Shukuba Retire

Purpose

Close a reached station, and say where that leaves the journey. A 宿場 Shukuba is one leg of the active 根回し Nemawashi idea's route; when its reached-when is met, two things are true at once — the station is finished, and the seed's checklist item it came from is done. This skill does both: the archive move and the tick. A third thing is true and is only reported — the journey is now standing at the next item, or at none.

What comes next is not this skill's. Which station opens next, whether it is walked, and whether the idea retires are the owner's calls in the loop — <CORE>/docs/michi_agari.md § How we work, step 4, and <CORE>/roles/loaders/pm_global.md §§ Responsibilities 6-8 and Hand-off triggers. The station-open in particular is its own move, made by shukuba-open (pm_global.md § Skills toolbox (reminder)). A close that asked those questions stated a second copy of a fact that already has an owner, and made the skill unusable from any caller with nobody in the room.

Close, don't seal, don't retire the idea. The verbs are kept straight in <CORE>/docs/michi_agari.md § Quick reference: you seal a 飛び石 Tobiishi, close a station, and retire a finished idea. This skill closes. tobiishi-seal seals; nemawashi-retire retires.

trail/ is the record of stations reached — and only of those. A station being set down unreached is a different operation with a different destination: shukuba-park, which moves it to shukuba/parked/ and leaves the seed's item unticked. See Step 1's gate.

Project-level only — the instance has its own 宿場 Shukuba (system/shukuba/), but it is a router, not a walked station, per <CORE>/docs/journey_move.md § The two levels: it coordinates several projects pushing on one shared thing and is never crossed by Tobiishi. Its cross-project reached-when is met when every contributing project has reached its own station on the shared thing, which is not this skill's to verify, and no Nemawashi checklist item stands behind it to tick. Its file is moved to trail/ by hand, not by this skill (system/shukuba/README.md § Lifecycle). An invocation pointing anywhere under system/ that is not system/projects/<project>/journey/shukuba/ stops, saying an instance seed's moves are made by hand, and names the Michi as the instance's only direction.

Shared mechanics. The move itself — how a journey artifact changes folder, and how that commit is built — lives in <CORE>/docs/journey_move.md. Read it; this file names the section it is leaning on at each step rather than restating any of it. The tick in Step 4 is this skill's own.

Posture

Scrum Master only. Run in a scrum-master: session or as the scrum-master subagent. Invoked from anywhere else, halt at once, say the posture is wrong, and name the way in. The seat's contract is <CORE>/roles/loaders/scrum_master_global.md. The gate is there because the run moves, ticks and commits with nobody answering — <CORE>/doctrine/setup/authoring_layers.md § A skill that acts unattended gates to its seat.

One exception: the PM, from inside its own park. When shukuba-park, running in the PM seat, finds the station it was asked to set down already reached, it closes the station through this skill rather than leaving the close owed — the boy-scout rule, applied to a station already in the PM's hands — the owner's call, 2026-10-03. That is the only way in for the PM. A pm: session or pm subagent invoking this skill directly, or any other PM skill, halts like every other seat. The Scrum Master still owns the close; the exception removes a hand-off, not the seat.

Input

The invocation names the project, and may name the station: its dated stem (<YYYY-MM-DD>_<slug>), or a path to the file. With no station named, the close acts on the one station at the project's shukuba root — a root holds one at most. The journey part here is system/projects/<project>/journey/shukuba/.

Workflow

Step 1 — Resolve the station and confirm it's closable

Run everything from the instance root. RETIRE=<CORE>/../skills/scrum-master/.claude/skills/shukuba-retire/scripts/retire.py.

python3 "$RETIRE" --root . --project <project> resolve [--station <YYYY-MM-DD>_<slug>]

Pass --station when the invocation names one — for a path, its file name. The script prints the station's path from the instance root, and it makes the checks <CORE>/docs/journey_move.md § Resolving the target asks for: it refuses a root holding more than one station, named or not — a root holds one, and a close never picks one of two — a root holding none when no station is named, and a named station that is not open at the root — already in trail/, in parked/, or absent. A refusal stops the run: report it as printed and change nothing. The station is the path the script printed, with <shukuba> its folder. Do not list the folder yourself to find the station or to second-guess the answer — a listing the run chose is what this step replaces, and on 2026-10-13 one cut off by | head was read as an empty root. An invocation pointing anywhere under system/ that is not a project's shukuba stops per Project-level only above.

Then confirm the station was actually reached. Read its reached-when and check it against the world. If any part is unsatisfied, stop and name shukuba-park, the PM's to run — that skill moves the station to shukuba/parked/ and leaves the seed's item unticked, which is what an unfinished leg needs. Closing it here instead would do both halves of the damage at once: trail/ would claim a walk that never happened, and Step 4's tick would mark the item done so no station is ever opened from it again. If the reached-when turns on something you cannot observe, ask rather than inferring it from how much of the station looks done.

