cogni-work

This skill should be used when the user wants to produce a deliverable of a cogni-consult engagement by running its design-thinking loop — empathize→define→ideate→prototype→test on one deliverable inside an action field. Trigger on: "work the deliverable", "run design thinking on <deliverable>", "produce the <deliverable> deliverable", "start the DT loop", "draft the deliverable", "continue the deliverable", or when a WBS dashboard recommendation hands off the next unstarted deliverable. Starting a fresh (not-yet-in-progress) deliverable requires a satisfied personas gate: when it is unsatisfied the loop routes to consult-personas first before opening, so a fresh start may bounce to persona seeding or a waiver. Global phase phrasing ("discover phase", "develop phase", "diamond") refers to a legacy engagement model no longer in the ecosystem — do not run this loop against legacy engagement directories; cogni-consult has no engagement-level phases; design thinking runs per deliverable.

This skill should be used when the user wants to resume, continue, or check the status of a cogni-consult engagement across sessions. Trigger on: "continue the engagement", "resume the engagement", "engagement status", "where was I with the engagement", "what's next for the engagement", "show engagement progress", "consult resume", or ANY session start that references an existing cogni-consult engagement — even if the user doesn't say "resume" explicitly. Double Diamond phrasing ("resume diamond", "diamond status", phase talk like "continue discover") refers to a legacy engagement model no longer in the ecosystem; cogni-consult engagements have no phases; progress lives in the action-fields WBS.

This skill should be used when the user wants to start a new consulting engagement — cogni-consult is the action-fields-WBS engagement model, so new structured consulting work starts here. Trigger on: "start a consult engagement", "new consulting engagement", "set up a consult project", "begin an action-fields engagement", or any request to start structured consulting work. Legacy Double Diamond engagements are not handled here — that earlier engagement model is no longer part of the ecosystem and its engagements live in git history. Scaffolds the engagement directory, binds one cogni-knowledge base, and registers it globally.

Generate a self-contained HTML dashboard showing the full insight-wave workspace configuration — installed plugins (with maturity stages and env vars), themes gallery with color swatches, MCP server status, market coverage matrix, cross-plugin hooks, and a health snapshot. Use whenever the user mentions workspace dashboard, workspace overview, "show me what's installed", "show me the themes", "MCP overview", plugin registry, market coverage, ecosystem map, or wants a *visual* view of the cogni-workspace configuration — even if they don't say "dashboard". This is the visual sibling of `workspace-status` (which is a text-based health diagnostic): pick this skill when the user wants to *see* the configuration, not diagnose it.

This skill should be used when a partner or consultant wants a readable snapshot of a cogni-projects portfolio for a partner meeting — staffing coverage per project, at-risk projects, and portfolio value by strategic impact — rather than reading raw entity files. Trigger on: "projects dashboard", "portfolio dashboard", "partner-meeting dashboard", "show me the project portfolio", "portfolio health", "staffing coverage", "which projects are at risk", or any request to review the project portfolio at a glance — even if the user does not say "dashboard" explicitly.

This skill should be used when the user wants a ranked shortlist of consultants for the open roles on a cogni-projects portfolio — the staffing match engine (whether the ask comes from a partner, a delivery lead, or consulting ops). Trigger on: "staff this project", "who should I put on", "recommend consultants for", "staffing recommendations", "match consultants to roles", "rank candidates for the open roles", "who is available for", "build a staffing shortlist", or any request to turn a cogni-projects portfolio's consultants and projects into a ranked candidate list per open role — even if the user does not name the portfolio.

This skill should be used when the user wants to author or register a consultant, project, or assignment record in a cogni-projects portfolio — the entities the staffing engine scores over. Trigger on: "add a consultant", "add a project", "create an assignment", "author a projects entity", "register a consultant/project", "record a staffing assignment", "populate the projects portfolio", or any request to write consultant/project/assignment data into a cogni-projects portfolio — even if the user does not name the entity type.

This skill should be used when the user wants to start a new project-portfolio for partner project-portfolio steering — cogni-projects models consultants, projects, and staffing, so new portfolio work starts here. Trigger on: "set up a projects portfolio", "start a project portfolio", "new cogni-projects portfolio", "initialize project-portfolio steering", "create a staffing portfolio", or any request to begin structured consultant/project/staffing work — even if the user does not say "setup" explicitly.

Generate an interactive HTML dashboard showing the full portfolio status. Use whenever the user mentions dashboard, portfolio dashboard, portfolio view, "show me the portfolio", "visualize portfolio", status overview, or wants to see all portfolio data in a browser — even if they don't say "dashboard".

