Work already under way

The team doesn't have to start a ticket to work on it. /kotharo:join brings it into a ticket that is already under way, yours or a teammate's, without planning it again. /kotharo:leave takes it off a ticket without finishing it.

When to join

On a branch that has commits ahead of its base or an open pull request, and no docs/work/<KEY>/ folder yet, the band shows:

›◆ ABC-53  in flight, team not on it                                   Join

Press Join, or run it yourself. /kotharo:team and /kotharo:work-resume point you to it too. Run it with the ticket key, or with none to use the branch's ticket:

/kotharo:join ABC-123

What join does

Join is read-only until you choose. It reads:

• the ticket, its status and its comments;
• the commits ahead of base;
• the pull request, with its review and CI;
• the branch's worklog and any docs/work/<KEY>/ records.

Then it plays back where it thinks the ticket stands, with the evidence, names anything it could not read, and asks whether that is right. For example:

As I read it, in review: 3 commits ahead of origin/main; PR #12 open, 2 comments, CI passing. Is that right?

The stage comes from what the branch holds, not from how many commits it has: an open pull request reads as review, code commits as build, and design notes as design.

Your choices

• Join at the stage: the team picks up at that stage, on the same branch and pull request.
• Start at plan: the team plans with what is already there, and redoes nothing the plan doesn't call for.
• Just watch: it writes only docs/work/<KEY>/handoff.md, and changes nothing else.
• Not quite...: you say what it got wrong. It keeps your correction word for word, fixes its reading, and asks again.

When any source could not be read, Just watch is the default, since half a picture is a reason to listen longer.

How the team behaves when it joins

• It keeps the ticket's acceptance criteria as written, and marks anything it adds.
• It follows the team's habits: the commit style, the pull request template, the checks the repo runs, and the decisions already made in the ticket, the review and the worklog. Those are not its to revisit.
• Its first step is only the next step of that stage, such as answering open review comments. Then it reports back before taking on more.

Leave a ticket

To take the team off a ticket without finishing it, to take it back, hand it on, or undo a join:

/kotharo:leave ABC-123

It shows the lane, the stage and any stop waiting on you, and asks once. Leaving:

• clears the band's stages and any stop card, so a new session doesn't bring them back;
• adds a dated left line, with your reason, to docs/work/<KEY>/handoff.md;
• writes a close-out record with the verdict left.

Leaving never pushes, comments, moves the ticket, changes the pull request, or deletes a branch. It removes the team's extra worktrees only if you choose to.

A later /kotharo:team or /kotharo:join on that ticket says when and why the team left, and asks where to join, instead of picking up where it was.

Next: Commands. All docs