nemawashi-pick

The prompt owns judgment; the code owns validity. prompts/thin.md chooses the seed. scripts/pick.py refuses any pick that may not be made, and makes the move. This file only runs the two in order.

Posture

PM only. Run in a pm: session or as the pm subagent; anywhere else, halt, say the posture is wrong, and name the way in. The move commits with nobody asked, so the seat is the check.

Input

The project — system/projects/<project>/. If none is named, ask. Project journeys only.

Where the product's code runs. If seeing what the product does today means running any of its code — a check, its command, an import — run it in a disposable copy: a fresh clone at the commit you are reading (git clone --quiet <repo> <scratch> && git -C <scratch> checkout --quiet <sha>), never the product's main checkout. Running it there leaves files behind — a Python __pycache__/, a build directory — and the chain halts this run for every entry it finds there that was not there at launch (<CORE>/roles/CROSS_ROLE.md § Every seat — a run leaves the product's main checkout as it found it). Run the checks from a subshell, never cd your own shell into the copy, and remove the copy when you have read the result, in a command of its own run from outside it. Reading the code needs no copy.

Workflow

Run everything from the instance root. PICK=<CORE>/../skills/pm/.claude/skills/nemawashi-pick/scripts/pick.py.

1 — Can a pick happen?

python3 "$PICK" --root . --project <project> check

It prints the pool, or REFUSED: <reason> and exits 1. On a refusal, report the reason and stop.

2 — Choose

Read prompts/thin.md and do what it says. Write the answer to a record file outside the repository (the scratchpad or $TMPDIR) — nothing else is written:

Seed: <seed name, as the pool lists it>
Condition: none

<why it is the best next move>

Condition: carries none, or the condition that prevents starting it.

3 — May it be picked?

python3 "$PICK" --root . --project <project> apply --record <record file>

It re-checks step 1, then refuses unless the record names exactly one seed, that seed is in unpicked/ and in neither trail/ nor drop/, its checklist is not fully walked, the condition is none, and the paths a pick writes — this project's journey/ and system/contexts/CONTEXT_PPM.md — are still clean. Another project's edit elsewhere in the shared checkout does not refuse it. On success it moves the seed and prints its old and new paths. On a refusal, report the reason and stop — nothing was moved.

It then appends the pick to ## Picked seeds in system/contexts/CONTEXT_PPM.md, the Principal PM's view of the seeds picked across every project, and prints that path third. Several projects hold a picked seed at once, so the line is only appended and no other line is touched. The move that takes the seed off its root removes it (<CORE>/docs/journey_move.md § The Principal PM's picked seeds). An instance with no such file or section prints no PPM context — skipped third instead, and the pick stands.

4 — Commit

Per <CORE>/doctrine/governance/commit_via_builder.md. Drop --add when step 3 printed the skip line:

python3 "<CORE>/tools/commit_builder.py" --repo . commit \
  --staged "<old path>" "<new path>" --add "<context path>" \
  --subject "pick: <seed>" --body "$(cat <record file>)" \
  --actor pm --skill nemawashi-pick --prompt nemawashi-pick/thin \
  --directional "Agari: <project> — progress: <seed> is the active seed" \
  --surface "Claude Code" --co-authored-by "<your model> <noreply@anthropic.com>"

5 — Report

The seed picked, why, and the next move: stations-from-seed.