charter

name	charter
description	Draft a PMBOK-shaped project charter from a concept memo or product brief. Invoke when the user needs a charter for initiation-phase documentation.

Originally authored for Agentic PM Kit (MIT).

When to use

Use this skill when a sponsor is ready to formally authorize a project and needs a single document that names the work, grants authority, and sets the quality bar for every downstream planning artifact. Typical triggers include:

• A concept memo produced by a brainstorming lab run is ready to be converted into an authorized project
• A product brief is signed off and the sponsor requests formal initiation paperwork
• A steering committee requires a charter before budget release or resource allocation
• Initiation-phase documentation is being refreshed after a scope reset

Do not invoke for pre-initiation ideation (use a brainstorming skill), for detailed requirements (use the PRD skill), or to enumerate stakeholders beyond the naming level (use the stakeholder register skill afterward).

Summon the SME

Before facilitating, load the canonical project-charter reference to ground the artifact in established practice.

Reading the config. Check .pm-kit.config.json for the sourcesMode field:

• If sourcesMode is "online" (opt-in): fetch the URL stored at the key sources.charter in vendor/pm-kit/sources-index.json using your available web-fetch capability. Do not name a specific tool — use whatever your runtime provides. Ground the facilitation in what you read. Do not fabricate quotations or page numbers from any version of that page.
• If sourcesMode is "offline" or the field is absent (the default): rely on your general knowledge of the project charter as described by the Project Management Institute in The Standard for Project Management and its 12 Project Management Principles. Cite the canonical URL from vendor/pm-kit/sources-index.json at key sources.charter in the output. Do not fabricate quotations or page numbers.

In both cases, the URL to cite is https://www.pmi.org/-/media/pmi/documents/public/pdf/pmbok-standards/12-project-management-principles.pdf.

Facilitation script

Walk the user through these steps in sequence. Do not skip steps or combine them.

Step 1 — Inputs and identification. Ask the user which upstream inputs are available: a concept memo, a product brief, both, or neither. Read each input verbatim before drafting. Then capture the project title, a unique identifier (kebab-case ASCII), the named sponsor role, the document author, the version, and today's date.

Step 2 — Strategic alignment and justification. Ask the user which organizational goal, portfolio objective, or strategic theme this project advances. Then ask why the work must happen now. Capture both answers in full sentences — a charter that cannot answer "why now" is not ready for signature.

Step 3 — Objectives and success metrics. Ask the user for three to five high-level objectives. Reshape each into SMART form (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bounded). Then ask for the quantitative success metrics the sponsor will use to declare the project a success. Confirm each metric has a numeric target and a measurement method.

Step 4 — Scope boundaries. Capture in-scope bullets and out-of-scope bullets. Prompt the user to be explicit about exclusions — charters that list only inclusions invite scope creep.

Step 5 — Milestones, budget, constraints, and assumptions. Capture the key phase-gate milestones with target dates. If any date is a placeholder, mark it with a trailing (placeholder) tag. Capture the high-level budget envelope as a range or ceiling, not a point estimate. List constraints (fixed deadlines, regulatory limits, resource ceilings) and assumptions (what must hold for the plan to survive) as separate bulleted lists.

Step 6 — Preliminary risk summary. Ask the user for the three risks most likely to threaten the project in its first quarter. For each, capture a one-line probability-impact characterization and a one-line mitigation. Exactly three entries — a fuller risk register is produced later by the risk-matrix skill.

Step 7 — Key stakeholders and approvals. Capture a short list of named role-level stakeholders (not individuals unless the sponsor prefers). Remind the user that the full stakeholder analysis is produced later by the stakeholder-register skill and supersedes this list. Then capture the approval signatures block: sponsor, project manager, and any additional approvers the sponsor requires.

Step 8 — Output. Produce the completed charter using the structure in TEMPLATE.md (sibling file). Fill every section. Leave no placeholder unfilled.

Step 9 — Save the artifact. Save the filled artifact to docs/pm-kit/outputs/<skill-name>/<short-slug>.md. For this skill, <skill-name> is charter. <short-slug> is a kebab-case ASCII slug (max 40 characters) derived from the project title (e.g., bookswap-campus-v1). Confirm the final path with the user before writing. If the target file already exists, ask the user whether to overwrite, append a date suffix (e.g., -2026-04-21), or choose a different slug. The artifact must begin with the three-line provenance header below (preserved as HTML comments so they do not render):

<!-- Generated by agentic-pm-kit:charter on YYYY-MM-DD -->
<!-- Languages: communication=<value>, output=<value> -->
<!-- Source mode: offline | online -->

This save-to-disk path and provenance-header pattern are the convention for every skill in the kit; only the skill name in the first comment changes per skill.

Languages

The kit separates the language used for live agent–user dialogue from the language used in the saved artifact. Both values live in .pm-kit.config.json and are free-form strings — read each value verbatim, never infer a language from the conversation, and never select from a hardcoded list.

Facilitation dialogue. Speak to the user during facilitation in the language at language.communication. Use the string verbatim.

Filled artifact (saved TEMPLATE.md output). Produce the written artifact in the language at language.output. If language.output is absent or empty, fall back to language.communication.

Example values either field might contain: "en-US", "es-MX", "Português brasileiro", "Mandarin Chinese". Accept any string as given. This bifurcation is the normative pattern for every skill in the kit.

Acceptance gate

When the charter is complete, point the user to CHECKLIST.md (sibling file) and ask them to verify each item. Remind them that the output must be marked PASS or FAIL. On FAIL, invite the user to return with specific notes so the facilitation can be resumed or corrected.