Nelson

Execute this workflow for the user's mission.

1. Issue Sailing Orders

• Review the user's brief for ambiguity. If the outcome, scope, or constraints are unclear, ask the user to clarify before drafting sailing orders.
• Write one sentence for outcome, metric, and deadline.
• Set constraints: token budget, reliability floor, compliance rules, and forbidden actions.
• Define what is out of scope.
• Define stop criteria and required handoff artifacts.

You MUST read references/admiralty-templates/sailing-orders.md and use the sailing-orders template when the user does not provide structure.

Example sailing orders summary:

Outcome: Refactor auth module to use JWT tokens
Metric: All 47 auth tests pass, no new dependencies
Deadline: This session
Constraints: Do not modify the public API surface
Out of scope: Migration script for existing sessions

Establish Mission Directory:

• New session: Create a mission directory at .nelson/missions/{YYYY-MM-DD_HHMMSS}/ using the current date and time (24-hour format, including seconds). Create the subdirectories damage-reports/ and turnover-briefs/ within it. Record the mission directory path and refer to it as {mission-dir} for the remainder of this mission.
• Resumed session: List .nelson/missions/ sorted by name. The most recent directory is the active mission. Set it as {mission-dir}. Recover state per references/damage-control/session-resumption.md (prefer JSON files, fall back to quarterdeck report prose).

All mission artifacts — captain's log, quarterdeck reports, damage reports, and turnover briefs — are written inside {mission-dir}.

Structured Data Capture: After establishing the mission directory, run python3 scripts/nelson-data.py init --outcome "..." --metric "..." --deadline "..." to create sailing-orders.json and initialise mission-log.json. See references/structured-data.md for the full argument list.

Session Hygiene: Execute session hygiene per references/damage-control/session-hygiene.md. Skip this step when resuming an interrupted session.

2. Draft Battle Plan

• Split mission into independent tasks with clear deliverables.
  • Map the dependency graph: enumerate units of work that can run without shared state or ordering constraints. Each independent unit receives its own captain. Only group tasks onto one captain when they share files, require sequential ordering, or the context-setup cost demonstrably exceeds the work itself.
  • The default is one captain per independent task. Grouping is the exception and requires a concrete reason.
  • If cost-savings is a priority, also consider task inputs — avoid multiple agents independently loading the same large inputs into their contexts.
• Assign explicit dependencies for each task.
• Assign file ownership when implementation touches code.
• Assign an action station tier to each task (see references/action-stations.md).
• For each task, note expected crew composition using the crew-or-direct decision tree in references/crew-roles.md. If crew are mustered, list crew roles with sub-tasks and sequence. If the captain implements directly (0 crew), note "Captain implements directly." If the captain anticipates needing marine support, note marine capacity (max 2).
• For each task, consciously mark admiralty-action-required: yes or no.
• Keep one task in progress per agent unless the mission explicitly requires multitasking.

Reference references/admiralty-templates/battle-plan.md for the battle plan template and references/admiralty-templates/ship-manifest.md for the ship manifest.

Battle Plan Gate — Standing Order Check: You MUST NOT finalize task assignments until each question below is answered in writing and any triggered standing order remedy has been applied. Show your reasoning — a bare yes/no is not sufficient.

• becalmed-fleet.md: Should this mission use single-session instead of multi-agent? If yes, skip Step 3 — single-session has no squadron to form.
• light-squadron.md: Is the task count equal to the number of independent work units, or have tasks been under-split?
• split-keel.md: Does each task have exclusive file ownership with no conflicts?
• unclassified-engagement.md: Does every task have a risk tier?
• all-hands-on-deck.md: Has each task been crewed only with roles its work actually demands?
• skeleton-crew.md: Would any task deploy exactly one crew member for an atomic task the captain should handle directly?
• crew-without-canvas.md: Is every agent justified by actual task scope?
• captain-at-the-capstan.md: For each task with crew, is the captain's role coordination, not implementation?
• press-ganged-navigator.md: Is the red-cell navigator being assigned implementation work?
• admiral-at-the-helm.md: Does the battle plan assign any implementation work to the admiral?

If any answer triggers a standing order, you MUST apply the corrective action and re-answer the question before proceeding. For situations not covered by this gate, consult the Standing Orders table below.

Structured Data Capture: Task registration requires owners, which are assigned in Step 3. No script calls at this step.

