Use when creating, editing, registering, or approving documents in a Kanbanzai-managed project. Activates for document types, placement, registration with doc action register, approval workflow, content drift, doc action refresh, or any question about document status, ownership, or lifecycle. Use whenever any markdown file is created or modified in a configured document root — even if the edit seems minor, registration and refresh rules still apply.
Installation
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Use when creating, editing, registering, or approving documents in a Kanbanzai-managed project. Activates for document types, placement, registration with doc action register, approval workflow, content drift, doc action refresh, or any question about document status, ownership, or lifecycle. Use whenever any markdown file is created or modified in a configured document root — even if the edit seems minor, registration and refresh rules still apply.
metadata
{"kanbanzai-managed":"true","version":"0.4.0"}
SKILL: Kanbanzai Documents
Purpose
Document types, where to place them, how to register them with the system,
and the approval workflow that makes them authoritative.
When to Use
When creating any new document in a configured document root
When registering a document with doc action: register
When approving a document or checking whether it is ready for approval
When editing a document that has already been registered
When unsure which document type or directory to use
Vocabulary
Term
Definition
document record
The YAML metadata file in .kbz/state/documents/ that tracks a document's type, status, content hash, and ownership
content hash
A hash of the document's file contents, recorded at registration and checked at approval to ensure what was reviewed is what gets approved
document type
One of design, specification, dev-plan, research, report, or policy — determines how the system treats the document in lifecycle gates
document approval
Calling doc(action: "approve") to transition a document from draft to approved, binding the approval to the current content hash
document registration
Calling doc(action: "register") to create a document record, making the document visible to the workflow system
supersession
Replacing an approved document with a newer version via doc(action: "supersede"), marking the old document as superseded
document drift
The state where a registered document's file contents no longer match its stored content hash, typically after editing
hash refresh
Calling doc(action: "refresh") to update a document record's content hash to match current file contents
document owner
The parent Plan or Feature ID that a document is associated with, set via the owner field at registration
document chain
The succession history of a document — its predecessors and replacements, retrieved via doc(action: "chain")
Document Creation Checklist
Copy this checklist when creating any new document:
Determined the correct document type (design, specification, dev-plan, research, report, policy)
Placed the file in the correct directory for its type
Registered the document with doc(action: register, path: "...", type: "...", title: "...", owner: "...")
Verified registration with doc(action: get, path: "...")
Committed both the document file and the registration record together
Classified the document with doc_intel(action: "classify") if content was in context
Document Types and Locations
Documents live in entity-scoped directories under the project's document
directory (typically work/). Execution work goes in batch folders; strategic
work goes in plan folders; project-level documents go in work/_project/.
Canonical filename template
All work documents follow one of these templates:
{entity-id}-{type}[-{slug}].md # batch or plan level
{entity-id}-{feature-seq}-{type}[-{slug}].md # feature-scoped (under a batch)
Where:
{entity-id} is the owning entity's ID:
B{n} for batches (e.g. B24) — execution containers that hold features
P{n} for plans (e.g. P1) — strategic containers that hold batches and child plans
{feature-seq} is F{m} (e.g. F3)
{type} is the document type prefix (design, spec, dev-plan, review,
report, research, retro, proposal)
[-{slug}] is an optional lowercase-kebab-case human description
Each identifier appears exactly once in the filename. The feature ID
(F3) is sufficient because it is batch-scoped — do not repeat the batch ID
or document type.
Examples:
Document
Filename
Batch 24's design
B24-design-auth-system.md
Batch 24, Feature 3's spec
B24-F3-spec-oauth-flow.md
Batch 24, Feature 3's dev-plan
B24-F3-dev-plan-oauth-flow.md
Plan 1's design
P1-design-social-platform.md
Project-level research
research-ai-orchestration.md (in work/_project/)
Character rules:
Filenames are lowercase throughout, including the entity ID and feature
sequence: b24-f3-spec-oauth-flow.md
Exception: the entity and feature prefixes use uppercase B/P and F
for visual distinction: B24-F3-spec-oauth-flow.md
Slugs use only [a-z0-9-]
No spaces, no underscores, no uppercase in slugs
Document types
Type prefix
Type (register as)
When to use
design
design
Architecture, vision, approach decisions
spec
specification
Acceptance criteria, binding contracts
dev-plan
dev-plan
Implementation plans, task breakdowns
review
review
Formal review reports
report
report
Internal analyses, evaluations, status
research
research
External research, technology comparisons
retro
retrospective
Retrospectives
proposal
proposal
Early-stage proposals before formal design
Note:specification and retrospective are accepted as synonyms for the
spec and retro types respectively when registering. The stored type is
normalised to the short form.
