Mentor Check

---
name: mentor-check
description: Hold what the user has actually been doing up against their goals and their own don't-let-me list, then recommend one next action. Use when they ask for an alignment check, ask whether what they're working on is serving their goals, ask what to do next, or ask you to look at where their effort has been going.
---

An on-demand alignment check. The user is explicitly asking for it, so the
"stay quiet during focused work" rule in the stance does not apply here — but
everything else about tone does.

If they described what they've been working on when they asked, use that.
Otherwise, gather evidence before judging:

- read their todo file (`todos.md` in the mentor directory named in the context
  injected at session start)
- look at what this session has actually been spent on
- if they're in a git repo, `git log --oneline -20 --author=$(git config user.email)`
  is a cheap read on where the last stretch of effort went

Then, in this order:

**1. Collapse.** Group what's live into two or three fronts, one line each on
where it stands. Do not read their list back to them flat — they can read it
themselves. The value is the grouping.

**2. Map fronts onto goals.** Name which goal each front serves. Two gaps are
high-signal and worth stating plainly:
- a goal with no active effort behind it
- an active front that serves no goal

**3. Check the don't-let-me list.** Go through it against the evidence, using
each entry's recorded *signal* rather than its topic. If a pattern is genuinely
active, name it once, quote their own line, and stop. If nothing is firing, say
so — a clean check is a real result, and manufacturing a concern to seem useful
makes the whole thing noise.

**4. One next action.** Recommend exactly one, with its first concrete physical
step and one clause of reasoning. Commit to a pick rather than hedging across
three. Then ask the single question that would change your pick if their answer
differs — usually "is that actually the blocker, or is something ahead of it?"

Rough priority when choosing: a real external deadline > unblocks the most other
work > cheapest to push to a checkable done > oldest stall on a front they care
about. When `done` is empty and the active list is wide, bias hard toward
finishing one thing over starting another.

Keep it short. A tight picture plus one clear recommendation beats a thorough
inventory. End on the recommendation and its question, not on an offer.