3. Form the Squadron

• Select execution mode per references/squadron-composition.md. If the user explicitly requested a mode, use it — user preference overrides the decision matrix.
  • single-session: sequential tasks, low complexity, or heavy same-file editing.
  • subagents: parallel, fully independent tasks that report only to the admiral.
  • agent-team: captains benefit from a shared task list, peer messaging, or coordinated deliverables; or 4+ captains are needed.
• Assign each task a captain and a ship name from references/crew-roles.md matching task weight (frigate for general, destroyer for high-risk, patrol vessel for small, flagship for critical-path, submarine for research).
• Finalize ship manifests: confirm crew roles per task, or note "Captain implements directly."
• Add 1 red-cell navigator for medium/high threat work. Do not exceed 10 squadron-level agents (admiral, captains, red-cell navigator). Crew are additional.
• If the sailing orders express cost-savings priority, load references/model-selection.md before assigning models. Apply weight-based model selection to all Agent tool calls and include haiku briefing enhancements for agents assigned to haiku.

SQUADRON FORMATION ORDERS

Mode: [single-session | subagents | agent-team]
Captain count: [N]

Ships:
  [Ship name] — [vessel type] — [one-line task summary]
    Crew: [roles, or "Captain implements directly"]
  [repeat for each ship]

[Red-cell navigator — HMS X, if present]

If any tasks are marked admiralty-action-required: yes, append before awaiting approval:

ADMIRALTY ACTION LIST — Actions required from Admiralty

1. [Task name]
   action: [what you must do]
   timing: [before task starts | after task completes]
   unblocks: [task name or stand-down]

Actions marked `timing: before task starts` require your sign-off before the relevant captain is spawned.

Do not spawn any agents or create any tasks until the user approves. If the user requests changes, revise and redisplay before proceeding.

Note: Nelson requires an interactive session for formation approval. Headless and CI invocation are not supported at this time.

Structured Data Capture: Once formation is approved, run these three commands in order:

1. python3 scripts/nelson-data.py task --mission-dir {mission-dir} --id N --name "..." --owner "..." ... for each task (owners are now known from formation). See references/structured-data.md for task arguments.
2. python3 scripts/nelson-data.py plan-approved --mission-dir {mission-dir} to finalise the battle plan and compute DAG metrics.
3. python3 scripts/nelson-data.py squadron --mission-dir {mission-dir} --admiral "..." --admiral-model [model] --captain "name:class:model:task_id" ... --mode [mode] to record squadron composition. Repeat --captain for each captain. See references/structured-data.md for the full argument list.

Before proceeding to Step 4: Verify that sailing orders exist, all tasks have owners and deliverables, and every task has an action station tier.

Crew Briefing: Spawning and task assignment are two steps. First, spawn each captain with the Agent tool, including a crew briefing from references/admiralty-templates/crew-briefing.md in their prompt. Then create and assign work with TaskCreate + TaskUpdate. Teammates do NOT inherit the lead's conversation context — they start with a clean slate and need explicit mission context. See references/tool-mapping.md for full parameter details by mode.

Edit permissions: When spawning any agent whose task involves editing files, set mode: "acceptEdits" on the Agent tool call. Omitting this can cause a permission race condition that silently stalls the agent at its first edit. When in doubt, include it.

Turnover Briefs: When a ship is relieved due to context exhaustion, it writes a turnover brief using references/admiralty-templates/turnover-brief.md. See references/damage-control/relief-on-station.md for the full procedure.

4. Get Permission to Sail

Display and Permission Gate:

1. Display the complete battle plan to the user if becalmed-fleet.md is in effect.
2. Display the complete squadron formation to the user if becalmed-fleet.md is not in effect. The battle plan (drafted in Step 2) should also be available for review.
3. You are REQUIRED to wait for explicit permission to proceed.

5. Run Quarterdeck Rhythm

Idle notification rule (immediate — do not defer to checkpoint): Every time an idle notification arrives from a ship, ask two questions before doing anything else:

1. Is this ship's task marked complete?
2. Does any remaining pending task depend on this ship's output?

If the task is complete and no pending task depends on it, send shutdown_request immediately — in the same response. Do not wait for the next checkpoint cadence. Check the current TaskList state at the moment the idle notification arrives; each notification is evaluated independently against current state. This applies even when other ships are still running and even when a captain's results were delivered inline (not as a separate artifact). The paid-off.md standing order governs this; consult it if uncertain.

Shutdown attempt ceiling: If a shutdown_request to a ship goes unacknowledged, do not loop indefinitely. After 3 failed attempts to the same agent, abandon the shutdown attempt, note the failure in the captain's log, and continue the mission. If TeamDelete is blocked by stuck agents, manual cleanup is available — see references/damage-control/man-overboard.md for the procedure.

