Symbiotic Onboard
Interviews you one question at a time, writes SOUL.md/USER.md/NOW.md you own
Test report
- Verdict
- Tested · Works
- Score
- Tested
- Jul 16, 2026
- Environment
- Claude Code 2.x (agent harness)
- Upstream re-checked
- Aug 10, 2026 · d7ec8ce
Task: onboarding a fictional Marina (name, goal — paid beta habit-app by September, avoidance — rewriting landing page instead of beta emails, MIT — write to 12 people from waitlist) using attached templates, in two variants. Templates start with 76 raw placeholders (USER.md 57 + NOW.md 19) — I measured them with a regex script excluding markdown checkboxes. Baseline run without skill body: filled fields covered by answers, left the rest as is — 70 out of 76 raw [brackets] remained, meaning the user receives a file that looks broken. Skill run with mandatory final 'deferred sweep': 0 out of 76 — each unset field was either marked _(not set yet, your agent will fill this in as it learns you)_, or an empty optional section (Career, Shipped, Milestones) was simply removed, while both `- [ ]` checkboxes in NOW.md survived, as required by spec. SKILL.md's statement that a deferred marker in parentheses will not restart onboarding is verifiable and confirmed by the attached AGENTS.md (lines 12, 19, 22), which explicitly instructs the agent to fill in such fields during work, not by interrogation.
Scored on four weighted criteria — install, triggering, output vs. baseline, docs. How scoring works
- Installs cleanly 5/5
- Triggers reliably 5/5
- Output vs. baseline 9/10
- Docs & honesty 5/5
What Symbiotic Onboard does
Onboards a user into a portable personal-context setup by asking one sharp question at a time and writing the answers into plain Markdown files (SOUL.md, USER.md, NOW.md, AGENTS.md) the user keeps and can move between models. Triggers when someone is setting up a personal AI agent, wants their assistant to remember them across sessions, mentions SOUL.md / USER.md / NOW.md, or is stuck on template files full of bracketed placeholders.
How to install Symbiotic Onboard
git clone https://github.com/lout33/symbiotic-ai
mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills
cp -r symbiotic-ai/skills/symbiotic-onboard ~/.claude/skills/symbiotic-onboard
Skills live in ~/.claude/skills/ (global) or .claude/skills/
(per-project). Restart Claude Code after installing.
Commands — how to trigger Symbiotic Onboard
-
/symbiotic-onboardInterviews you one question at a time, writes SOUL.md/USER.md/NOW.md you own
It also activates on plain-language prompts like these:
-
Interview me one question at a time and build my personal context files -
Fill in my USER.md template so nothing is left as a bracketed placeholder -
Set up NOW.md with today's most important task after asking me about it
Frequently asked questions
- Is the Symbiotic Onboard skill free?
- Yes. The skill itself is free from lout33/symbiotic-ai. SkillProof publishes the install command and an independent test verdict at no cost.
- Does Symbiotic Onboard work with Claude Code?
- We tested it with Claude Code 2.x (agent harness) on Jul 16, 2026. Verdict: Tested · Works. Task: onboarding a fictional Marina (name, goal — paid beta habit-app by September, avoidance — rewriting landing page instead of beta emails, MIT — write to 12 people from waitlist) using attached templates, in two variants. Templates start with 76 raw placeholders (USER.md 57 + NOW.md 19) — I measured them with a regex script excluding markdown checkboxes. Baseline run without skill body: filled fields covered by answers, left the rest as is — 70 out of 76 raw [brackets] remained, meaning the user receives a file that looks broken. Skill run with mandatory final 'deferred sweep': 0 out of 76 — each unset field was either marked _(not set yet, your agent will fill this in as it learns you)_, or an empty optional section (Career, Shipped, Milestones) was simply removed, while both `- [ ]` checkboxes in NOW.md survived, as required by spec. SKILL.md's statement that a deferred marker in parentheses will not restart onboarding is verifiable and confirmed by the attached AGENTS.md (lines 12, 19, 22), which explicitly instructs the agent to fill in such fields during work, not by interrogation.
- What is the Symbiotic Onboard SkillProof Score?
- 9.6/10 — installs cleanly 5/5, triggers reliably 5/5, output vs. baseline 9/10, docs & honesty 5/5.
- How do I install Symbiotic Onboard?
- Copy the install command from this page, run it in your terminal, and restart Claude Code. Skills live in ~/.claude/skills/ (global) or .claude/skills/ inside a project.
- Can I use Symbiotic Onboard with Cursor, Copilot, Gemini CLI, Codex or other AI tools?
- The SKILL.md format is native to Claude (Claude Code, Desktop, claude.ai). The instructions inside adapt to other assistants: Cursor rules, GitHub Copilot instructions, Windsurf rules, Custom GPTs, AGENTS.md for OpenAI Codex, and GEMINI.md for Google Gemini CLI — our conversion guides cover each, and the free converter on the tools page does the wrapping for you.