Session Start Guide

Benchmarked against: Anthropic — (No direct equivalent — SuperPortia SOP) Protocol: Agent Intelligence Protocol, Section 1 Scope: What every agent must do when a new session begins

Every SuperPortia agent follows a mandatory boot sequence at session start. This ensures the agent has situational awareness, knows its pending tasks, and is ready for Captain's instructions.

---

Boot sequence

---

Step-by-step

Step 1: Hook fires automatically

The SessionStart hook runs automatically when a new session begins. It injects:

Injected data	Source	Purpose
Taipei timestamp	TZ='Asia/Taipei' date	Watch rule compliance
Strategic anchor	Hardcoded	Identity reminder after compaction
Agent intelligence	Memory MCP	Critical facts, corrections, decisions

Step 2: Heartbeat (mandatory)

agent_heartbeat()

This registers the agent as online in the fleet registry. Other agents and the Captain can see you're active on the factory floor.

Step 3: Check mailbox (mandatory)

check_agent_mailbox(unread_only=True)

Check for any messages from other agents or the Captain. Process urgent messages immediately.

Step 4: Ask Captain

Do NOT:

• Read the entire bulletin board
• Search UB for general context
• Run check_dispatch() to find work
• Self-assign tasks

DO:

• Ask Captain what to work on
• Wait for explicit task assignment

Step 5: Read UB on demand

Once the Captain assigns a task, read relevant UB entries for that specific task:

search_brain("topic relevant to assigned task")

---

What NOT to do at session start

Anti-pattern	Why it's wrong	Correct behavior
Read entire bulletin board	Wastes tokens on context that may not be needed	Read on demand
Search UB broadly	Token-expensive fishing expedition	Search for specific task
Self-assign work from dispatch	Captain decides priorities	Ask Captain
Read all pending WOs	Information overload	Captain tells you which WO
Long status report	Captain hasn't asked yet	Brief greeting, ask for task

---

Compaction recovery

If the session starts after a context compaction (not a fresh session), a different protocol applies:

Key differences from fresh start:

• Do NOT run heartbeat again (already online)
• Do NOT search UB (compaction summary has your context)
• Do NOT ask Captain "what are we doing?"
• Resume work immediately based on the compaction summary

---

Session start for different contexts

Fresh session (first of the day)

1. Hook fires — timestamp + heartbeat + mailbox
2. Greet Captain with timestamp
3. Ask: "What would you like to work on today?"
4. Captain assigns task — begin work

Continuation session (previous ran out of context)

1. Hook fires — timestamp + heartbeat + mailbox
2. Read continuation summary (provided by system)
3. Resume the previous task without asking Captain
4. Report progress when reaching a milestone

Post-compaction (within same session)

1. Read compaction summary
2. Self-confirm task context
3. Resume immediately — no UB reads, no reports

---

Hook configuration

The SessionStart hook is configured in .claude/settings.json:

{
  "hooks": {
    "SessionStart": [
      {
        "matcher": "",
        "hooks": [
          {
            "type": "command",
            "command": "bash .claude/hooks/session-start.sh"
          }
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
}

What the hook script does

#!/bin/bash
# .claude/hooks/session-start.sh

# 1. Inject Taipei timestamp
echo "$(TZ='Asia/Taipei' date '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M') (Taipei)"

# 2. Strategic anchor (survives compaction)
echo "STRATEGIC ANCHOR"
echo "  Project: SS1 | Role: Engineer"
echo "  Captain: Boss"

# 3. Pre-Flight Check reminder
echo "Pre-Flight Check active"

---

Lean boot principle

The boot sequence is designed to be minimal:

Old boot (heavy)	New boot (lean)
Read bulletin board	Skip — not needed yet
Search UB broadly	Skip — ask Captain first
Check dispatch center	Skip — Captain decides
Read all pending WOs	Skip — Captain tells you
Total: 5+ UB calls	Total: 2 calls (heartbeat + mailbox)

This follows Progressive Disclosure (PD): load the minimum at startup, expand on demand.

---

Related pages

Page	Relationship
Quickstart	First session walkthrough
First Heartbeat	Heartbeat deep dive
Compaction Recovery	Post-compaction protocol
WO Lifecycle	Working with work orders