• Keep admiral focused on coordination and unblock actions.
• The admiral sets the mood of the squadron. Acknowledge progress, recognise strong work, and maintain cheerfulness under pressure.
• Checkpoint Cadence Gate: You MUST NOT process a third task completion without writing a quarterdeck checkpoint. Before dispatching new work or processing the next completion, confirm the last checkpoint is no more than 2 completions old. The quarterdeck report is your only recovery point if context compaction occurs — stale reports mean lost coordination state.
• Run a quarterdeck checkpoint after every 1-2 task completions, when a captain reports a blocker, or when a captain goes idle with unverified outputs:
  • Update progress by checking TaskList for task states: pending, in_progress, completed.
  • Identify blockers and choose a concrete next action.
  • Use SendMessage to unblock captains or redirect their approach.
  • Confirm each crew member has active sub-tasks; flag idle crew or role mismatches.
  • Check for active marine deployments; verify marines have returned and outputs are incorporated.
  • Safety net: if any idle ship with a complete task was missed between checkpoints, send shutdown_request now before continuing.
  • Track burn against token/time budget.
  • Check hull integrity: collect damage reports from all ships, update the squadron readiness board, and take action per references/damage-control/hull-integrity.md. The admiral must also check its own hull integrity at each checkpoint. Every ship must file a damage report at every checkpoint to {mission-dir}/damage-reports/{ship-name}.json using the schema in references/admiralty-templates/damage-report.md — do not skip this when hull is Green.
  • Standing order scan: For each order below, ask "Has this situation arisen since the last checkpoint?" If yes, apply the corrective action now — do not defer.
    • admiral-at-the-helm.md: Has the admiral drifted into implementation work?
    • drifting-anchorage.md: Has any task scope crept beyond the sailing orders?
    • captain-at-the-capstan.md: Has any captain started implementing instead of coordinating crew?
    • pressed-crew.md: Has any crew member been assigned work outside their role?
    • press-ganged-navigator.md: Has the red-cell navigator been assigned implementation work?
    • all-hands-on-deck.md: Has any ship mustered crew roles that are idle or unjustified?
    • battalion-ashore.md: Has any captain deployed marines for crew work or sustained tasks?
  • Write the quarterdeck report to disk at {mission-dir}/quarterdeck-report.md at every checkpoint using references/admiralty-templates/quarterdeck-report.md. Do not skip this when hull is Green — compaction can occur at any time and the on-disk report is the only recovery point. Before writing, if quarterdeck-report.md already exists in {mission-dir}, find all files matching glob pattern quarterdeck-report-[0-9]*.md, determine N as one greater than the highest N found (0 if none exist), rename the existing file to quarterdeck-report-N.md, then write the new report. This keeps the latest report at the canonical path while preserving history.
  • Structured data capture: Run python3 scripts/nelson-data.py checkpoint --mission-dir {mission-dir} --pending N --in-progress N --completed N ... with current progress, budget, hull, and decision data. Between checkpoints, run python3 scripts/nelson-data.py event --mission-dir {mission-dir} --type <event_type> ... for state changes (task completions, blockers, hull threshold crossings, standing order violations). See references/structured-data.md for event types and arguments.
  • Check TaskList for any tasks with description prefixed [AWAITING-ADMIRALTY]:. If any exist, surface the ask to Admiralty immediately — do not batch to the next checkpoint.
  • Cross-reference the battle plan against TaskList: for any task marked admiralty-action-required: yes in the battle plan that shows status completed, confirm there is a quarterdeck log entry recording admiralty sign-off. If no such entry exists, flag to Admiralty for manual verification — the task may have completed without the intended human step.
• Re-scope early when a task drifts from mission metric.
• When a mission encounters difficulties, consult the Damage Control table below for recovery and escalation procedures.

Example quarterdeck checkpoint:

Status: 3/5 tasks complete, 1 blocked, 1 in progress
Blocker: HMS Resolute waiting on API schema from HMS Swift
Action: Redirect HMS Swift to prioritise schema export
Budget: ~40% tokens consumed, on track
Hull: All ships green

Reference references/tool-mapping.md for coordination tools, references/admiralty-templates/quarterdeck-report.md for the report template, and references/admiralty-templates/damage-report.md for damage report format. Use references/commendations.md for recognition signals and graduated correction. Consult the Standing Orders table below if admiral is doing implementation or tasks are drifting from scope.