Where a check runs. When checking the world means running the product's own checks — a test suite, a harness, a script under the product's checks/ — run them in a disposable copy of the product — a fresh clone at the commit under test (git clone --quiet <repo> <scratch> && git -C <scratch> checkout --quiet <sha>), never git archive, which drops the history a product's checks may read — never in the product's main checkout, and leave that checkout as you 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 (<CORE>/roles/CROSS_ROLE.md § Every seat — a run leaves the product's main checkout as it found it). A chain halts the step that leaves it dirtier.

Step 2 — Ensure the trail exists

mkdir -p "<shukuba>/trail"

Per <CORE>/docs/journey_move.md § Ensure the destination exists.

Step 3 — Move the station into the trail

git mv "<shukuba>/<YYYY-MM-DD>_<slug>.md" "<shukuba>/trail/<YYYY-MM-DD>_<slug>.md"

Per <CORE>/docs/journey_move.md § Move whole. A reached station has no self-description for the move to falsify — it is going where a finished station belongs — so the shared file's one permitted edit does not arise here, and the file moves with no content change at all. The outcome goes in the commit body (Step 5), which is what the trail's record is read alongside.

Step 4 — Tick the Nemawashi

The station was opened from one unchecked item on the active seed's checklist. Check it off.

Find the active seed. It is the single item at the sibling system/projects/<project>/journey/nemawashi/ — a file, or a folder holding seed.md — at that folder's root, excluding README.md and excluding the unpicked/ and trail/ subfolders. (One active idea at a time; the other candidates sit in unpicked/.) If the root holds no item, or more than one, stop and ask — the seedbed is in a state this skill must not guess at. For a folder-seed, every read and the tick below both land in seed.md.

A seed carrying no checklist has nothing to tick — proceed. Roughly a third of the seeds on disk are that shape: an idea written as one bounded defect never grows a route, and there is no item for a station to have been opened from. Skip the rest of this step and go to Step 5, whose commit then carries the station's rename alone. Say in the commit body that no item was ticked and why, so the trail does not read as a tick that went missing.

Match the item. The station file names the seed item it was opened from — a worked example opens "Item 3 of the active 根回し Nemawashi YYYY-MM-DD_a-seed-name". Read the station (you still have it from Step 1) and match that to exactly one unchecked (- [ ]) entry on the seed's checklist.

Tick it, and only tick it.

- [ ] Build the kensaiapp-spawn skill …     →     - [x] Build the kensaiapp-spawn skill …

Two brackets change. Nothing else about the line changes, and nothing is appended to it — per Don't bloat the journey in the shared file.

If the item cannot be matched to exactly one unchecked entry, stop and ask — name the unchecked entries and let the owner say which. A wrong tick silently buries a station's worth of work: the item reads done, no station will ever be opened from it again, and nothing anywhere records that it wasn't walked. There is no cheap way back from it, which is why guessing is not allowed here.

Step 5 — Commit both paths, in one commit

One commit carries two paths: the station's rename (Step 3) and the edited seed (Step 4— for a folder-seed, seed.md inside it). They are one fact — this station is closed — so they are one commit.

<CORE>/docs/journey_move.md § The commit owns the recipe; read it rather than working from the sketch below. The two declarations differ:

• the rename is already in the index, so it is declared with --staged, naming both halves;
• the edited seed is an ordinary modification, so it rides --add — the seed's own path for a file-seed, <nemawashi>/<seed>/seed.md for a folder-seed.

When the seed has no checklist there is no --add and no second path — the commit carries the rename alone, and the subject drops the tick clause. Step 4 sends you here directly.

python3 "<CORE>/tools/commit_builder.py" --repo . commit \
  --staged "<shukuba>/<YYYY-MM-DD>_<slug>.md" "<shukuba>/trail/<YYYY-MM-DD>_<slug>.md" \
  --add "<nemawashi>/<seed>.md" \
  --subject "close shukuba: <YYYY-MM-DD>_<slug> → trail/, item <n> ticked" \
  --actor scrum-master \
  --directional "Shukuba: <YYYY-MM-DD>_<slug> — progress: reached, closed to trail" \
  --surface "Claude Code" --co-authored-by "<your model> <noreply@anthropic.com>"

When shukuba-park runs this skill from the PM seat (§ Posture), the identity flag is that seat's own — the PM's agent type, or --role PM from a pm: session — never the Scrum Master's.

With no checklist, the --add line goes and the subject drops its tick clause — close shukuba: <YYYY-MM-DD>_<slug> → trail/.

The identity flag and the no---skill rule are the shared file's. What is specific to a close:

• --directional is always a Shukuba: line, and always progress:. A close is project-scoped and it advances the station it names, so it resolves against the station just closed. The shared file's Agari: fallback does not apply — a station is open by definition here — and aside: belongs to shukuba-park, not to a close. See <CORE>/doctrine/governance/commit_format.md § Directional trailer.

