This is a how-to guide. It assumes the workstacean container is running and you have Ava configured in workspace/agents/ava.yaml (the in-process agent definition).

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Onboarding a project provisions it across every system protoLabs uses: GitHub (.automaker/ scaffold) and Discord (category + channels created). The onboard_project skill on Ava orchestrates the full chain.

Trigger options

Option A — Automatic (org webhook)

If you have the GitHub org webhook registered (see how-to/use-quinn-pr-review.md for webhook setup), any new repository created under the org automatically triggers onboarding. No manual action needed.

Option B — Discord slash command

In any Discord channel the bot has access to:

/ava onboard

Or by @mention:

@YourBot onboard protoLabsAI/my-new-repo

Option C — Bus injection (scripted/CI)

curl -s -X POST http://workstacean:3000/publish \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "topic": "message.inbound.test",
    "payload": {
      "sender": "ci",
      "content": "onboard protoLabsAI/my-new-repo",
      "skillHint": "onboard_project",
      "channel": "cli"
    }
  }'

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What the onboard chain does

Ava's onboard_project skill runs these steps in sequence:

1. GitHub API — fetches repo metadata (description, topics, visibility)
2. .automaker/ scaffold — writes project.json and settings.json into the target repo, commits and pushes
3. .gitignore + worktree init — adds worktree paths to .gitignore in the target repo
4. Discord provisioning — calls Quinn's provision_discord skill (via chain), which creates a Discord category with three channels: dev, alerts, releases
5. Write-back — stores Discord channel IDs in .automaker/settings.json (in the target repo)

Project metadata itself comes from the project registry, which is compiled from repos tagged with the protoagent-plugin GitHub topic (plus an explicit base set) into a static projects.json served by the workstacean-projects nginx sidecar at /api/settings/global; workstacean's ProjectRegistry polls that URL every 5 min. To add a project to the registry, tag its repo with the protoagent-plugin topic — the 15-min sync cron picks it up. The workstacean-side channel→agent bindings live in workspace/channels.yaml via the ChannelRegistry — onboarding does not write a workspace/projects.yaml (that file no longer exists). To make slash-commands resolve "the dev channel for this project", add a per-project binding to workspace/channels.yaml:

- id: project-my-new-repo-dev
  platform: discord
  project: my-new-repo        # project slug
  kind: dev
  channelId: "<channel-id>"

On completion, a summary message is sent to the originating interface (Discord channel or the bus outbound topic).

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Verifying the onboard completed

Confirm the project shows up in workstacean's registry (compiled from the protoagent-plugin GitHub topic):

curl -s http://workstacean:3000/api/projects | jq '.data[] | select(.github.repo == "my-new-repo")'

Check the target repo for a .automaker/ directory:

gh api repos/protoLabsAI/my-new-repo/contents/.automaker/project.json

If you added a per-project Discord binding, confirm it resolves via the ChannelRegistry — the dev channel is keyed by (slug, "dev") in workspace/channels.yaml.

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If provisioning fails partway through

The onboard chain is not atomic. If Discord provisioning fails (e.g., bot permissions), the .automaker/ scaffold is still created. The error is logged and a partial-onboard notice is sent to the originating interface.

To re-run Discord provisioning only:

curl -s -X POST http://workstacean:3000/publish \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "topic": "message.inbound.test",
    "payload": {
      "sender": "manual",
      "content": "provision discord for protoLabsAI/my-new-repo",
      "skillHint": "provision_discord"
    }
  }'

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Related docs

• reference/agent-skills.md — full skill registry including onboard_project parameters
• reference/config-files.md — workspace config + project registry
• explanation/agent-identity.md — why Quinn handles Discord provisioning (not Ava)