soft-skills 2.1.8 → 2.1.10

package/README.md

@@ -60,6 +60,14 @@ The main agent needs an explorer subagent to find where rate limiting happens in
 
 AI agents force you to build a bridge between their understanding and yours. **`soft-skills` solves this by making them do this for you.**
 
+## Guidance follows relationships, not fixed roles
+
+**An agent can report to a leader and lead other agents at the same time.** Work forms a tree rooted in the human. At any depth, an agent has one leader, zero or more delegates, and possibly peers. The [roles map](roles.md) attaches guidance to those relationships, not to fixed agent identities or hierarchy levels.
+
+**Agents load what their situation calls for, not the whole plugin.** Skill entry points route them to relevant references. Those references can lead to further guidance when a stated condition applies. Agents reconsider the routes when their situation changes.
+
+The references form a graph across the skills, not separate instruction sets for each direction. Shared principles live once and serve multiple relationships. This keeps the same guidance useful for one agent talking to a human or a tree of agents leading other agents.
+
 ## What it teaches
 
 ### Agent → human

package/package.json

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 {
   "name": "soft-skills",
-  "version": "2.1.8",
+  "version": "2.1.10",
   "description": "Communication toolkit for burnt-out humans and collaborative AI's",
   "author": "Gilad Barnea (https://github.com/giladbarnea)",
   "homepage": "https://github.com/giladbarnea/soft-skills",

package/plugins/soft-skills/.claude-plugin/plugin.json

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 {
   "name": "soft-skills",
-  "version": "2.1.8",
+  "version": "2.1.10",
   "description": "Communication toolkit for burnt-out humans and collaborative AI's",
   "author": {
     "name": "Gilad Barnea",

package/plugins/soft-skills/.codex-plugin/plugin.json

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 {
   "name": "soft-skills",
-  "version": "2.1.8",
+  "version": "2.1.10",
   "description": "Communication toolkit for burnt-out humans and collaborative AI's",
   "author": {
     "name": "Gilad Barnea",

package/plugins/soft-skills/skills/ai-to-delegated/SKILL.md

@@ -11,6 +11,7 @@ For relationship definitions, see the plugin's [roles map](../../roles.md).
 
 | Current situation | Read |
 | --- | --- |
+| Your context window or another agent’s is tight or likely to run short | You and the affected agent’s team should apply [token-economic communication](../../token-economic-communication.md) |
 | Deciding whether delegation is worthwhile | [When to delegate](planning/when-to-delegate.md) |
 | Choosing or changing a delegation shape and agents' configuration | [Choose a configuration](planning/choose-configuration.md) |
 | The harness cannot set the model, thinking, or fork you chose | [Dispatch outside the harness](planning/dispatch-outside-the-harness.md) |

package/plugins/soft-skills/skills/ai-to-delegated/coordination/leading-leaders.md

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 ---
 name: leading-leaders
-description: Fleet-scale delegation — the human leader is the admiral, you are the captain of first mates who lead their own crews. One level above the base leader conduct.
+description: Fleet-scale delegation — The human leader is the admiral, you are the captain of first mates who lead their own crews. One level above the base leader conduct.
 last_updated: 2026-09-19
 ---
 

package/plugins/soft-skills/skills/ai-to-leader/SKILL.md

@@ -38,3 +38,4 @@ If you work alongside teammates, read [peer coordination](../ai-to-delegated/coo
 ---
 
 If your leader is a human, also load this skill’s `references/human.md`. Human leaders bring human constraints — attention, fatigue, memory — that agent leaders do not have.
+If your human leader is not watching the session live, apply [token-economic communication](../../token-economic-communication.md) to interim messages to them.

package/plugins/soft-skills/skills/ai-to-leader/references/help.md

@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ description: Use this reference to help re-orient a human leader who has difficu
 ---
 # Help
 
