Eleven phases, each owned by one skill. A phase hands off to the next only after recording what it produced; the next skill reads that record and refuses if a precondition is unmet. Gates are decided by scripts, never asserted by a model.
auto mode.
/verdict either back-propagates for another round or passes the judge gate,
which /initiate cannot start without./pipelineThe conductor — not a phase. Drive and inspect the Project Kit product pipeline — report which phase a project is in, what may run next, and run or offer the next skill. Also sets the run mode (manual, auto, yolo) and the budget cap. Use when the user says /pipeline, "what's next", "where are we", "resume this project", "set mode to yolo", "run the pipeline", or asks about a project's phase, gate or judge status.
pipeline.json, ~/.claude/project-kit/registry.json/ideateResearch and frame a raw product idea — prior art, the user and the job, how it would work, what is uncertain — and write it up as research.md. The first phase of the Project Kit pipeline. Use when the user says /ideate, "I have an app idea", "I want to build something that...", "research this idea", or describes a product they are thinking about building.
docs/research.md/proposalTurn research into a scoped proposal — what v1 is, what it explicitly is not, what it costs and how long it takes. The scope-and-money decision point of the Project Kit pipeline. Use when the user says /proposal, "scope this", "what would v1 be", "cut this down", or after /ideate completes.
research.mddocs/proposal.md/designTurn an accepted proposal into a full-stack technical spec plus executable Gherkin acceptance criteria — architecture, data model, interfaces, failure modes and rollback. The last phase before the independent judge panel. Use when the user says /design, "design this", "write the spec", "how should this be built", or after /proposal is accepted.
proposal.mddocs/spec.md, docs/acceptance.feature/handoverSend the finished plan to the independent judge panel — build the case and brief from the research, proposal, spec and acceptance criteria, seat three judges from three different model families (never Anthropic), collect and validate each verdict. Stops before spending anything. Use when the user says /handover, "send it to the judges", "judge the plan", "run the panel", or after /design completes.
spec.mdjudge/round-<n>/case.json, brief.md, verdicts, docs/ruling.md/verdictRead the judge panel's ruling, record it in the pipeline, and act on it — open the judge gate on SOUND, or rank the open fixes, send each back to the phase that owns it, and bound the re-judge rounds. Use when the user says /verdict, "what did the judges say", "read the ruling", "did it pass", or after /handover completes.
docs/ruling.mddocs/changes.md on revision/initiatejudge gate Start development once the judge gate is open — ask the user for approval, then turn the approved spec and acceptance criteria into an ordered backlog of build slices, each tied to the scenarios that prove it done. Judge-gated. Use when the user says /initiate, "start development", "start building", "make the backlog", or when /remediate or /verdict finishes with the gate open.
spec.md, rulingdocs/backlog.md/buildDeclared in pipeline state; its skill has not shipped yet.
/devopsDeclared in pipeline state; its skill has not shipped yet.
/testDeclared in pipeline state; its skill has not shipped yet.
acceptance.feature/securityDeclared in pipeline state; its skill has not shipped yet.
/launchsecurity gate Declared in pipeline state; its skill has not shipped yet.
Each row is a phase: what it consumes, what it produces, and the gate that guards it. Artifacts are the contract between phases — a missing artifact is why a skill refuses.
| # | Phase | Reads | Writes | Gate before | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | /ideate | the user's idea | docs/research.md | — | ✔ complete |
| 2 | /proposal | research.md | docs/proposal.md | — | ✔ complete |
| 3 | /design | proposal.md | docs/spec.md, docs/acceptance.feature | — | ✔ complete |
| 4 | /handover | spec.md | judge/round-<n>/case.json, brief.md, verdicts, docs/ruling.md | — | ✔ complete |
| 5 | /verdict | docs/ruling.md | recorded judge ruling, docs/changes.md on revision | — | ✔ complete |
| 6 | /initiate | spec.md, ruling | docs/backlog.md | judge | ✔ complete |
| 7 | /build | backlog slice | code + unit tests | — | ○ not started |
| 8 | /devops | the working tree | branches, PRs, releases, tags | — | ○ not started |
| 9 | /test | code + acceptance.feature | test report | — | ○ not started |
| 10 | /security | code + deps | threat model, audit | — | ○ not started |
| 11 | /launch | a green release | soft launch, rollback drill | security | ○ not started |
| Mode | Behaviour | Stops |
|---|---|---|
manual | Stops after every phase and offers a menu | every phase |
auto (default) | Advances between phases, stopping at the four checkpoints | 4 checkpoints |
yolo | End to end with no pipeline stops, subject to the budget cap | none |
The four auto checkpoints: after /ideate (is this the idea?),
after /proposal (accept scope and cost?), before the judge panel runs (this
spends API credit), and after /verdict (accept the ruling, or revise?).
The budget cap is not a checkpoint. It halts the run in every mode,
including yolo.