kairos-lite

Proactive monitoring — checks GitHub, CI, and toolkit health, produces briefings.

290 stars

Best use case

kairos-lite is best used when you need a repeatable AI agent workflow instead of a one-off prompt.

Proactive monitoring — checks GitHub, CI, and toolkit health, produces briefings.

Teams using kairos-lite should expect a more consistent output, faster repeated execution, less prompt rewriting.

When to use this skill

  • You want a reusable workflow that can be run more than once with consistent structure.

When not to use this skill

  • You only need a quick one-off answer and do not need a reusable workflow.
  • You cannot install or maintain the underlying files, dependencies, or repository context.

Installation

Claude Code / Cursor / Codex

$curl -o ~/.claude/skills/kairos-lite/SKILL.md --create-dirs "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/notque/claude-code-toolkit/main/skills/kairos-lite/SKILL.md"

Manual Installation

  1. Download SKILL.md from GitHub
  2. Place it in .claude/skills/kairos-lite/SKILL.md inside your project
  3. Restart your AI agent — it will auto-discover the skill

How kairos-lite Compares

Feature / Agentkairos-liteStandard Approach
Platform SupportNot specifiedLimited / Varies
Context Awareness High Baseline
Installation ComplexityUnknownN/A

Frequently Asked Questions

What does this skill do?

Proactive monitoring — checks GitHub, CI, and toolkit health, produces briefings.

Where can I find the source code?

You can find the source code on GitHub using the link provided at the top of the page.

SKILL.md Source

Proactive monitoring and briefing agent. Runs between sessions via `cron + claude -p`, checks GitHub (PRs, CI, issues, dependabot), local repo state (stale branches, uncommitted changes), and toolkit health (hook errors, stale memories, state files). Produces structured briefings injected at session start.

## When to invoke

- User says "morning briefing", "what happened", "project status", "check notifications", "health check", "kairos"
- Invoked automatically by cron every 4 hours during business hours (quick scan — Category A only)
- Nightly deep scan at 2:30 AM (all categories)

## Instructions

When invoked interactively, read `skills/kairos-lite/monitor-prompt.md` and execute its phases directly. The prompt is self-contained — it describes the full monitoring cycle including check categories, output format, and file paths.

For cron invocation: the monitor prompt is passed directly to `claude -p` and runs as a standalone headless session with no CLAUDE.md, no hooks, no project context. All instructions are embedded in the prompt.

Requires `CLAUDE_KAIROS_ENABLED=true` environment variable. If not set, exit silently.

## Monitoring Categories

**Category A — Action Required** (quick and deep scans):
- PRs assigned to @me with open state
- Review requests pending for @me
- CI failures on watched branches
- Dependabot security alerts (critical and high severity)

**Category B — FYI** (deep scan only):
- New issues opened since last check
- Dependency updates available (non-security)
- Stale branches (> 7 days since last commit)
- Uncommitted changes on feature branches

**Category C — Toolkit Health** (deep scan only):
- Hook error rate from learning.db
- Stale memory files (> 14 days since last update)
- ADR backlog count (local `adr/` directory)
- State file accumulation in `~/.claude/state/`

## Phases

1. **LOAD CONFIG** — Read `~/.claude/config/kairos.json` for watched repos, branches, and thresholds. Determine scan mode from `KAIROS_MODE` env var.
2. **GITHUB CHECKS** — Run `gh` queries in parallel. Category A always; Category B added for deep scans.
3. **REPO CHECKS** — Check local repo state: stale branches, uncommitted changes. Deep scan only.
4. **TOOLKIT HEALTH** — Query learning.db for hook error rates, scan memory file mtimes, count state directory files. Deep scan only.
5. **COMPILE BRIEFING** — Aggregate findings into structured sections. Empty categories get explicit "all clear" entries.
6. **WRITE OUTPUT** — Write briefing atomically (write to `.tmp`, then rename) to `~/.claude/state/briefing-{project-hash}-{date}.md`.

## Output

Briefing written to `~/.claude/state/briefing-{project-hash}-{date}.md`.

The project hash uses the same encoding as `~/.claude/projects/` directory names (URL-encode the project path, replace `/` with `-`).

## Config

Read from `~/.claude/config/kairos.json`. Example structure:

```json
{
  "repos": [
    {"owner": "notque", "repo": "claude-code-toolkit", "branches": ["main"]}
  ],
  "thresholds": {
    "stale_branch_days": 7,
    "stale_memory_days": 14,
    "state_file_warn_count": 50
  }
}
```

## Quick vs Deep scan

| Mode | Trigger | Categories | Frequency |
|------|---------|------------|-----------|
| Quick | Default / every 4 hours business hours | A only | Every 4h (8 AM–6 PM) |
| Deep | `KAIROS_MODE=deep` / nightly | A + B + C | 2:30 AM nightly |

Set `KAIROS_MODE=deep` to force a deep scan interactively.

## Opt-in requirement

`CLAUDE_KAIROS_ENABLED=true` must be set in the environment. If absent, the skill exits 0 silently — no output, no error. This prevents accidental runs during toolkit development.

## Cost estimate

~$0.04 per quick run (Category A only, ~8-12K input tokens at Sonnet pricing).
~$0.08 per deep run (all categories, ~18-25K input tokens).
~$14/year for full automated operation (4h quick + nightly deep, 5-day business week).

## Cron setup

Use `crontab-manager.py` (not raw `crontab -e`) to install both schedules.

```bash
# Quick scan every 4 hours, 8 AM–6 PM business hours
python3 ~/.claude/scripts/crontab-manager.py add \
  --tag "kairos-quick" \
  --schedule "0 8,12,16 * * 1-5" \
  --command "CLAUDE_KAIROS_ENABLED=true /home/feedgen/claude-code-toolkit/scripts/kairos-cron.sh >> /home/feedgen/claude-code-toolkit/cron-logs/kairos/quick.log 2>&1"

# Deep scan nightly at 2:30 AM
python3 ~/.claude/scripts/crontab-manager.py add \
  --tag "kairos-deep" \
  --schedule "30 2 * * *" \
  --command "CLAUDE_KAIROS_ENABLED=true KAIROS_MODE=deep /home/feedgen/claude-code-toolkit/scripts/kairos-cron.sh >> /home/feedgen/claude-code-toolkit/cron-logs/kairos/deep.log 2>&1"

# Verify
python3 ~/.claude/scripts/crontab-manager.py verify --tag kairos-quick
python3 ~/.claude/scripts/crontab-manager.py verify --tag kairos-deep
```

## Testing

```bash
# Verify opt-in guard (should exit silently)
./scripts/kairos-cron.sh
echo "Exit: $?"

# Quick scan dry-run
CLAUDE_KAIROS_ENABLED=true ./scripts/kairos-cron.sh --dry-run

# Deep scan dry-run
CLAUDE_KAIROS_ENABLED=true KAIROS_MODE=deep ./scripts/kairos-cron.sh --dry-run

# Check output
ls ~/.claude/state/briefing-*.md | tail -1 | xargs cat

# Interactive invocation (reads monitor-prompt.md and executes directly)
# Just invoke this skill — it reads and runs the prompt inline
```

## Pairs with auto-dream

kairos-lite and auto-dream are complementary. auto-dream runs nightly at 2:07 AM and consolidates memories. kairos-lite runs at 2:30 AM and checks external state. The nightly deep scan can incorporate the dream report into the toolkit health section.

Session-start injection: if both `dream-injection-{project-hash}.md` and `briefing-{project-hash}-{date}.md` exist, load both. Briefing takes precedence for action items; dream injection takes precedence for memory context.

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