Then eyeball the stat, per the shared file. With a checklist it must show both a rename and an insertion/deletion pair for the seed (seed.md alone, for a folder-seed): the rename alone means the tick did not land. With no checklist the rename alone is the correct and complete result. The seed and the station are different journey items, so the shared file's move-then-edit trap does not fire from Step 3/Step 4 order — but the stat is still the only place a missing tick shows. If it is missing, re---add the seed and commit before going on.

Step 6 — Report

State plainly what happened: which station moved to trail/, and which checklist item was ticked (or that the seed carries no checklist, so nothing was).

Then state where the journey now stands — the one fact Step 4 already computed and the caller cannot get anywhere cheaper:

• Unchecked items remain — say how many, and quote the next one. The station slot is now empty, and the next station is shukuba-open's (<CORE>/roles/loaders/pm_global.md § Responsibilities 3).
• None remain — say so, and say that the retire is owed — nemawashi-retire. The seed's whole checklist is walked, so this is where the walked seed leaves the walk. Naming it is the whole of the hand-off: this run does not perform the retire, does not offer to, and does not invoke nemawashi-retire. Say it only here, on the branch where no item remains; a seed with route left is not owed to anybody.
• The seed carries no checklist (Step 4's proceed) — say that, and say nothing about what the seed's state implies. There is no route to be part-way along, so "how many remain" has no answer here, and inventing one would read as a finished route.

Reporting that is not asking it. Do not offer to open the next station, to walk it, or to retire the seed — see Critical Rules. An empty slot is the journey standing still, and the caller should know that is the state they are in; what to do about it is theirs.

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Outputs

File / effect	Produced when
shukuba/<YYYY-MM-DD>_<slug>.md moved to shukuba/trail/<YYYY-MM-DD>_<slug>.md + the seed's item ticked, in one commit	Success (Steps 3–5), when the seed carries a checklist
the same move, rename only, no tick	Success, when the seed carries no checklist (Step 4)
A report naming how many checklist items remain unchecked, and the next one	Always (Step 6)
No change; the script's refusal, reported as printed	No station open at the root, more than one, or the named one not open there (Step 1)
No change; a question naming the candidates	Unmatchable item (Step 4)
No change; a halt saying the posture is wrong	Invoked outside the Scrum Master seat and not from the PM's park (§ Posture)

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Critical Rules

• The Scrum Master's, and the PM's only from inside its park. Any other seat, or the PM by any other route, names the close as owed and hands it to the Scrum Master.
• The station is the one retire.py resolve prints. Never one found by a listing of your own; a refusal from the script ends the run with nothing changed.
• trail/ only for a station that was reached. Verify the reached-when in Step 1; an unreached station goes to shukuba-park, not here. Closing one anyway fabricates a completed walk and ticks its item away — both halves of the damage in one commit.
• Project-level only. The instance Shukuba is a router, never walked — its cross-project reached-when is not this skill's to verify, and no seed item stands behind it to tick. An instance-level invocation stops with a pointer to the router's hand move (system/shukuba/README.md) and the Michi — never a fabricated instance station.
• Tick exactly one item, or ask — unless the seed has no checklist, which is a proceed. The tick is [ ] → [x] on one matched unchecked entry. If it can't be matched to exactly one, ask. A wrong tick loses a station's work with no trace.
• A tick is a tick. Two brackets — no appended paragraph, no "done — see commit abc123". The don't-bloat rule this serves is the shared file's; a checklist line is where the temptation to break it actually lands.
• One fact, one commit. The close (rename + tick) is one commit, and it is the only one this skill makes. A newly opened station is shukuba-open's commit; a seed retire is its own. Never bundle them: each carries its own directional trailer, and a bundled one cannot be reverted in pieces.
• Don't offer the next move. Not the next station, not walking it, not retiring the seed. Each is already owned — the station-open by shukuba-open (<CORE>/roles/loaders/pm_global.md § Responsibilities 3), the rest by the loop in <CORE>/docs/michi_agari.md:144-149 — so an offer here is a second copy of a decided fact, and an interactive gate in a skill that must run from a delegate or a launcher with nobody in the room. Report where the journey stands; stop there.
• Shukuba: … progress: always. A close advances the station it names, so the directional never degrades to Agari: and never reads aside:.
• The shared mechanic is shared. Everything about how the move and its commit are made lives in <CORE>/docs/journey_move.md. Read it there; a second copy is a copy free to drift.
• The seed's retire is nemawashi-retire's. This run never performs the retire and never offers it — and it must not re-implement that move or its unfinished-checklist gate. A second copy of that logic is a copy free to drift. What it does owe is one sentence, and only when no checklist item remains: the retire is owed — nemawashi-retire (Step 6). Saying it on any other branch invents an obligation.