Project Docs

Project Docs — Standard Document Ecosystem

Purpose

Every project needs the same core set of interconnected documents. This skill scaffolds a complete documentation ecosystem from day one so that:

• Nothing gets lost between meetings, decisions, and deliverables
• Every document has a clear owner, purpose, and update trigger
• The doc-sync watcher can automatically detect when documents go stale
• New team members can onboard by reading the folder structure alone

When to Use

• /project-docs init — Scaffold a new project from scratch
• /project-docs init --type consulting — Use consulting template (meetings-heavy)
• /project-docs init --type product — Use product template (PRD-heavy)
• /project-docs init --type implementation — Use implementation template (vendor + config)
• /project-docs audit — Check an existing project against the standard and report gaps

The Standard Document Set

Every project should have these 16 document types organized in 6 categories. Not every project needs all 16 — the skill asks which ones apply and only scaffolds what's needed. Documents 11-16 are generated on demand via dedicated slash commands in the pm-ops skill category.

Category 1: Source of Truth (Root Documents)

These are authoritative — all other documents derive from them.

Category 2: Source Documents (Inputs)

Raw inputs that feed the root documents. These are append-only — never edited after creation.

Category 3: Derived Documents (Outputs)

Generated from root + source documents. These go stale and need syncing.

Generate with: /arb-review — auto-populates from PRD + architecture + project registry data.

Category 4: Operational Documents

Living documents that track ongoing state.

Generate with: /change-log (init or append) and /nfr-tracker (audit readiness).

Category 5: Compliance & Resilience

Required for production systems. Generated on demand as go-live approaches.

Generate with: /dr-plan → /irp → /recovery-plan (in dependency order).

Category 6: Communications

Templates for stakeholder announcements. Generated on demand.

The Dependency Graph

Copy code
Meeting Notes ──┬──→ PRD ──────────→ PRD Presentation
                │     │
Research ───────┤     ├──→ Main Presentation
                │     │
Source Docs ────┘     ├──→ Architecture Map
                      │
                      ├──→ /arb-review (ARB presentation)
                      │
                      ├──→ /dr-plan ────→ /recovery-plan
                      │
                      ├──→ /irp ────────→ /recovery-plan
                      │
                      ├──→ /change-log (append mode)
                      │
                      └──→ /stakeholder-comms

/nfr-tracker ──────→ Reads ALL of the above, reports readiness

All changes ──────────→ CLAUDE.local.md
                ──────→ Stakeholder Directory (if new people)

Key rule: Source documents (meetings, research) flow INTO root documents (PRD). Root documents flow INTO derived documents (presentations, architecture, ops docs). Never the reverse. The NFR tracker is read-only — it audits but never modifies.

Staged Generation

Not all documents are needed on day one. The standard cadence:

Process

Step 1: Gather Project Context

Ask the user these questions (skip any they've already answered):

1. Project name? (used for folder name and CLAUDE.local.md header)
2. What type of project?
   • product — Building software (PRD-centric, Jira/Confluence integration)
   • consulting — Advisory/implementation engagement (meeting-notes-centric, stakeholder-heavy)
   • implementation — Deploying a vendor product (config-centric, vendor docs, phased rollout)
   • governance — Risk, compliance, controls (framework-centric, regulatory docs)
3. One-line description? (goes in CLAUDE.local.md overview)
4. Who are the key stakeholders? (seeds the stakeholder directory)
5. What's the primary deliverable? (determines which Tier 1 doc to scaffold first)
6. Is this a git repo? (affects .gitignore recommendations)

Step 2: Scaffold Folder Structure

Create the folder structure for the chosen project type, per the layouts below.

