuration to {sidecar_path}/. With ccc it also keeps .cocoindex_code/settings.yml and the semantic-search index current, and it reconciles the QMD and CCC index registries.

Conventions

• Bare paths (e.g. references/<name>.md) resolve from the skill root.
• Module-level path exception: bare paths beginning with knowledge/ or shared/ resolve from the SKF module root ({project-root}/_bmad/skf/ installed, src/ in dev), not the skill root.
• Sibling skills: a path that names another SKF skill's folder (skf-<name>/...) resolves from the SKF module root, and that skill must be installed with this one.
• references/ holds the workflow stages (chained by frontmatter nextStepFile), the invocation contract and tier-rules.md, the tier table report.md passes to the emitter's banner.
• Shared Python helpers do the deterministic work, with no prose fallback: each step's frontmatter *ProbeOrder array lists a helper's installed path ({project-root}/_bmad/skf/shared/scripts/<name>) then its dev path ({project-root}/src/shared/scripts/<name>). Run the first that exists; if none does, halt through the On Activation halt contract with phase step <N>:helper-missing.
• {skill-root} resolves to this skill's installed directory (where customize.toml lives, if present).
• {project-root}-prefixed paths resolve from the project working directory.
• {skill-name} resolves to the skill directory's basename.

Role

You are a system executor: run each step in sequence, write the configuration files, and report at completion.

Workflow Rules

• Only load one step file at a time — never preload future steps.
• Communicate in {communication_language}.
• If {orphan_action} is non-null or {quiet_mode} is true, resolve the step 3 orphan-removal gate without prompting; step 3 records the decision for the envelope's warnings.
• When {quiet_mode} is true, the one line setup displays is the SKF_SETUP_RESULT_JSON: {…} envelope that step 4 builds, or the blocked envelope from a halt. In a standalone run that line is the run's final message, so it is all claude -p prints (step 4 holds it until then).
• When {quiet_mode} is true, write no assistant text at all between tool calls: no status, progress or step-transition notes, however brief.
• When {pipeline_mode} is true, the forger runs setup as one step of a pipeline: display the same envelope line, then return control to the forger, which keeps chaining. The final-message rule above is for a standalone run.

Stages

Invocation Contract

references/invocation-contract.md holds the flags, gate, outputs, SKF_SETUP_RESULT_JSON contract and failure modes for pipeline authors; no run loads it.

On Activation

Halt contract. Every halt in this workflow that names a phase, below and in the step files, follows this contract; the step 4 tier-miss halt names none and displays its tier_failure envelope instead. When {quiet_mode} is true, run <runner> <helper> emit-blocked --phase '<phase>' --reason '<reason>' --path "<path>" (<path> written with /; no --path for a halt without one): <helper> is skf-emit-result-envelope.py, at its installed path, else its dev path (Conventions), and <runner> is uv run in the step files. The halts in this list can fire before uv is proven present, so for them try the runners uv run, python3, python and py -3 in that order and stop at the first that exits 0 and prints a line starting SKF_SETUP_RESULT_JSON: (the helper is stdlib-only). Display that line verbatim, nothing else. If neither path exists, or no runner exits 0 and prints that line, display the reason alone as that one line. Interactive runs display the reason as their diagnostic and emit no envelope. Text from the user or a helper never goes into the single-quoted --reason: write <message> there and pass the text on stdin with --stderr-from - and a quoted <<'SKF_TEXT' heredoc, one per runner tried, for the emitter to fold to one line and escape. Once item 6 binds {customization_resolver_unavailable} to a reason, every halt also passes --customization-resolver-unavailable "<reason>", escaping each \, ", $ and backtick in it with a backslash. --headless and --quiet are known at every halt, headless_mode from preferences.yaml only after item 5.

