Skills Reference

Last updated: 2026-04-27

Every skill in this suite reads and writes .project-state/. Skills are grouped by build tier. Build P0 first, then P1, etc.

Mental model

State is the source of truth. Skills are verbs that act on state; they never hold state themselves.
One skill = one coherent job. Don't fuse unrelated jobs into one skill.
Orchestrator is thin. The orchestrator decides which skill to call next; it doesn't do the work.
Surfaces are last-mile. Slack/Gmail/Calendar live behind project-notifier; the scsiwyg blog lives behind project-blog-publisher; the project website lives behind project-website-publisher (v1.1). The rest of the suite doesn't care which channel an artifact lands in.

P0 — Foundations (build first; nothing else works without these)

`project-state`

The memory layer. Read / write / list / validate every entity in .project-state/. Enforces schema and concurrency rules. Every other skill calls through this. Mirrors what narrative-state does for Woowoo.

Reads: everything
Writes: everything
Triggers on: "what's the state", "record a decision", "create milestone M03", "log this activity"

`project-scaffolder`

One-shot: initialize a .project-state/ in a new folder. Run once per project. The current project is already scaffolded.

Writes: full tree + manifest + state.json + phase skeletons
Triggers on: "set up a new project", "scaffold project-state"

P1 — Core operations (run the project)

`project-phase-gate`

Manage lifecycle transitions: LOI → Approval → Planning → Execution → Closeout → Archive. Enforces required artifacts at each gate; refuses to transition if gate artifacts are missing. Writes transition events to the activity log.

Reads: manifest, phases, documents
Writes: state.json, phase manifests, logs
Triggers on: "move to execution", "can we close phase 3?", "what's blocking the gate?"

`project-document-curator`

Ingest a new doc into documents/inbox/, classify it (proposal, MPA, workbook, template, minutes, claim form, invoice, publication, ...), assign source-of-truth status if appropriate, index it into documents/index.yaml, and cross-reference it from the manifest or phase.

Reads: documents/, manifest
Writes: documents/index.yaml, symlinks into source-of-truth
Triggers on: "I just dropped a doc", "classify this file", "catalog the inbox"

`project-milestone-manager`

CRUD milestones. Updates percent_complete, technical_progress, status. Propagates to quarterly-claim drafts. Reconciles with MPA Schedule A.

Reads: milestones/, MPA workbook
Writes: milestones/, tracking/milestones.xlsx
Triggers on: "update M03 progress", "what milestones are at risk?", "recompute overall %"

`project-status-reporter`

Generates status reports in multiple formats from state:

Weekly report (team / Slack-format)
Steering Committee pack (docx, following PIC Appendix A agenda)
PIC quarterly claim draft (xlsx using PIC's MS & financial tracking form)
Ad-hoc status (prose for email)
Dashboard snapshot (one-pager)
Triggers on: "weekly report", "prep SC pack for next meeting", "draft the claim", "status update please"

P2 — Surfaces & automation (wire in delivery)

`project-orchestrator`

The conductor. Decides what to do next based on state. Run on-demand or scheduled. Examples:

"It's Monday → draft the weekly report"
"SC meeting in 7 days → generate agenda + pack and open a draft email"
"Claim due in 14 days → draft claim + ping Finance rep"
"Phase 3 artifacts all present → offer to transition to execution"
Triggers on: "run the project", "what should I do this week", "what's pending"

`project-notifier`

Routes artifacts to surfaces. Takes a (payload, recipients, channel) tuple and delivers via Slack/Gmail/Calendar. Always drafts Gmail (per manifest). Never sends a message without explicit go-ahead.

Reads: manifest surfaces
Writes: logs, drafts
Triggers on: "post the weekly to Slack", "email the PIC PM a draft", "calendar the SC"

`project-sc-meeting`

Full SC lifecycle: schedule (with 5-business-day notice + 3-month lookahead), build agenda from the PIC standard template, assemble the pack (from status-reporter), capture minutes, distribute within 5 business days, file action items back as tasks.

Reads: manifest, milestones, changes, ip, publications
Writes: reports/sc-meetings/, communications/meeting-minutes/, calendar events
Triggers on: "schedule next SC", "prep the pack", "capture minutes"

`project-claim-prep`

Quarterly claim automation: assembles the PIC MS & financial tracking form for Apr 20 / Jul 20 / Oct 20 / Jan 20 deadlines from milestones + financials, routes to Finance rep for review, tracks submission and payment status.

