ao session bootstrap — the universal init prompt

One-line value: every agent in the swarm starts with the same orientation report, regardless of model.

When to invoke

Every agent spawned into an AgentOps repository runs this first. No exceptions. The bootstrap is the contract that makes the future fungibility charter (soc-vuu6.29) operational: identical starting frames let you swap Claude for Codex (or vice versa) on any bead without re-orienting.

Triggers:

• Manual spawn — operator just spawned a fresh agent into the repo: ao session bootstrap.
• SessionStart hook (opt-in) — AgentOps 3.0 ships no SessionStart hook. If you author one via the hooks-authoring skill, it can fail-open auto-fire ao session bootstrap --robot and discard the exit code.
• Pipeline submit — agentopsd and headless CI agents call ao session bootstrap --json before claiming work.

If you spawned without running it: stop, run it, then resume.

What it does

Four fail-open substeps, each producing a field in the session-bootstrap.v1 schema:

1. Confirm tier-split AGENTS.md present — checks AGENTS.md and the post-soc-vuu6.3 siblings (AGENTS-WORKFLOW.md, AGENTS-CI.md, AGENTS-CODEX.md, AGENTS-RUNTIME.md). Reports which exist. The agent reads them itself once oriented; the bootstrap just confirms presence.
2. Invoke onboard --auto — the future task-routed reading list subcommand under soc-vuu6.9. Currently P3 / not yet implemented: bootstrap falls back to phase="skipped:not-implemented" and continues without blocking.
3. Count ready beads — bd ready --json length. Surfaces what's immediately claimable. Fails to null if bd is missing or errors.
4. Probe mcp-agent-mail — soft, optional. Reports unread-count or null. Skipped with --no-mail or env MCP_AGENT_MAIL_DISABLED=1.

Flags

Default (no flags): one-line human summary on stdout, plus a stderr warning if AGENTS.md is missing.

Output shape

{
  "agents_md_read": true,
  "agents_siblings_read": ["AGENTS-WORKFLOW.md", "AGENTS-CI.md", "AGENTS-CODEX.md", "AGENTS-RUNTIME.md"],
  "onboard_phase": "skipped:not-implemented",
  "ready_beads_count": 12,
  "mail_unread_count": null,
  "runtime": "codex",
  "started_at": "2026-05-21T01:50:00Z",
  "bootstrap_version": "v1"
}

Schema at schemas/session-bootstrap.v1.schema.json — every field is required; nullable fields carry null when the substep was skipped or errored.

Why fungibility wants this

The agent-fungibility-philosophy mandates: one init prompt for every agent regardless of type. Today every operator hand-rolls orientation: "read AGENTS.md, check bd ready, register with the mail server, then start." Two agents spawned by two different operators don't have the same starting frame. That's anti-fungibility — the swarm can't safely swap them mid-bead.

ao session bootstrap is the operational primitive that closes the gap. It's deliberately tiny: ~50 LOC Go + a JSON schema. It does the same four things every time, in the same order, with the same fail-open semantics. Then the agent reads the orientation tier-split itself.

What this is NOT

• Not a long orientation document. The bootstrap reports status (read/missing/skipped), not content. Agents still read AGENTS.md themselves.
• Not a workflow engine. It does not claim work, dispatch, or modify state. It's a status snapshot.
• Not a hard gate. Every substep is fail-open: a missing bd binary, an unavailable MCP server, or a deferred onboard produces a null/skipped marker and the command still exits 0. The agent decides what to do with degraded orientation.

Composes with

• soc-vuu6.3 (AGENTS.md tier split) — bootstrap reports which sibling files were detected.
• soc-vuu6.9 (the future onboard --auto subcommand) — when implemented, bootstrap's onboard substep wires through automatically via subprocess shellout.
• soc-vuu6.29 (Fungibility Charter) — the doctrinal frame this primitive operationalizes.
• mcp-agent-mail — soft dependency; bootstrap surfaces unread count when present.

CI guarantees

• cli/cmd/ao/session_bootstrap_test.go — 8 cases (full status, missing AGENTS.md, partial split, no-mail flag, runtime detection, human summary, JSON round-trip).
• validate-skill-frontmatter keeps the SKILL.md frontmatter contract intact.
• No new CI gate added for the schema yet; follow-up bead can add validate-session-bootstrap-schema if schema-drift becomes a concern.

See also

• AGENTS.md — orientation entry-point that points here.
• AGENTS-WORKFLOW.md — what to do after bootstrap reports.
• schemas/session-bootstrap.v1.schema.json — full output contract.