Hot rules and start prompts: what your AI agents are reminded of

Hot rules (/page/HotRules) holds the few behaviours d2 reinforces for every AI agent. Agent skills are long, and an agent's grip on them fades over a long chat; a hot rule is one line handed to the agent at the very moment it applies, so it acts on it. The skill stays the reference: each line cites its rule (R-…).

Hot lines

The first tab lists the points of the topic Skill:hot, one card each. A point is a moment an agent acts, and each card says when its lines are sent:

• chat: when the agent joins a chat, then on every 10th of your messages, and on the first turn after the lines change;
• take (and take:bug, take:impl, take:design…): on the answer to taking a ticket, the kind's own point first;
• finish: on finishing a ticket, and on its refusals;
• background: on a background pass, when no chat waits on the agent;
• review, refusal, start, worker, handover: with the review lines, the scope refusals, the start prompt, a worker's brief and a handover.

A point holds at most 8 lines and 600 characters, so it stays short enough to be read. [designer] in front of a line keeps it to that role.

Start prompts

The second tab, Start prompts, holds Skill:start: the text the monitor or the chat launcher hands an agent it starts. An agent's start is ## generic, then its role's ## role:<role>, then its start kind's ## kind:<kind> (chat, pass, handover, background, dailyreview, reviewer). Placeholders in braces ({agent}, {chat}) are filled by the starter. Never put a token or a secret here.

How to use it

• Click a point's header to open it. Edit turns its box into an editor, one rule a line; Done keeps it on the page.
• Diff shows this project's lines against base d2's; Reset to base d2's drops this project's own and goes back to them.
• ✓ Customized marks a point this project changed; its section replaces base d2's here, and an empty one drops the point here.
• Add a point adds a known point, or one of your own (worker:qa).
• Save writes this project's topic and publishes it: agents get the lines at their next step. A point over its budget is saved with a warning on its card.

Base d2 (every project) is the Architect's alone: base d2's Skill:hot and Skill:start are every project's default.

Examples

• Your designer keeps forgetting to link the ticket in its reports: add a line to finish: "Link every ticket you name (R-…)."
• A project's testers need a different start: add a role:tester section on the Start prompts tab.

Related

• Role jobs: what each role can be asked to do (the page)
• Working with AI agents, how agents are started, the background agent
• Skills, Mind Meld, Review tickets with your AI designer, Scheduled jobs (crons)