Reads: milestones/, tracking/budget.xlsx, PIC-provided form
Writes: reports/claims/, filled xlsx
Triggers on: "draft the Q2 claim", "what's in next month's claim?", "claim status"

`project-change-register`

Distinguishes material vs. non-material per PIC criteria. Files change-log entries for non-material; drafts Change Orders for material and routes through PIC → Steering Committee approval flow.

Reads: manifest, milestones
Writes: changes/
Triggers on: "log a change", "we need to swap vendor", "this needs a change order?"

`project-blog-publisher`

Progress posts to scsiwyg. Respects publication-review discipline from MPA (30/14 day Steering Committee review before public post). Drafts from weekly reports and milestone completions.

Reads: reports, milestones, publications/
Writes: communications/blog-drafts/, scsiwyg posts
Triggers on: "blog post about M02 completion", "what should we post this month?"

`project-website-publisher` (NEW v1.1)

Static project website hosted on Vercel/Netlify/Cloudflare Pages/GitHub Pages. Mirrors documents/published/ to stable URLs (/docs/<slug>) with visibility tiers (team/consortium/public). Auto-deploys on documents/published/ changes. Refuses to deploy public-marked docs whose MPA publication review hasn't cleared. Provides what-url(slug) for project-notifier so emails contain stable links instead of attachments. See docs/PROJECT-WEBSITE.md for the full integration reference.

Reads: documents/published/, documents/index.yaml, manifest, tracking/, activity log
Writes: website/content/docs/, website/public/downloads/, website/public/images/, state.json (deploy history)
Calls: project-state, project-notifier, project-publications (clearance check)
Called by: project-orchestrator, project-document-curator, user (manual rebuild)
Triggers on: "publish to the site", "regenerate the website", "deploy the docs", "what URL for [doc]"

P3 — Polish

`project-onboarder`

Gets a new team member up to speed. Generates a personalized onboarding brief from state (who you are, what you're on the hook for, what's happening, what needs your attention first).

Triggers on: "onboard Alice from Partner2"

`project-ip-tracker`

Ongoing IP disclosures to PIC Director of IP, abstract tracking, annual questionnaire prep.

Triggers on: "record an IP disclosure", "prep the annual IP update"

`project-publications`

Tracks proposed publications through the 30/14-day SC review, funding acknowledgements, pre-publication confidentiality review.

Triggers on: "we want to publish", "publication status"

`project-lessons`

Captures Lessons Learned continuously; summarizes for closeout.

Triggers on: "capture a lesson", "lessons so far"

`project-archive`

Closes out: final reports, IP final, FTE confirmation, holdback-release tracking, archive phase.

Triggers on: "close the project", "are we ready to close?"

Dependencies

project-scaffolder  (one-shot)
       │
       ▼
project-state  ◄─── every other skill depends on this
       │
       ├── project-phase-gate
       ├── project-document-curator
       ├── project-milestone-manager  ──► project-status-reporter
       ├── project-change-register   ──► project-status-reporter
       │                                     │
       │                                     ▼
       │                              project-notifier ──► Slack / Gmail / Calendar
       │                                     │
       │                                     └──► project-blog-publisher ──► scsiwyg
       │
       └── project-orchestrator ──► calls any of the above based on state + cadence

project-sc-meeting          depends on status-reporter + notifier
project-claim-prep          depends on milestone-manager + notifier
project-ip-tracker          depends on state + notifier
project-publications        depends on state + notifier
project-lessons             depends on state
project-onboarder           depends on state
project-archive             depends on phase-gate + status-reporter

Where skills live

Skills live in /mnt/.claude/skills/ (project-state SKILL.md, project-phase-gate SKILL.md, etc.) so the whole team can invoke them from any folder. The data they read lives in this project's .project-state/. A skill's job is to know how to read/write state; it has no knowledge of which project it's in — it finds .project-state/ by walking up from the current working directory.

This separation means:

Skills are portable across projects (next PCAIS grant, next research engagement)
Data stays with the project on the shared drive
A teammate syncs the skill folder + the project folder and everything works

Skills Reference

Mental model

P0 — Foundations (build first; nothing else works without these)

project-state

project-scaffolder

P1 — Core operations (run the project)

project-phase-gate

project-document-curator

project-milestone-manager

project-status-reporter

P2 — Surfaces & automation (wire in delivery)

project-orchestrator

project-notifier

project-sc-meeting

project-claim-prep

project-change-register

project-blog-publisher

project-website-publisher (NEW v1.1)