Bridge onboard

Bridge Onboard — Setup Wizard

Set up a new Bridge user or reconfigure an existing one. Read the referenced file ONLY when triggered.

Philosophy — Discover, don't Interrogate

A new user came here to configure an assistant, not to inventory their life. Asking abstract questions like "do you file taxes for multiple legal entities?" or "do you have a household mandant?" makes the user defensive — they don't know yet what those features do, so they say "skip" to everything and miss the point.

Instead, the wizard:

1. Looks at what's already on the system (with permission)
2. Proposes specific features that match the evidence
3. Shows the rest as a read-only catalogue with "when you need it"
4. Surfaces features proactively later (feature-discovery standing-order) when patterns suggest they'd help

All of this is consent-first: before step 1, the user picks discovery.mode — confined (default) or broader. Confined means the Bridge never scans the machine (other repos, installed apps, devices, files, and mail stay untouched) — you still get every feature, just enabled modularly when you want it via the Phase E catalog, --add <feature>, or the feature's enabled: flag in bridge-config.yaml. Only broader unlocks the permission-gated scan in step 1.

The entry point is the four-lane front door in rules/session-start.md § NEW USER front door — it reflects what Phase 0 detected (origin state, git name), notes the guard is already armed, and opens four discoverable lanes under a free-text invite: [1] show me around (demo) · [2] describe what I'll use it for (→ this wizard, purpose pre-filled) · [3] make it private first (protection) · [4] bind a workspace / org overlay. This file and references/ are where lanes [2]/[3]/[4] land; the heavy lifting lives in references/.

Defaults — what the wizard assumes

• Purpose pins a north-star (ordering, never gating). It is captured at the front door — the user describes what they're here to do (session-start lane [2] or a free-text answer) and that sentence becomes purpose.statement verbatim; Phase A does not re-ask. purpose.focus and user_profile are derived silently from the statement — never posed as a visible six-domain questionnaire. Purpose ORDERS the Phase C suggestions, the Phase E catalogue, and (under broader) the feature-discovery standing-order; it never hides, gates, or removes a feature. Empty purpose = today's flat, general-purpose behaviour. Change anytime via --purpose.
• GitHub is optional. Onboarding completes end-to-end without a GitHub org, without gh CLI, and without GitHub-projects integration.
• Upstreams stay empty (upstreams: []) by default. Upstream variant choice is a separate, optional step via --upstream.
• Work-system on by default. Phase D recommends enabling — it's what makes Claude resume context across sessions. The wizard explains the trade-off but suggests [y].
• Discovery scan is opt-in per source. Default-on sources are non-invasive (git config, dir listings, app list). Sensitive sources (mail accounts, finance-app accounts, calendar names) are default-off and only opt-in.
• Nothing scanned beyond names. Mail content, document content, message bodies, keychain, passwords — NEVER touched. Explicit in the permission prompt so trust is established.

Privacy & Trust

Scan findings live in work/onboarding-scan.json (gitignored, auto-deleted after 30 days or on --reset). Granted permissions are persisted to bridge-config.yaml.discovery.permissions so re-runs honor the same boundary without re-asking.

Decision history lives in work/onboarding-state.yaml (NOT gitignored — useful as a record of setup choices) with statuses accepted | deferred | declined | silenced | nothing_found.

The feature-discovery standing-order (active when work.enabled: true) uses the same state file to avoid double-suggesting.

Mirror-safety — check the origin before writing any private data. Onboarding writes the user's identity and work/ to a user/{name} branch. Before creating that branch (Phase A step 6), resolve where the clone pushes: git remote get-url origin (and gh repo view --json visibility,nameWithOwner if unsure). If origin is a PUBLIC repo or a known upstream (e.g. bks-lab/open-bridge) — or .bridge-origin says is_public: true — STOP and advise, do not proceed silently. The user's private data must not live on a public origin. Offer to set them up on their own private repo first (GitHub Use this template → Private, or re-home origin to a new private repo with open-bridge as a read-only upstream), then continue. Never push the user/* branch to a public origin; CORE reaches a public upstream only via /promote. Canonical rule: ../../rules/push-guard.md.

