---
title: Project Kickstart (second guided mission)
---

# Project Kickstart (second guided mission)

## What it is

**Project Kickstart** is the second coached mission in Omniscio. Where the First Mission gives your computer a quick health check, Project Kickstart takes an idea you have in your head and turns it into a real starting point on your computer — a tidy new folder containing a plain-language plan and one file you can actually open and use.

It is Windows-only in v1 and is never launched automatically. A user reaches it by choosing it from the mission picker — a small set of options that appears in a blank session or on the project empty-state secondary action. It runs inside the real session panel, exactly like any other conversation, and produces something tangible: a new folder with a plan.md and a starter file, nothing else.

## Where to find it

Project Kickstart is never launched at onboarding. The First Mission (disk-audit) remains the automatic post-setup experience. Project Kickstart is reached deliberately, from the **mission picker**:

- **Blank-session nudge** — any session with no messages yet shows a **"Run a guided mission"** prompt. Clicking it opens the mission picker, where the user can choose Project Kickstart (or the First Mission, or dismiss).
- **Project empty-state secondary action** — when a project is selected and has no active session, the main panel offers **"Run a guided mission"** as a secondary action next to **New Session**. This also opens the mission picker.

On non-Windows platforms the mission picker does not appear, and neither of these entry points surfaces Project Kickstart.

### How to replay it

The mission picker is always available on Windows, regardless of whether a previous kickstart has been completed. To replay:

1. Select any project in the sidebar. If no session is open, the main panel shows the project empty-state with a **Run a guided mission** secondary action.
2. Alternatively, open any blank session (a session with no messages) — it will show a **"Run a guided mission"** nudge.
3. Clicking either opens the mission picker. Choose **Start my first project** (or its equivalent label) to launch Project Kickstart.
4. The kickoff card appears as the first agent message.

## How it behaves

### The six beats

The mission unfolds as a conversation. At each decision point the agent emits a structured card (not plain text) that the user taps or clicks to answer. The six beats are:

1. **Kickoff** (`confirm` card) — headline: "Want help turning an idea into a real starting point?" Two buttons: **Yes, let's do it** (proceeds) and **Maybe later** (exits the mission gracefully).

2. **Pick a type** (`choices` card) — four options: **Website page**, **Document or plan**, **Checklist or tracker**, **Help me decide**. Selecting one shapes everything that follows.

3. **Quick interview** (plain chat) — 2–3 short, friendly questions in plain language to understand the user's idea and context. No jargon.

4. **Confirm understanding** (`confirm` card) — "Here's what I understood: [summary]." Two buttons: **Yes, that's right** (proceeds) and **Let me clarify** (loops back to the interview).

5. **Plan + confirm** (`confirm` card) — "I'll create a folder called [name] with plan.md and [starter file]. Nothing else changes — and you can undo it all." Two buttons: **Create it** (runs the scaffold) and **Cancel** (exits without creating anything).

6. **Done** (`result` card) — summary of what was created. Three next-step buttons: **Keep building this with me** (continues the same session with plan.md already on disk), **Open the folder** (opens the new folder in Windows Explorer), **Explore on my own** (ends the guided flow). An **Undo it all** button is always shown and reverses everything the scaffold created.

### What each type produces

Each type creates one new folder containing exactly two files:

| Type                 | Starter file                 | Also includes |
| -------------------- | ---------------------------- | ------------- |
| Website page         | `index.html`                 | `plan.md`     |
| Document or plan     | a Markdown draft             | `plan.md`     |
| Checklist or tracker | `checklist.md`               | `plan.md`     |
| Help me decide       | agent picks one of the above | `plan.md`     |

`plan.md` is a short plain-English description of the goal, the type chosen, and what each file is for — designed so anyone (or any AI) can pick up the project without context.

### Trust model

The mission is built around explicit consent and reversibility:

- **Nothing is created until the user approves the plan.** The plan card names the exact folder and files before anything is written.
- **Only new files in a new folder** — the scaffold never modifies, renames, or deletes anything that already exists.
- **Undo is always available** — the done card always shows an **Undo it all** button. It deletes exactly what the scaffold created. If the user has already added their own files to the folder before undoing, those extra files are left alone (only the scaffold's originals are removed, and the folder itself stays).
- **"Keep building" is non-destructive** — it simply continues the same session with plan.md already on disk. No new files are created at that point.

If the agent emits a malformed card (invalid JSON inside the fenced block), the card degrades gracefully to plain text so the user still sees the raw content rather than a blank message.

### Windows-only in v1

Project Kickstart is intentionally Windows-only for v1. The scaffold CLI that creates the folder and files is tested against Windows paths and conventions. macOS and Linux support are planned for a later release. On non-Windows platforms the mission picker does not appear.

## For agents

The mission is reached through the shared mission picker, not a dedicated entry point. The relevant files are:

- **`src/shared/missions/registry.ts`** — the central mission registry. A mission's `id` equals its launch source (e.g. `'project-kickstart'`). Adding a new mission requires a registry entry here.
- **`src/shared/mission-block-parser.ts`** — parses `mission:<kind>` fenced blocks emitted by the agent. The relevant kinds for this mission are `choices`, `confirm`, and `result`.
- **`src/renderer/src/components/ui/mission/MissionCards.tsx`** — the generic React card components that render each block kind. These are shared with the First Mission; the `choices` card is new in Project Kickstart.
- **`src/renderer/src/components/ui/mission/MissionPickerModal.tsx`** — the mission picker modal that lists available missions and lets the user choose. Opened by the blank-session nudge and the project empty-state button.
- **`src/main/services/first-mission/cli.ts`** and **`scaffold.ts`** — the scaffold CLI subcommands (`scaffold-execute` and `scaffold-undo`) that create and reverse the folder + files. Project Kickstart reuses this infrastructure with different templates.
- **`resources/missions/project-kickstart/mission-prompt.md`** — the prompt asset loaded server-side and injected as the session's launch prompt. This is never surfaced as a visible operator bubble in the session.

Card buttons send plain natural-language turns via `useSessionStore.getState().sendResponse(sessionId, text)`, exactly like the Question Widget pattern. Decision-point cards (`confirm`, `choices`) set `pendingAction = 'mission'` in the process manager, which flips the session dot to "Your turn" (amber). The `result` card is terminal and does not flip the dot.

## Related

The other coached mission a new user meets first is [first-mission.md](first-mission.md), the disk health-check that launches automatically at onboarding on Windows — its pages and this one share the same card components. Both missions are built on the marker-driven card pattern described in [question-widget.md](question-widget.md), which is worth reading if you want to understand how a decision card turns a tap into a normal chat turn. For the wider set of guided runs available from the same picker, see [missions-hub.md](missions-hub.md), and for the setup experience that precedes both, [first-time-setup.md](first-time-setup.md).