--- title: "Cheatsheet: Kotharo" version: v0.8.3 canonical: https://kotharo.com/cheatsheet/ --- # Cheatsheet ## Your day: one card per ticket 1. **Catch up**: `/kotharo:work-resume` 2. **Start**: `/kotharo:start-feature-worktree ` 3. **Run**: `/team ` 4. **Answer the end card** 5. **Next**: `/kotharo:next-ticket ` 6. **Save**: `/kotharo:work-save` Big or risky changes ask first. One yes on the end card, **Ship**, commits, pushes and opens the PR; you merge, and close-out moves the session to `main`. After `/kotharo:next-ticket`, run `/clear` and send what it suggests. ## The band above the prompt What the diamond's color means: working, needs you, trouble, held, not joined or merged. 1. **Mark:** its diamond shows what the ticket needs, in the colors on the left 2. **Question:** the stop waiting on you, or a status such as "2 helpers working" 3. **Stage dots:** done in green, the current one in the diamond's color; **▾** unfolds them with names 4. **Chips:** the open PR, linked (✓ ready to merge), **Docs** for the ticket's documents and PRs, and the tickets that need you 5. **Context ring:** amber from 60%, red from 85%, when **Save notes** runs `/kotharo:work-save` 6. **Buttons:** the team's default answer, and **Details** for the whole stop card 7. **Hint:** a tool to bind, asked once, only when no stop waits ### The need-you list and narrow windows - A row's button answers that stop in its own session; **Details** opens its card here. - Held tickets go last, marked queued. A `LOCAL-n` key was made while the tracker was down. - A row whose session isn't running offers **Copy resume**. - Rows clear once the PR merges, with a toast such as **Cleared ABC-12: PR #7 merged**. - A row with no session, worktree or open PR turns **stale** and offers **Dismiss**, which works like `/kotharo:leave`. - On a narrow window the band drops the chip words, then the percent, the stage name, Docs and the PR chip. ## Start work - **Any work**: `/team ` - **No ticket yet**: `/team ""` - **Already started**: `/kotharo:join ` - **Stop early**: `--until design` or scope, plan - **Lighter run**: `--mode lean` or thorough - **Already decided**: `--decided criteria` - **How or why**: `/kotharo:trace-behavior` - **Brainstorm**: plan mode, then `/team ""` - **No team**: ask Claude, then `/ship` - **New repo**: `/kotharo:onboard-repo` ### What each kind of ticket gets | The ticket is | You get | |---|---| | A bug or tweak | A direct run and one end card | | A story from a known epic | Mostly direct, one story at a time | | A big feature, no settled criteria | PRD and design at one scope stop, then the end card | | A request for a design | One design stop; **Publish to ``** with a docs tool bound | | Design now, build later | `--until design`; close-out offers to commit or post it | | A request for a PRD | The PM writes it; one scope stop, no code | | A prod incident | Hotfix lane, your go for prod, then a blameless review | | A pipeline or infra change | The devops role, a deploy stop, then deploy-verify | ### Lanes and how a run goes | Lane | Fits | Stops | |---|---|---| | `small-fix` | Up to 3 files | End card | | `clear-ticket` | Clear criteria | End card | | `new-feature` | Large, needs a PRD | Scope, end card | | `hotfix` | Prod is broken | End card, prod go | Every code ticket starts in **direct mode**: the main session changes the code, runs the tests, lint and typecheck, runs `/cr` once, fixes any Major and shows one end card. It asks first, with a reason, when the change touches more than 8 files or 2 projects, or a migration, auth, tenant data or a public contract. Skipping the plan still gets a review before the merge stop. **Make it work first, then refine.** The smallest change that meets the criteria, one test per criterion, the rest on Follow-ups. ### Cost, PR size and slices - **Estimate**: The first stop prices the run - **Budget stop**: Past `limits.budget_stop_multiplier` times the estimate: **Continue** or **Cut** - **Size stop**: A PR over the limit: **Split here**, **Accept** or **Raise the limit** - **PR size**: `review.max_pr_lines`, `review.max_pr_files`, off by default - **Slices**: A big ticket ships as several PRs; the band reads **PR 2 of 3** - **Prices**: `kotharo estimate price` ## During a run - **Answer**: Press the default, or a digit - **Label ends in …**: Fills the prompt for you to finish - **Accept answers**: **Approve with these answers** - **Where it stands**: `/kotharo status` - **Skip a step**: `/kotharo skip ` - **Model for a role**: `/kotharo tier ` - **The plan**: `/team-plan` - **Ticket