Skill · the first session of a new project

Project Kickoff

New projects go wrong before the first feature: the idea is never pinned down, and the repository starts with nothing that runs. This asks only the product questions that change what gets built, writes them down, and leaves a skeleton that is proven to install, test and run.

Soumya Rauth · Creator & maintainer

npx skills add soumyaRauth/skills-hub --skill project-kickoff

The problem

idea → forty generated files → nobody knows what was decided

Handed “an app where members book classes”, a coding agent invents the business’s rules, picks a stack from a blog post, and generates a login system before anyone has written down what a booking is. A beginner cannot tell which parts came from them and which were made up.

The other failure is quieter: nothing runs a test, nothing says how to start the app, and a real key sits in a committed file. The first deploy becomes a research project.

When it activates

No slash command needed. Installed, it is loaded when a request needs it and stays out of the way otherwise — and when it does shape the work, one ⚡ line says so. How the skills work together →

Engages	Someone wants to start a new app or product from an idea, or the repository is empty or holds only notes and the request is to build something whole.
Stays quiet	Features in an existing codebase, declared throwaway spikes, and questions about an idea with no intent to build it.
Depth	Shapes the whole first session. Stops only to ask its product questions, or before overwriting a file. Never a gate.
Works with	Delivery Planner, Dependency Guard, Standards Compass, ProofBuild, Architecture Engineer, Release Engineer

What it does

idea → product frame at most five plain questions, one block
   → docs/spec.md every line [you said] or [assumed]
   → stack a boring default you already know
   → scaffold install · test · run, actually executed
   → planning: milestone 1 = walking skeleton deployed

You:    I want to build an app where our climbing gym’s members can book
        classes. I’ve never built a full app before — where do I start?

Agent:  1. Does each class have a maximum number of people? If it is full,
           what should happen: nothing, or a waiting list?
        2. Should members pay inside the app in the first version, or not yet?
        3. What do you already know how to program in, if anything?
        4. Is there a date this needs to be working by?

        Meanwhile I am assuming: a website that works on phones, one gym
        location, the front desk adds classes. Say so if that is wrong.

Proven, not generated

SCAFFOLD PROOF
install   pip install -r requirements.txt                  exit 0
lint      ruff check . && ruff format --check .            exit 0
test      python manage.py test                            1 passed
run       python manage.py runserver → GET / returned 200  checked, then stopped
CI        .github/workflows/ci.yml written                 not run here

The skeleton is done when its commands ran here and their output was read. A step that could not run is reported as not run, and the result is SCAFFOLD UNPROVEN. A beginner gets one plain sentence per command; the bar is the same for everyone.

Never your world, invented

Users, prices, schedules and deadlines come from you, or they are written into the spec as [assumed] with what would change them. “By spring, no pressure” stays your words; it never becomes a date.

Where it fits

Project Compass notices direction in a project that exists; this defines one that does not yet, and Compass reads its spec afterwards. Every package goes through Dependency Guard, sign-in and personal data through Standards Compass, and a requirement that genuinely forces an unusual stack to Architecture Engineer. The spec goes to Delivery Planner, which makes it milestones and tickets.