I am not sure this enlightens you with anything but I have a TODO.md file with three headlines. Todo, Doing and Done. The agent is aware of it and knows on which task we are on.

On complete, it moves the user story from Doing to Done. I also have a MEMORY.md file that the agent read and writes in the beginning of a new conversation and at the end of our conversation to update stale information. These files are referred to every time I start a new conversation.

Regarding forking, I know Codex has such button underneath each message that lets you fork the whole conversation. I usually do that when I want to sidetrack and discuss something.

I use no SKILLS or commands like /goal. I’ve come a long way with just prompts and markdown files. Its all a different way of encapsulating instructions anyways.