Folder placement
Scope
Directory
Batch-level documents
work/{BatchID}-{batch-slug}/
Feature-scoped documents
work/{BatchID}-{batch-slug}/ (same folder)
Plan-level documents
work/{PlanID}-{plan-slug}/
Project-level documents
work/_project/
Placement rule: design content goes in design documents, not in planning
documents. A document whose content contains "Decision:",
"Architecture:", or "Technology Choice:" should be a design type.
Unclassified and ad-hoc files
Files that do not match a defined document type (prompts, handoff notes,
investigation scratchpads, agent-to-agent handover documents) must still
follow naming and placement conventions.
Path:work/_project/
Naming: Use a descriptive type prefix in lowercase kebab-case followed
by the slug:
Type prefix
When to use
proposal-{slug}.md
Early-stage proposals, prompt artifacts
note-{slug}.md
Handoff notes, scratchpads, agent communications
investigation-{slug}.md
Preliminary investigations (not formal research)
Rule: Do NOT create new directories under work/. All non-entity-scoped
files go in work/_project/. The only directories permitted under work/
are _project/ and entity-scoped folders matching {PlanID}-{slug}/ or
{BatchID}-{slug}/.
Registration
Every document placed in a configured root must be registered with the system
immediately after creation. Unregistered documents are invisible to document
intelligence, entity extraction, approval workflow, and health checks.
The system generates a document ID from the path (e.g.
FEAT-01ABC/spec-oauth-flow). The filename must follow the canonical
template — each identifier (batch ID, feature ID, document type) appears
exactly once.
Batch import
To catch unregistered documents or register many at once:
doc(action="import", path="work")
This is idempotent — already-registered documents are skipped. Safe to run
at any time as a consistency check.
A document is properly registered when a YAML record exists in
.kbz/state/documents/ and doc action: get returns its metadata.
Classification (Layer 3)
After registering a document, classify it immediately if you have the document
content in context. Do not defer classification to a batch run.
The doc register response includes a classification_nudge — agents MUST
follow it before moving to the next task.
Rationale: Layer 3 classification enables concept search, role-based
retrieval, and semantic guides. Documents deferred to batch runs accumulate as
a growing backlog that is never fully cleared.
When to run this protocol
At the start of a new session, to ensure the corpus is up to date.
After a batch registration (doc(action: "import")), to catch newly added documents.
Periodically, to maintain classification coverage across the corpus.
Classification-on-registration convention
When you register a document via doc(action: "register") and you have the document's
content in context, classify it immediately — do not wait for a batch run.
The register response includes a classification_nudge that tells you exactly which
doc_intel calls to make.
Priority ordering
Process documents in this order to maximise classification value per unit of effort:
Priority
Document type
Rationale
1
Specifications
Most structured, highest value
2
Designs
Narrative + decisions
3
Dev-plans
Task-oriented, lower value
4
Research/reports
Lowest priority
You MAY deviate from this ordering when context warrants it (e.g. a design needed
immediately for a concept search query).
Be concise — no commentary between documents, just run the tools. Report only final counts.
Atomicity guarantee:classify calls commit to the persistent index as they succeed — a batch failure does not roll back previously classified documents. After any batch failure, doc_intel(action: "pending") is the authoritative ground truth for which documents have already been classified. Always call doc_intel(action: "pending") before re-dispatching a failed batch to avoid re-classifying documents that were already successfully classified.
Step-by-step procedure
Get the pending list. Call doc_intel(action: "pending") to retrieve all
document IDs that have no Layer 3 classifications yet.
Select a batch. Choose documents to classify in the current session, applying
the priority ordering above. Size the batch to your available context budget.
For each document in the batch:
Call doc_intel(action: "guide", id: "DOC-xxx") to get the section outline,
conventional roles, entity refs, and content hash.
Read the sections you need (use doc_intel(action: "section", ...) if the
document is large and you only need specific sections).
Produce a classification object for each section in the outline, assigning a
role from the taxonomy below.
Call doc_intel(action: "classify", id: "DOC-xxx", content_hash: "...", model_name: "...", model_version: "...", classifications: "[...]")
to submit the classifications.
