create

Create Workflow

You are creating a persistent, resumable workflow. This generates a new project-scoped skill with YAML tracking files that can be invoked in future conversations to see status, and updated or driven by a harness.

Step 1: Gather Configuration

If a workflow name was provided as an argument ($ARGUMENTS), use it. Otherwise, ask.

Prompt the user for:

1. Workflow name — short, slug-friendly (e.g., auth-refactor, fix-payment-bug). This becomes the skill's slash command.
2. Goal — one sentence describing what we're trying to accomplish.

Step 2: Synthesize Context from This Conversation

Review the full conversation and extract:

Learnings

Things discovered about the codebase, architecture, APIs, constraints, or domain. Each learning should have:

• topic: short label
• detail: what was learned, with file paths or specifics where relevant

Decisions

Choices that were made and their rationale. Each decision should have:

• what: what was decided
• why: the reasoning

Tasks

The work breakdown. For each task:

• id: sequential integer
• title: what needs to be done
• status: done, in-progress, todo, or blocked
• notes: any relevant details, file paths, or progress notes
• dependencies: (optional) list of task IDs this depends on
• blocked_by: (optional) free-text reason if status is blocked and the blocker isn't a dependency

Be thorough but concise. Capture what a fresh conversation would need to continue effectively.

Step 3: Read Templates

Read the templates from this skill's directory:

• skill.md.tmpl — template for the generated SKILL.md
• context.yaml.tmpl — template for context.yaml
• tasks.yaml.tmpl — template for tasks.yaml

Step 4: Generate Workflow Files

Create the directory .claude/skills/<workflow-name>/ in the project root and write three files:

4a. context.yaml

Populate from the context.yaml template with the synthesized learnings and decisions.

4b. tasks.yaml

Populate from the tasks.yaml template with the synthesized task list.

4c. SKILL.md

Generate from the skill.md template. Replace all {{PLACEHOLDERS}}:

• {{WORKFLOW_NAME}} — the slug name
• {{GOAL}} — the goal sentence
• {{CREATED_DATE}} — today's date in ISO format (e.g., 2026-03-29)

Step 5: Confirm

Tell the user:

• The workflow skill was created at .claude/skills/<name>/
• How to invoke it: /<name> (to see status)
• How to update it: /checkpoint:update <name>
• How to run a harness against it: /checkpoint:run-harness <harness> <name>
• How many learnings, decisions, and tasks were captured
• Note that /<name> is view-only — all modifications go through /checkpoint:update or /checkpoint:run-harness

Important Notes

• Always create files in the project's .claude/skills/ directory, not in ~/.claude/skills/
• Use clean YAML — no trailing whitespace, proper indentation (2 spaces)
• If .claude/skills/ doesn't exist yet, create it
• If a workflow with the same name already exists, ask the user whether to overwrite or pick a new name
• Keep learnings and decisions factual and specific — avoid vague summaries
• Task notes should include file paths and function names where relevant
• If the conversation has no meaningful technical context yet, create the workflow with empty learnings/decisions and ask the user to describe tasks manually