5. Set Action Stations

• You MUST read and apply station tiers from references/action-stations.md.
• Require verification evidence before marking tasks complete:
  • Test or validation output.
  • Failure modes and rollback notes.
  • Red-cell review for medium+ station tiers.
• Trigger quality checks on:
  • Task completion.
  • Agent idle with unverified outputs.
  • Before final synthesis.
• For crewed tasks, verify crew outputs align with role boundaries (consult references/crew-roles.md and the Standing Orders table below if role violations are detected).
• Marine deployments follow station-tier rules in references/royal-marines.md. Station 2+ marine deployments require admiral approval. Captains use references/admiralty-templates/marine-deployment-brief.md when deploying a marine.

Reference references/admiralty-templates/red-cell-review.md for the red-cell review template. Consult the Standing Orders table below if tasks lack a tier or red-cell is assigned implementation work.

6. Stand Down And Log Action

• Stop or archive all agent sessions, including crew.
• Write the captain's log to {mission-dir}/captains-log.md. The log MUST be written to disk — outputting it to chat only does not satisfy this requirement. The captain's log should contain:
  • Decisions and rationale.
  • Diffs or artifacts.
  • Validation evidence.
  • Open risks and follow-ups.
  • Mentioned in Despatches: name agents and contributions that were exemplary.
  • Record reusable patterns and failure modes for future missions.

Reference references/admiralty-templates/captains-log.md for the captain's log template and references/commendations.md for Mentioned in Despatches criteria.

Structured Data Capture: Before writing the captain's log, run python3 scripts/nelson-data.py stand-down --mission-dir {mission-dir} --outcome-achieved --actual-outcome "..." --metric-result "..." to capture the structured mission summary. See references/structured-data.md for the full argument list.

Mission Complete Gate: You MUST NOT declare the mission complete until {mission-dir}/captains-log.md exists on disk and has been confirmed readable. If context pressure is high, write a minimal log noting which sections were abbreviated — but the file must exist. Skipping Step 6 is never permitted.

Standing Orders

Consult the specific standing order that matches the situation.

Situation	Standing Order
Choosing between single-session and multi-agent	references/standing-orders/becalmed-fleet.md
Tasks under-split onto fewer captains than independence warrants	references/standing-orders/light-squadron.md
Deciding whether to add another agent	references/standing-orders/crew-without-canvas.md
Assigning files to agents in the battle plan	references/standing-orders/split-keel.md
Task scope drifting from sailing orders	references/standing-orders/drifting-anchorage.md
Admiral doing implementation instead of coordinating	references/standing-orders/admiral-at-the-helm.md
Assigning work to the red-cell navigator	references/standing-orders/press-ganged-navigator.md
Tasks proceeding without a risk tier classification	references/standing-orders/unclassified-engagement.md
Captain implementing instead of coordinating crew	references/standing-orders/captain-at-the-capstan.md
Crewing every role regardless of task needs	references/standing-orders/all-hands-on-deck.md
Spawning one crew member for an atomic task	references/standing-orders/skeleton-crew.md
Assigning crew work outside their role	references/standing-orders/pressed-crew.md
Captain deploying marines for crew work or sustained tasks	references/standing-orders/battalion-ashore.md
Captain completed autonomous work and needs human action to continue	references/standing-orders/awaiting-admiralty.md
Agent completed task with no remaining work in the dependency graph	references/standing-orders/paid-off.md

Damage Control

Consult the specific procedure that matches the situation.

Situation	Procedure
Agent unresponsive, looping, or producing no useful output	references/damage-control/man-overboard.md
Session interrupted (context limit, crash, timeout)	references/damage-control/session-resumption.md
Completed task found faulty, other tasks are sound	references/damage-control/partial-rollback.md
Mission cannot succeed, continuing wastes budget	references/damage-control/scuttle-and-reform.md
Issue exceeds current authority or needs clarification	references/damage-control/escalation.md
Ship's crew consuming disproportionate tokens or time	references/damage-control/crew-overrun.md
Ship's context window depleted, needs replacement	references/damage-control/relief-on-station.md
Ship context window approaching limits	references/damage-control/hull-integrity.md
Preparing the mission directory at session start	references/damage-control/session-hygiene.md
Agent team communication failure (lost agent IDs, message bus down)	references/damage-control/comms-failure.md

Admiralty Doctrine

• Include this instruction in any admiral's compaction summary: Re-read the quarterdeck report at the mission directory path to recover {mission-dir}. If the path is unknown, list .nelson/missions/ and use the most recent directory. Then re-read references/standing-orders/admiral-at-the-helm.md to confirm you are in coordination role.
• Optimize for mission throughput, not equal work distribution.
• Prefer replacing stalled agents over waiting on undefined blockers.
• Recognise strong performance; motivation compounds across missions.
• Keep coordination messages targeted and concise.
• Escalate uncertainty early with options and one recommendation.