Modes

Invocation	Behaviour
/bridge-onboard	Full wizard (Phases A–F)
/bridge-onboard --rescan	Broaden discovery (sets discovery.mode: broader); re-run Phase B+C with persisted permissions; surface new evidence; skip already-accepted features
/bridge-onboard --reset	Delete scan + state files; restart from Phase A (re-runs the scope-consent gate + purpose). Prompts to delete bridge-config.yaml for true clean-slate
/bridge-onboard --add <feature>	Skip A+B+D+E+F, run only the matching S-block from smart-suggestions.md (e.g. --add personas, --add doc-system)
/bridge-onboard --add agent-soul	Skip everything except D4 — re-pick the soul deck and reshape SOUL.md / IDENTITY.md
/bridge-onboard --purpose	Skip everything except the Phase-A purpose step — set/change purpose.statement + purpose.focus (re-derive user_profile), then re-render the Phase F preview ordering. Never gates a feature
/bridge-onboard --features	Read-only Phase E catalogue, interactive — explore what Bridge can do, click into entries to activate
/bridge-onboard --upstream	Skip everything except upstream wiring (see below)

Optional: --upstream mode

When invoked as /bridge-onboard --upstream, the wizard skips Phases A-E, going straight to upstream configuration. Use cases:

• User already onboarded, now wants to wire bks-lab/open-bridge once it is publicly available
• Forked the Bridge into a private org and wants to push contributions

In this mode, ask:

Which upstream are you wiring?

  [1] open-bridge (OSS) — sets contribute: true, pull-only OSS-core
  [2] org-internal bridge — sets primary: true, push-enabled
  [3] Custom — type repo/branch/role manually

Each choice appends one entry to upstreams: [] and adds a matching promote.content_blocklist.<name> skeleton (user fills the strings/patterns based on what their codebase shouldn't leak).

Decision Tree

User wants to...
├── Full onboarding wizard             → Read references/workflow.md
├── Re-scan and resurface deferred     → Read references/system-discovery.md (--rescan)
├── Start fresh                        → Read references/system-discovery.md § Re-Run Modes (--reset)
├── Activate one specific feature      → Read references/smart-suggestions.md § Adding a Feature Later
├── Set or change the instance purpose → Read references/workflow.md § Phase A step 5 (--purpose)
├── Browse what Bridge can do          → Read references/feature-catalog.md (--features)
├── Wire an upstream after the fact    → This file § Optional: --upstream mode
└── Questions about setup              → Answer from references/workflow.md + CLAUDE.md § Session Start

Reference Files

File	Purpose
references/workflow.md	Six-phase wizard execution plan (entry point for full onboarding)
references/system-discovery.md	Phase B — what gets scanned, with which permission, what's never scanned
references/smart-suggestions.md	Phase C — evidence → recommendation mapping (S1–S14) with full advisory text
references/feature-catalog.md	Phase E + --features — read-only catalogue of all Bridge features
references/discovery.md	Legacy: repo-only ecosystem detection. Now a sub-case of system-discovery.md
references/preview-generator.md	Phase F — HTML preview with Activated + Suggested-for-later sections

Related Files

• protocols/standing-orders/feature-discovery.md — proactive feature suggestions in the weekly briefing window (uses work/onboarding-state.yaml to avoid double-suggesting)
• docs/feature-tour.md — per-cluster-wrapper "create your first X" guide for after onboarding
• bridge-config.yaml.template — every block has a comment pointing at the matching --add <feature> re-entry path

Implementation Notes

• All wizard output is bilingual where the user's language is German (matches language.conversation from Phase A)
• Suggestions in Phase C run sequentially, not as a batch — each [y] scaffolds immediately so the user sees progress
• Errors during scan or scaffold are non-fatal; record and continue, surface the issue in Phase F's validation step
• Never write to bridge-config.yaml outside of explicit phases; the user must always see the current state before changes are committed