Classification object format (classifications is a JSON-encoded string):
Everything else — introductions, summaries, front matter, file lists
Valid confidence values:"high", "medium", "low"
Optional fields per object:summary (one-line description), concepts_intro
(array of concept names introduced), concepts_used (array of concept names referenced).
Repeat until the pending list is empty or your context budget is exhausted.
Re-call doc_intel(action: "pending") to confirm progress.
Anti-patterns
Skipping guide before classify. The guide response provides the content
hash required by classify. Never construct the content hash manually.
Classifying without reading sections. Classification requires understanding the
content. Do not assign roles without reading the relevant section text.
Classifying the whole corpus in one pass. Work in batches sized to your context
window. Quality drops when context is saturated.
Approval Workflow
Documents follow a three-status lifecycle: draft → approved → superseded.
Agent or human creates the document file.
Agent registers it with doc action: register — status becomes draft.
Human reviews the document and signals approval (verbally: "Approved",
"LGTM", or equivalent).
Agent calls doc action: approve — status becomes approved.
Approved documents are the authoritative basis for downstream work:
Approved design → features can be created
Approved specification → tasks can be decomposed
A draft document is a working document. An approved document is a contract.
Auto-Approve for Agent-Authored Documents
For agent-authored documents of types dev-plan, research, and report,
registration and approval can be combined in a single call:
This registers the document and immediately approves it. The auto_approve
flag is only honoured for types in the whitelist (dev-plan, research,
report). Design documents and specifications always require explicit human
approval.
Drift and Refresh
When a document is registered, the system records a content hash. If the
file is edited after registration, the hash becomes stale — this is called
drift.
doc approve auto-refreshes on hash mismatch. If the file has drifted
since registration, doc action: approve automatically updates the hash
before approving — it no longer fails on mismatch.
doc refresh is still available for checking or correcting drift
outside the approval path (e.g. to detect whether a document has changed
since it was last registered).
If an approved document is edited, the approval is effectively void.
The content no longer matches what was approved. Notify the human and
re-approve after review.
Supersession
When a document is replaced by a newer version:
Create and register the new document.
Call doc action: supersede on the old document, linking it to the new one.
The old document's status becomes superseded.
Superseded documents remain in the repository as historical records. They are
no longer authoritative.
The system removes the file, clears the entity's document reference, and commits atomically.
Note: This operation is irreversible. Consider supersession instead if historical preservation matters.
Anti-Patterns
Unregistered Document
Detect: A design, spec, or plan document exists on disk but has no
document record in .kbz/state/documents/.
BECAUSE: Unregistered documents are invisible to the workflow system —
stage gates can't check prerequisites, and other agents can't discover the
document through MCP tools.
Resolve: Call doc(action: "register") immediately after creating any
document.
Stale Content Hash
Detect: A registered document's file contents no longer match its stored
content hash (visible via doc(action: "refresh")).
BECAUSE: The file was edited after registration, so the stored hash no
longer matches disk.
Note:doc(action: "approve") now auto-refreshes the hash before
approving, so this no longer blocks approval. Use doc(action: "refresh")
explicitly if you need to check or update drift outside the approval path.
Silent Supersession
Detect: An approved document is edited directly instead of creating a
replacement and superseding.
BECAUSE: The approval is tied to the content hash. Editing voids the
approval silently — downstream consumers see "approved" but the content
has drifted.
Resolve: Create a new document, register it, and call
doc(action: "supersede") on the old one.
Gotchas
Forgot to register. If you create a file in work/ and forget to call
doc action: register, the document is invisible to the system. Run
doc(action="import", path="work") as a safety net if unsure.
Design in the wrong place. Design decisions belong in design
documents, not planning documents. If a dev-plan contains architecture
decisions, move that content to a design document.
Registering with the wrong type. A specification registered as design
won't be found when the system checks for specification prerequisites.
Check the Document Types table — the type determines how the system treats
the document in lifecycle gates.
Tool call fails. If doc action: register or doc action: approve
returns an error, read the message — it explains the problem. Do not retry
with the same arguments. Fix the underlying issue first.
Commit Discipline
Document registration and approval are automatically committed by the MCP
tools. Manual commits for document files are no longer required.
If you create or edit a document file outside of an MCP tool (e.g. writing
content directly to disk), commit the file itself using the standard commit
format — the registration record will be handled by the tool when you call
doc(action: "register").
Output Templates
When producing specific document types, use these templates as structural
guides:
