Discovery
Understand the problem before committing to a change — a read-only session that can graduate into a feature, once and only deliberately.
/ivar-discovery [objective]A discovery session is for the part of the work that comes before you know what to build. No feature is bound, and every repo is read-only on its default branch, so exploring cannot accidentally become editing.
How it runs
State the objective. Pass it as an argument, or the agent asks: what would you like to understand or decide?
One question at a time. The agent reads files, searches the repos and runs read-only commands, asking a single question per turn rather than handing you a questionnaire.
Build the picture. Discovery is finished when five things exist: the problem or opportunity, the desired outcome, initial scope boundaries, the repos likely affected, and the risks and open questions.
Nothing is written during discovery
Repos are read-only for the whole session. That is a property of the view directory, not a rule the agent is asked to follow.
Continuing one
Running /ivar-discovery again inside an active discovery session continues it
— it does not start over.
Converting to a feature
Once the five points are settled, the agent may offer to convert the session into a Feature Session. Conversion binds the session to a feature and moves its view directory into that feature's tree, making the promoted repos writable.
Conversion is offered, never automatic — and it is one-way
A feature session cannot be turned back into a discovery session, and
/ivar-discovery refuses to run against one. If you need to explore again
with fresh eyes, start a new discovery session.
After conversion, /ivar-plan turns the discovery brief
into requirements.
Sessions
The commands that open, reattach to and close the directory your agent works in — and the guard that decides what it can write.
Features and scope
Create the feature a change belongs to, see which repos are writable, and promote another one the moment the work reaches further than you thought.