Let the agent ask the record

Everything gitvow records is meant to be consulted by the next session, not only by a reviewer. Four commands answer the questions an agent most often needs answered, and four matching skills teach Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and Gemini CLI to call them.

The four questions

Command	Question it answers	Reads
gitvow why <path>	Why does this file look the way it does? Which sessions shaped it, what did each intend, how much did a person change afterwards?	trailers, session notes, snapshots
gitvow trace <path>[:<start>-<end>]	Who wrote these lines, agent or person, in which session and step, with what stated plan?	git blame, trailers, notes
gitvow recall <words>	Has this been worked on before? Which sessions mention these terms?	session notes across all sessions, the ledger
gitvow handoff [--session <id>]	What should the next agent know to continue?	ledger, notes, snapshots, uncommitted state

All four are read-only, local, and need nothing but git and the files gitvow already writes.

Examples

$ gitvow why src/api/OrdersResource.java
src/api/OrdersResource.java · 3 agent commits, 1 human commit, 2 sessions

2026-09-09  3b7a97b  session 8f3d5c71 step 4   agent share 1.00
  Change the cache key to include week start so per-org settings do not collide.
2026-09-08  0977d2f  session a28bd848 step 1   agent share 0.50 · 4 lines changed by a person afterwards
  Add the export endpoint behind the standard filter.
2026-09-07  6bf15f7  (person)

$ gitvow trace src/api/OrdersResource.java:40-60
lines 40-52  agent   3b7a97b  session 8f3d5c71 step 4  "Change the cache key to include week start..."
lines 53-60  person  6bf15f7

$ gitvow recall week start cache
session 8f3d5c71  2026-09-09  2 commits  "Change the cache key to include week start so per-org settings do not collide"
session c3d9e0aa  2026-09-02  1 commit   "Investigate stale week totals; cache key ignores org week start"

$ gitvow handoff
# Handoff · session 8f3d5c71 · repo gitvow
Last stated plan: Change the cache key to include week start ...
Commits this session: 3b7a97b Fix week-start cache key
Files the agent wrote: query-engine/.../QueryCacheHelper.java
Uncommitted now: 1 file changed vs HEAD · last snapshot refs/gitvow/snapshots/8f3d5c71.../7
Open confirmations: 1 (kubectl apply -f x.yaml, cluster mutation)

Install the skills

The skills live in wirevow/gitvow-skills in the common Agent Skills format, one SKILL.md per skill, and install with the skills tooling every supported agent reads:

npx skills add https://github.com/wirevow/gitvow-skills --all

Claude Code users can also add the repository as a plugin marketplace. Each skill tells the agent when to reach for the record and how to read the output; the agent does the rest with the commands above. Skills need gitvow on the agent's PATH, which gitvow install already ensures for the per-user install.

Skill	Use it when
gitvow-why	before changing code you did not write, or when a reviewer asks why something exists
gitvow-trace	when a code region looks surprising and you need its origin, agent or person
gitvow-recall	before starting work, to find earlier sessions on the same feature or bug
gitvow-handoff	at the end of a session, or when switching agents

What they do not do

They do not read transcripts, which stay local by design; everything they say comes from the redacted record. They do not summarise across repositories. They answer from what was recorded; a repository with no sessions yet gives short answers.