Project Charter

Establish the portfolio-level justification before diving into requirements. Answers: why are we investing in this? Who has authority? What kills this project?

Announce at start: "I'm using the project-charter skill to establish the business-level justification for this initiative."

When to use

• "project charter", "initiative brief", "why are we doing this"
• Starting a greenfield project — charter before BRD
• Stakeholders need a go/no-go decision document

Four-Beat Rhythm

Every section follows:

flowchart LR
    O[Orient] --> W[Work] --> P[Present] --> C{Approval?}
    C -->|Approve| D[Commit & Advance]
    C -->|Edit inline| E[Apply edits → Commit]
    C -->|Revise| W
    C -->|Kill| K[Log in decisions.md → Advance]

Flow

1. Project name and slug — auto-suggest from git remote or folder
2. Interview using roles/sponsor.md — business justification, vision, budget of belief, go/no-go criteria
3. Draft sections one at a time using templates/charter.md:
   • Business justification
   • Vision
   • Objectives (3-5, measurable)
   • Scope boundary (in/out)
   • Key stakeholders (role, person, authority)
   • Constraints (timeline, budget, regulatory, technical)
   • Success criteria
   • Risks (high-level)
   • Go/no-go criteria
4. Each section: present → approve/edit/revise/kill → commit
5. On completion: write charter.md to docs/requirements/, update state.md

Slug derivation

1. git config --get remote.origin.url → normalize (e.g., github.com/acme/widget → acme-widget)
2. Fallback: current folder basename
3. Collision: append short hash of absolute path

Tone

• Tight and direct. No corporate hedging.
• Push back on vague justifications — "everyone wants this" is not evidence.
• Match user's language.

Next step

"Charter complete. Ready to start the BRD? Say 'write business requirements' to continue."