eagle-tracker

name

eagle-tracker

description

Use this skill to create project trackers, task lists, roadmaps, and Gantt charts as .xlsx files that open in Excel AND import cleanly into Google Sheets. Triggers on: 'project tracker', 'task tracker', 'create a Gantt chart', 'project plan', 'roadmap', 'timeline', 'sprint board', 'RAID log', 'who's doing what by when', 'track tasks with owners and dates', 'turn this into a tracker', or when the user lists tasks/owners/dates and wants them organized into a trackable, shareable sheet. Produces status dropdowns, status-colored Gantt bars, computed duration/%-complete, a today marker, and a small dashboard. Composes with eagle-clean-sheet styling. Do NOT use for ad-hoc data tables with no time/ownership dimension (use eagle-clean-sheet directly), or for live Google Sheets API integration.

Eagle Tracker — Project Trackers & Gantt Charts for Excel + Google Sheets

Turns a list of tasks (owners, dates, status) into a styled, shareable workbook that works in both Excel and Google Sheets — no macros, no native chart objects, so nothing breaks on import. Built on the eagle-clean-sheet design language.

When to use

The user has work to track over time with owners and dates: a delivery plan, a component build list, a sprint, a release roadmap, a migration checklist. If there is no time or ownership dimension, it is just a table — use eagle-clean-sheet instead.

How it works

A Python engine, scripts/build_tracker.py, takes a JSON spec and emits a three-sheet workbook. Prefer the engine over hand-rolling openpyxl — it gets the conditional-formatting Gantt formulas, date coercion, and data validation right every time.

python scripts/build_tracker.py spec.json -o tracker.xlsx --timescale week

--timescale day|week|month sets the Gantt granularity (default week). --sheets-native adds a SPARKLINE bar column (renders in Sheets; shows #NAME? in Excel — opt-in only).

The spec

See assets/example-spec.json. Minimum per task: task, owner, status, start, end (dates as YYYY-MM-DD). Optional: group, percent (0–100). Top level: title, timescale, statuses (the dropdown list).

What you get

1. Tracker — the task table. Status column is a dropdown (data validation), rows are tinted by status, % Complete shows a data bar, and Duration is a live formula. Sort/filter friendly.
2. Gantt — a conditional-formatting cell grid: each task's bar is drawn by a formula that fills bucket cells between Start and End, colored by status. A today marker highlights the current period on the header row. This is the portable Gantt — it survives the Excel ↔ Google Sheets round-trip.
3. Dashboard — three live rollups: total tasks, duration-weighted % complete, and overdue count.

Building the spec from a conversation

When the user describes work in prose or pastes a list, extract one task per line: name, owner, status, start, end. Infer sensible dates from stated milestones ("ready by the 20th" → end date) and ask only if a date is genuinely unknowable. Group related tasks with the group field so the Gantt reads in phases.

Design note — status color is intentional

The base eagle-clean-sheet system is monochrome, but this skill keeps a small functional status palette (Not started / In progress / Blocked / On hold / Done, plus Milestone). Color here carries meaning (RAG signal), which the clean-sheet rule explicitly allows. Do not strip it when applying clean-sheet styling on top.

Tracker types

The engine covers task/Gantt trackers directly. For other shapes (roadmap, sprint/kanban, RAID log, dependency matrix), see references/tracker-types.md — each maps onto the same spec with a different group/status convention.

References

• references/tracker-types.md — playbook for each tracker shape.
• references/gantt-recipes.md — the CF-grid and SPARKLINE Gantt formulas, plus how to build one by hand if the engine is unavailable.
• references/sheets-compatibility.md — what survives the xlsx → Google Sheets import, the import steps, and known gotchas.

Verify before delivering

Always open the output and confirm the Gantt bars render. If portability matters to the user, do the round-trip: open in Excel, then drag into Google Drive → Open with Google Sheets, and confirm the bars + dropdowns survive.