1. Parse invocation flags first, so every halt below knows whether to emit: {headless_mode} (true on --headless / -H, and when {pipeline_mode} is true), {quiet_mode} (true on --quiet, the alias of --headless, and whenever {headless_mode} is true), {require_tier} and {orphan_action} (each flag's raw value exactly as given, after = or a space; an empty string when nothing, or another flag, follows it; null only when the flag is absent), {ccc_skip_index} (true on --ccc-skip-index, false otherwise). {pipeline_mode} is not a flag: it is true only when the forger invokes setup as one step of a pipeline and passes it, and false otherwise, including every direct /skf-setup run. Step 1's detector rejects a {require_tier} that names no tier. When {orphan_action} is non-null and neither keep nor remove, halt with phase on-activation:orphan-action-invalid, no path, and reason Setup cannot proceed: --orphan-action takes keep or remove, not <message>. Re-run with --orphan-action=keep or --orphan-action=remove., where <message> is the value as given, or an empty value when there is none, passed as the halt contract says.

1. Check for the config. If {project-root}/_bmad/skf/config.yaml does not exist, halt with phase on-activation:config-missing, path {project-root}/_bmad/skf/config.yaml, and reason Setup cannot proceed: the SKF config file was not found. SKF is not installed in this project: from the project root, run npx bmad-module-skill-forge install (or npx bmad-method install and add SKF), then re-run /skf-setup.

1. Probe `uv` runtime. Run uv --version. If uv is missing, halt with phase on-activation:uv-missing, no path, and reason Setup cannot proceed: uv is not installed. Install it from https://docs.astral.sh/uv/getting-started/installation/ and re-run /skf-setup.

1. Load config and preferences. <preflight> is skf-preflight.py, at its installed path, else its dev path (neither: halt with phase on-activation:helper-missing, path the installed one, reason Setup cannot proceed: skf-preflight.py was not found. Reinstall SKF, then re-run /skf-setup.). Run uv run "<preflight>" "{project-root}" --allow-missing-sidecar, which parses config.yaml and preferences.yaml into one JSON object:

• status ok: bind {project_name}, {user_name}, {communication_language} and {document_output_language} from config, each folder from its absolute path ({output_folder}, {skills_output_folder}, {forge_data_folder} and {sidecar_path} from config.<name>_resolved), and {tier_override} from sidecar.preferences.tier_override (null when absent). With sidecar.preferences_error, go on with the defaults and, unless {quiet_mode} is true, display that error in one line.
• code CONFIG_MISSING: the item 2 halt. Any other hard-halt, or no JSON status: halt with phase on-activation:config-malformed, path {project-root}/_bmad/skf/config.yaml, and reason Setup cannot proceed: <message>: its error without the leading Cannot initialize. (else the first line the call printed), passed as the halt contract says, never preflight's whole JSON.

1. Reconcile `{headless_mode}`: OR it with derived.headless_mode (headless_mode: true in preferences.yaml). Then, if {headless_mode} is true, set {quiet_mode} to true.

1. Resolve workflow customization. Run:

   uv run {project-root}/_bmad/scripts/resolve_customization.py --skill {skill-root} --project-root {project-root} --key workflow

It merges the bundled {skill-root}/customize.toml with {project-root}/_bmad/custom/skf-setup.toml (team overrides, committed) and .user.toml (personal overrides, gitignored). When it exits non-zero, prints no JSON or is missing, print one line, [activation/warn] customization_resolver_unavailable: <reason> (<reason>: its first stderr line, not found when the script is missing, no JSON when it printed none). If the resolver cannot run, read {skill-root}/customize.toml alone and use its bundled defaults: the {project-root}/_bmad/custom/ overrides do not apply to this run. Bind {customization_resolver_unavailable} ← that reason (null when the resolver ran), which references/report.md and every later halt hand to the emitter; print the warning only when {quiet_mode} is false.

Apply the resolved values, with no narration of your own when {quiet_mode} is true: run each workflow.activation_steps_prepend entry now; treat each workflow.persistent_facts entry as standing context (a file: entry loads its file or glob contents); bind {onCompleteCommand} ← workflow.on_complete (empty: no hook) for references/report.md §5; then run each workflow.activation_steps_append entry, before the first stage.

1. Execute references/detect-and-tier.md.