All types get:

Copy code
Project-Name/
├── CLAUDE.local.md
├── .sync-watch.json
├── .nfr-status.json          # NFR tracker state (created by /nfr-tracker)
├── Meeting-Notes/
├── Research/
├── Source-Documents/
├── Data/
├── Operations/               # DR Plan, IRP, Recovery Plan (created by slash commands)
├── Comms/                    # Stakeholder communication templates
└── _temp/

Product type adds:

Copy code
├── PRD/
│   ├── PRD-Name.html (or .md)
│   └── PRD-Presentation.html
├── Architecture/
└── Verification/

Consulting type adds:

Copy code
├── Presentations/
│   ├── Name-v1.html
│   └── _archive/
├── PRD/ (optional)
└── Verification/

Implementation type adds:

Copy code
├── PRD/
│   ├── PRD-Name.html
│   └── PRD-Presentation.html
├── Presentations/
│   ├── Name-v1.html
│   └── _archive/
├── ARB/                      # Created by /arb-review
├── Architecture/
├── Verification/
├── Change-Log.md             # Created by /change-log
└── Source-Documents/
    ├── Contracts/
    ├── Emails/
    └── Screenshots/

Governance type adds:

Copy code
├── Framework/
│   ├── Controls/
│   ├── Risks/
│   └── Policies/
├── Presentations/
├── Architecture/
└── Verification/

Step 3: Create CLAUDE.local.md

Use the template from templates/project-memory.md. Pre-fill:

• Project name and description from Step 1
• Folder structure section (document what was created)
• Routing guide table (map "I need X" → "Go to Y")
• Empty sections for: Key Decisions, Recent Changes, Open Questions, Commands

Step 4: Create .sync-watch.json

Generate based on project type and folder structure. Map:

• watch_dirs → all source document directories (Meeting-Notes, Research, etc.)
• target_docs.tier1 → root + primary derived documents
• target_docs.tier2 → secondary derived documents

Register the project in ~/.claude/sync-watch-projects.txt.

Step 5: Create Starter Files

For each document type the user selected, create a minimal starter:

• Meeting Notes: Create Meeting-Notes/ with a _template.md file
• PRD: Trigger /prd-generator or create empty PRD scaffold
• Presentation: Create empty Presentations/Name-v1.html
• Stakeholder Directory: Create Data/Stakeholder-Directory.xlsx or .md with initial contacts

Step 6: Report

Copy code
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
 PROJECT DOCS ► SCAFFOLDED ✓
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Project: [Name]
Type: [product/consulting/implementation/governance]
Documents: [N] types configured
Sync watcher: Registered

Folder structure:
[tree output]

Next steps:
1. Start capturing meeting notes in Meeting-Notes/
2. Begin your PRD: /prd-generator
3. The doc-sync watcher will alert you when documents need updating

Audit Mode

When invoked with /project-docs audit:

1. Read .sync-watch.json (if exists) or scan folder structure
2. Check against the standard document set
3. Report:

Copy code
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
 PROJECT DOCS ► AUDIT
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

| Document Type | Status | Path | Last Updated |
|---------------|--------|------|--------------|
| PRD | ✓ | PRD/ProductB-PRD.html | 2026-03-17 |
| Project Memory | ✓ | CLAUDE.local.md | 2026-03-17 |
| Meeting Notes | ✓ | Meeting-Notes/ (3 files) | 2026-03-13 |
| Research | ✓ | Research/ (4 files) | 2026-03-17 |
| Presentation | ✓ | Presentations/v5.html | 2026-03-12 |
| Architecture | ✓ | ProductB-Architecture-Map.html | 2026-03-13 |
| Verification | ✓ | Verification/ (2 files) | 2026-03-12 |
| Stakeholder Dir | ✗ MISSING | — | — |
| Source Documents | ✓ | Source-Documents/ | 2026-03-12 |
| Sync Config | ✓ | .sync-watch.json | 2026-03-17 |

Coverage: 9/10 (90%)
Missing: Stakeholder Directory

File Naming Conventions

Integration with Other Skills

pm-core (Document Creation & Sync)

pm-ops (Operational Documents — Generated On Demand)

Dependency chain: /dr-plan → /irp → /recovery-plan (each builds on the previous). Meta-command: /nfr-tracker checks which of the above exist and reports gaps.

Critical Rules

1. Don't over-scaffold. Only create directories the user confirmed they need. Empty folders are noise.
2. Don't create placeholder content. An empty PRD.html with boilerplate headers is worse than no file. Either use /prd-generator to make a real one, or leave it for later.
3. Date everything. CLAUDE.local.md entries use [YYYY-MM-DD] format. Meeting notes use date-first filenames.
4. Archive, don't delete. When presentations get major updates, move old version to _archive/ before creating new one.
5. Source docs are immutable. Meeting notes and research files are never edited after creation. New information goes in a new file.