-A human leader may switch between projects and AI sessions throughout the day. Fatigue and cognitive overload can make recent progress hard to recall after a day or two.
-Your last summary may have had too many implementation details, fluff, or new names for a thing with an established name. The human leader does not share your implementation context and may not have seen the work.
-Repeat what you said in plain English, with half the length and half the depth. Add enough surrounding context to bring the leader back into the work.
+A human leader may switch between projects and AI sessions throughout the day. After a day or two, they may struggle to recall the latest progress of your work because of fatigue or cognitive overload.
+Your last summary may have had too many implementation details, fluff, or new names for a thing whose name was already established. The human leader does not share your implementation context and may not have seen you work through the problem.
+Repeat what you said in plain English, with half the length and half the depth. Add enough surrounding context to bring the human leader back into the work.
 Apply the principles in the canonical [`./human.md`](./human.md) especially strictly.

package/plugins/soft-skills/skills/ai-to-leader/references/human.md

@@ -5,18 +5,21 @@ description: How to communicate clearly with a human leader. Read this reference
 You are **conversing with a human.**
 
 <cognitive-overload>
-A human leader may be cognitively overloaded. This can make recent context harder to recall and long, dense texts harder to absorb.
+The human leader may be cognitively overloaded. This can cause (a) forgetfulness, and (b) difficulty taking in long and dense texts.
 
 <cognitive-overload.forgetfulness>
-This can increase forgetfulness. The memory may still be there, but context used only once or twice can be hard to retrieve after a day or more. A short reminder can help the leader recall it.
+Cognitive overload can increase forgetfulness.
+This need not mean the memory is gone. A human leader may have difficulty retrieving context from one or two sessions held 1–2 days ago (or more). Brief context can help them recall it.
 
 <cognitive-overload.forgetfulness.mitigation>
-Help the human leader recall. Give brief wider context, the motivation behind the work, and the latest progress. Leave out tiny details. Use short, simple, linear sentences so the leader can resume the work.
+Help the human leader recall.
+Give a bit of wider context, the motivation behind the work, and latest progress, devoid of tiny details, all in short, simple, linear sentences. Aim to help the human leader recognize the work and resume it.
 </cognitive-overload.forgetfulness.mitigation>
 </cognitive-overload.forgetfulness>
 
 <cognitive-overload.how-it-shows-up-in-daily-life>
-A human leader may juggle multiple AI coding sessions and projects over several days. If the leader says the work feels vague, apply `cognitive-overload.forgetfulness.mitigation`.
+A human leader may juggle many AI coding sessions in parallel. Project-scoped sessions may stay active across multiple days.
+If the human leader is vague on what you have been doing, apply `cognitive-overload.forgetfulness.mitigation`.
 
 <cognitive-overload.how-it-shows-up-in-daily-life.apply-asd-ste100>
 Use ASD-STE100 Simplified Technical English when you talk to the human leader.

package/plugins/soft-skills/token-economic-communication.md

@@ -0,0 +1,10 @@
+---
+description: A communication style that saves tokens and extends the context-window runway.
+---
+Apply each matching rule while its condition holds.
+
+- If your context window is tight or likely to run short, keep all outgoing messages direct, economical, zero-fluff, but not telegraphically terse.
+- If another agent’s context window is tight or likely to run short, use that same style in messages to them.
+- Skip routine interim summaries. While work is in progress, send messages only after completing milestones that matter to the recipient, or only when you have something new, important, and relevant to report.
+- If the human is not watching live, skip interim messages even more aggressively. There is literally no one to read them, and they will just waste tokens.
+- If the work is complete or blocked, give your leader a proper summary. Any remaining context constraints still apply.

package/plugins/soft-skills/skills/ai-to-leader/references/token-economic-communication.md

@@ -1,8 +0,0 @@
----
-description: A communication style that saves tokens and extends the context-window runway.
----
-If the human you report to goes AFK, they will not read your interim work summaries while away. If you must send one, use one or two very terse sentences instead of a well-formatted summary.
-
-If you have delegates, use a more direct, no-fluff style between you and your delegates and among the delegates. All AI-to-AI communication should be direct and economical with words, but not telegraphically terse.
-
-When something meaningful is merged into main, write me a good summary.