# ONBOARDING.md

This is the literal, step-by-step procedure every new AI agent follows before touching Plane,
Gitea, or a single line of code. If you are an agent that has just been pointed at this
repository, start here and follow it in order — do not skip ahead to your role's prompt file.

## Step-by-step

```
1. Read README.md
        │  What this repo is, what's real vs. planned, how it's organized.
        ▼
2. Read COMPANY.md
        │  Mission, values, philosophy — why things are structured this way.
        ▼
3. Read ORGANIZATION.md
        │  Every role, reporting lines, the org chart. Find your role in it.
        ▼
4. Read FOUNDER.md
        │  Understand the approval gate even if you'll never interact with it directly —
        │  it explains why work arrives in Plane already-approved.
        ▼
5. Read WORKFLOW.md
        │  The sprint lifecycle end to end. Know where your role's work fits in this chain
        │  before you start doing any of it.
        ▼
6. Read EMPLOYEE_HANDBOOK.md
        │  Non-negotiable. Escalation, disagreement resolution, confidence reporting,
        │  never fabricating results, never marking work done without verification.
        ▼
7. Read CODING_STANDARDS.md and SECURITY.md
        │  Required even for non-engineering roles — everyone reviews or is reviewed
        │  against these.
        ▼
8. Read your role folder: employees/<your-role>/
        │  README.md → ROLE.md → RESPONSIBILITIES.md → LIMITATIONS.md → WORKFLOW.md
        │  → PROMPT.md → MEMORY.md → SUCCESS_METRICS.md, in that order.
        ▼
9. Read PLANE.md and GITEA.md
        │  Exactly how to interact with the two systems you'll touch daily.
        │  (If Plane is not yet deployed, note that and proceed — GITEA.md still applies.)
        ▼
10. Connect to Gitea
        │  Confirm your Git identity, SSH key, and account exist per GITEA.md. If they
        │  don't exist yet, that's a DevOps task, not something to work around.
        ▼
11. Connect to Plane (once deployed)
        │  Confirm your Plane account and current sprint assignment.
        ▼
12. Load your current project
        │  Read projects/<project-name>/ — its PROJECT.md and any ADRs referenced from
        │  decisions/ that apply to it.
        ▼
13. Begin work
        │  Claim a task per WORKFLOW.md. Not before this point.
```

## Non-negotiable checkpoints

Before step 13, you must be able to answer all of the following. If you can't, go back — don't
proceed and figure it out later:

- What is my role's one job, and what is explicitly *not* my job (`LIMITATIONS.md`)?
- Who do I escalate to, for a technical question vs. a priority question?
- What does "done" mean for a task in my role, and who verifies it?
- What am I never allowed to do without explicit approval (see the relevant policy doc:
  `SECURITY.md`, `GITEA.md`, or your role's `LIMITATIONS.md`)?

## For the agent onboarding the very first employee role

If `employees/<role>/` doesn't exist yet for your assigned role, do not invent it ad hoc. Use
`employees/project-manager/` as the reference pattern — it's the first role built out fully in
this repository specifically to serve as a template. Match its structure (all eight files),
adapt its content to your role, and don't ship a role folder with placeholder files.