docs**: `/kotharo docs` - **Before a PR**: `/kotharo:pr-prep` - **Review a PR**: `/kotharo:cr` ### Held stops, helpers and prompts - **Held stop**: With 3 waiting, new stops wait quietly and read **Plan stop: 3 ahead** - **Several PRs**: **Merge 2** merges the ready ones in order - **Helpers**: Press **2 helpers working** for one row each; **silent 5m** means no tool for 5 minutes - **Manual mode**: Outside auto mode, after 10 quiet minutes the band says it **may be waiting on a permission prompt** ### What the end card shows - The **Intent** and **Riskiest area**, Follow-ups, then gates, tests, **Reviewed by**, such as `cr (0 Major, 2 Minor)`, and the diff. - **Ship** is one yes to commit, push and open the PR, reviewing again only if the code changed. You merge it, and the team reads the PR's state and goes on. - **Follow-ups** come Major first: the top 3 and a count of the rest. Answer **all** or **all but 2**. - **Blockers** each get their own card: **Fix it**, **Accept with a reason** or **Defer to a ticket**. - Up to 2 changes the retro suggests, such as a setting or a CLAUDE.md line, each with its evidence. - **Flaky tests** passed when run again alone. They're named and never disabled. - **PR review** names the bot review to come; the merge waits for it, or offers **Wait for the review**. - When a review tool's limit is used up, a budget stop offers **Wait** or **Skip the review**. ### When else it stops you - A login or VPN it can't do for you. - A question the code can't answer. - A fix loop past its round limit: 2, or 1 in lean and 3 in thorough. ## Fix and tune - **Overkill**: `/kotharo:leave` keeps your work - **Lost track**: `/kotharo:work-resume ` - **Bad deploy**: `/kotharo:rollback` - **Tracker down**: `/kotharo:sync-tickets` - **Plain branch**: `/ship` `--push` skips the ask - **Pull main in**: `/kotharo:sync-main` - **Old worktrees**: `/kotharo:prune-worktrees` - **Settings**: `/kotharo:config` - **Missing a tool**: `/kotharo:setup` ### Modes, autonomy and teaching - **Direct**: `ask` by default; `always` never plans, `never` always plans - **Mode**: `balanced`, `lean` (1 fix round) or `thorough` (3) - **Autonomy**: `guided` adds plan and design stops; `autonomous` pushes and deploys to dev - **Teaching**: `explain` says why each step matters; `coach` asks you to guess first - **Turn it on**: `/kotharo:config set learning.level coach --user` - **Your progress**: `kotharo teach progress` Your CLAUDE.md always wins. ### Without auto mode `/kotharo:setup` proposes allow rules for `.claude/settings.json` and writes them on your OK. It never sets a mode; set acceptEdits in your own `~/.claude/settings.json`. To stop the script's prompts, allow `"Bash(kotharo *)"` in `~/.claude/settings.json`. After the end card's yes, Claude Code confirms the push and the PR once each. `/team` says how many prompts to expect; `kotharo help` lists the script's commands. ### More commands - **Search all repos**: `/kotharo:estate-scan` - **Sprint status**: `/kotharo:sprint standup` - **Release**: `/kotharo:release-cut` - **Release steps**: Run sheet, watch, morning check - **Stats**: `/metrics` - **The design**: `/diagram` - **Hours logged**: `/kotharo:session-hours` ## Tools it connects | Slot | Tools | Worth knowing | |---|---|---| | Tickets | Jira, Linear, GitHub Issues, GitLab Issues, Azure Boards | Writes wait and go later if the tracker is down | | Source host | GitHub, GitLab, Azure Repos | Opens the PR only after your OK | | Deploy | Jenkins, GitHub Actions, Vercel, Netlify, Cloudflare Workers, Azure Pipelines | Deploys only on your go, then checks it is live | | CI | GitLab CI | On GitHub the team uses `gh run` | | Errors and logs | Sentry, New Relic, Honeycomb, ClickStack, App Insights, Datadog, CloudWatch | Bounded queries only | | PR review bot | CodeRabbit, Claude Code Review, Codex, Copilot code review, Gemini Code Assist, Greptile, Qodo Merge | Its open findings come in by severity | | Local review | CodeRabbit CLI, Codex CLI, Greptile CLI | Reviews before the push | | Static analysis | SonarQube, Semgrep | | | Browser testing | Playwright | Local hosts and test accounts only | | Docs | Confluence, Notion, Google Drive, repo `docs/` | Close-out offers **Publish to ``** | | Chat | Slack, Google Chat, Teams | | | Design source | Figma | | | IaC | Terraform | | | Cloud sign-in | AWS SSO | Gives you the `aws sso login` line to run | | Secrets | AWS SSM Parameter Store, 1Password, HashiCorp Vault, Doppler | Says a secret exists, never reads its value | Written for Kotharo v0.8.3.