# Brief: a session's opening digest

What an agent needs when it starts work in a repo, in a few lines: what
changed since it last looked (tasks created or re-prioritised by someone
else), the open questions, what is in progress and by whom, and the top of
`ready`. `virta brief` prints it for the repo it runs in and remembers
where this identity left off; a Claude Code SessionStart hook running it
puts the board in the agent's context before it is asked anything (see
[For agents](/agents/)). It says nothing at all when the repo is not on the
board, so the hook is harmless everywhere.

`brief(store, { project, since })` is the pure part: `since` is the log
position this identity last saw — omitted on a first look, when "changed"
is empty rather than everything ever — and the result's `cursor` is the
one to pass next time. It is also the `brief` verb, so MCP has it.

`virta brief --stop` is a Claude Code Stop hook (board #3636): when a turn
would end with uncommitted or unpushed work in the repo, or a ready task on
its board, it asks the agent once to carry on (commit and push, then take
the task) instead of ending on "next up". `stopReason` is its pure part. It
lets the stop through when nothing is owed, when the agent has just asked
the owner a question on the board (an open `kind:question` it filed or
touched in the last half hour), and always on the second try in a turn, so
an agent that is answering the owner or waiting on them says so and stops.
It reads; it never writes the board.

```js
import { MemoryLog, VirtaStore, brief } from 'tosijs-virta'

const store = new VirtaStore({ log: new MemoryLog(), identity: 'agent' })
await store.load()
const other = new VirtaStore({ log: store.log, identity: 'owner' })
await other.load()
await store.create({ title: 'port the tests', tags: ['project:demo', 'status:ready'] })
const first = brief(store, { project: 'demo' })
await other.sync()
await other.create({ title: 'the build is red', tags: ['project:demo', 'priority:critical', 'status:ready'] })
await store.sync()
const next = brief(store, { project: 'demo', since: first.cursor })
preview.textContent = [
  `changed: ${next.changed.map((c) => `#${c.task.num} ${c.what.join(', ')}`).join('; ')}`,
  `ready: ${next.ready.map((t) => t.title).join(' | ')}`,
].join('\n')
```
```test
test('the second look shows what someone else changed, and ready is by priority', () => {
  expect(preview.textContent).toBe(
    // a priority set at creation is part of "created"; a later one is news
    'changed: #2 created\nready: the build is red | port the tests'
  )
})
```