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play is a skill from the Summer skill library: a guide your AI agent reads when the task matches, so it builds the good version on the first try. Run the project in Summer Engine, wait briefly, then report a clean run, errors or warnings.

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When your agent uses it

  • The user says ‘play’, ‘run it’, ‘test it’, ‘let me see it’, or ‘start the game’
  • Checking that the project still starts and runs cleanly right after a change

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Install

summer setup installs every skill for your agent. To add only this one:
Swap claude-code for your agent, such as codex or cursor. See Skills for every option.

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The skill

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Overview

Press play. Watch what happens. Report it back.

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Steps

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1. Check if it’s already running

If running:
The game is already playing. Stop and restart, or leave it?
Wait for the user. Don’t unilaterally stop. If not running, continue.

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2. Pre-check for compile errors

Cheapest call. If the script won’t compile, play will fail with a noisy error — better to surface that clearly first. summer_get_script_errors checks one file and path is required — there is no project-wide form. Call it on the scripts you just touched:
If you don’t know which scripts changed, use summer_get_diagnostics instead — it takes no arguments and reports editor + runtime counts across the project. If errors found:
Won’t run yet — there’s a script error: <one-line summary>. Want me to /debug it?
Stop here on user’s no.

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3. Clear and play

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4. Brief wait, then read state

Wait ~2 seconds (so the engine has time to process at least one frame). Then:

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5. Report

Three outcomes: Clean: summer_get_diagnostics shows zero errors and zero warnings.
Running. No errors or warnings. Tell me what you see and I’ll dig in if needed.
Warnings only:
Running. <N> warnings — <one-line summary of the most important one>. Want me to look at them?
Runtime error:
Crashed: <error class> at <file>:<line> — <message>. Want me to /debug?

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6. Don’t auto-stop

Leave the game running. The user wants to play it. Stop only on explicit ask.

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Common patterns

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Anti-patterns

  • Don’t auto-stop a running game just because the user said “play”. They probably mean “make sure it’s playing”, not “stop and restart”.
  • Don’t call summer_get_console instead of summer_get_debugger_errors for runtime errors. Console has print() output and warnings; debugger errors has the stack traces.
  • Don’t report “no errors” before waiting for the engine to actually run a frame. A 0-frame snapshot is meaningless.

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Collaborative protocol

This skill mutates engine state (clearing console, starting play). It’s a read-side workflow with one safe write (summer_play). No “May I” needed — this is what the user asked for. Do confirm before stopping a running game.

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Requirements

Any Summer project with a main scene set in project.godot.

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See also

  • debug — what to do when /play surfaces an error

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From a shell

No Summer MCP tools in this session? Run each one as a command; when summer --version is missing or below 4.0, use npx -y summer-engine@latest in place of summer. Fields are flags in kebab-case (--scene-path res://main.tscn) or one --input '<json>', and summer ops describe <op> prints the exact input. The summer-cli skill has the rest.
  • debug: Disciplined bug, crash and error loop: script errors, console, debugger, hypothesis, fix, verify.
Source: library/skills/play/SKILL.md, rendered from summer-engine@4.3.0 on npm.