Analyze competitors for portfolio propositions — competitive landscape, battle cards, positioning, differentiation. Use whenever the user mentions competitors, competitive analysis, "who else does this", SWOT, win/loss, how a proposition stacks up, or wants to understand competitive positioning in a market — even if they don't say "compete" explicitly.

Create ideal customer profiles and buyer personas per target market. Use whenever the user mentions customer profiles, ICP, buyer persona, buying center, target customer, "who buys this", decision-makers, buying committee, purchase journey, or wants to understand the people behind a market — even if they don't say "customer" explicitly.

Discover, evaluate, and size target markets for the portfolio. Use whenever the user mentions target markets, market segments, TAM SAM SOM, market sizing, "which markets to enter", market selection, addressable market, segmentation, or wants to define who they're selling to — even if they don't say "market" explicitly.

Bundle solutions into sellable packages per Product x Market combination. Use whenever the user mentions packages, bundles, packaging, "what does the customer buy", combined offering, product bundle, tier design, package pricing, "assemble solutions", or wants to group feature-level solutions into market-ready offerings — even without saying "package".

Generate and manage IS/DOES/MEANS (FAB) value propositions per Feature x Market pair. Use whenever the user mentions propositions, messaging, value props, IS DOES MEANS, feature advantage benefit, FAB, "map features to markets", "why should they buy", differentiation, or wants to articulate market-specific value — even if they don't say "proposition" explicitly.

Initialize a new cogni-portfolio project with company context and directory structure. Use whenever the user mentions creating a portfolio, new portfolio project, setting up portfolio, "start portfolio planning", "new company", "new project", or wants to begin structuring their product/market messaging — even if they don't say "setup" explicitly.

Define implementation plans and pricing tiers for propositions to build customer business cases. Use whenever the user mentions solutions, implementation plan, pricing model, business case, "why pay", investment ballpark, proof of value, PoV, implementation complexity, project scope, reprice, adjust pricing, competitive pricing, or wants to attach commercial terms to a proposition — even without saying "solution".

Standard theme picker for all cogni-works ecosystem plugins. Discovers themes from the standard cogni-workspace themes directory and the user's workspace themes directory, then presents an interactive picker via AskUserQuestion. Returns the absolute path to the selected theme.md file. Use this skill whenever a downstream skill needs a theme — before generating slides, dashboards, web narratives, big pictures, storyboards, HTML reports, or any other themed output. Triggers on phrases like "pick a theme", "choose theme", "which theme", "select a theme", or when any visual output skill needs theme resolution. Also triggers when skills internally need theme selection as a prerequisite step. This is the single standard entry point for theme selection across both cogni-works and cogni-works-pro marketplaces.

File and track GitHub issues (bugs, feature requests, change requests, questions) against cogni-works ecosystem plugins. Guides users through a short consultation to capture the right details, resolves the target plugin's repository automatically, drafts issues from templates, creates them via `gh` CLI, and tracks them locally. Use this skill whenever the user wants to report a bug, request a feature, file a change request, ask a question about a plugin, list filed issues, or check issue status. Also trigger when the user says things like "this plugin is broken", "I found a problem with {plugin}", "can we get X added to {plugin}", "{plugin} doesn't work", "open an issue", "something is wrong with {plugin}", "das Plugin funktioniert nicht", "Fehler in {plugin}", or any complaint/suggestion about a specific plugin — even if they don't use the word "issue".

Manage visual design themes for the workspace — extract themes from live websites (via Chrome), PowerPoint templates, or presets, then store and apply them to all visual outputs (slides, documents, diagrams, reports). Also audits and improves existing themes: contrast/accessibility checks, palette harmony, typography pairing, and completeness review. Use this skill whenever the user mentions themes, brand colors, visual identity, extracting styles, or wants consistent look-and-feel across outputs. Also triggers when the user wants to review, audit, fix, or improve a theme — e.g., "my theme feels off", "check contrast", "improve my colors". Also triggers when the user needs help choosing or building a theme — e.g., "what theme for my brand?", "help me pick a theme", "I need a visual identity for my startup". Even if the user just says "make it match our brand", "use our company colors", or "grab the style from that site", this skill applies.

Initialize a cogni-works workspace with shared foundation for marketplace plugins. Use this skill whenever someone asks to create, set up, scaffold, or initialize a workspace — including phrases like "set up my workplace", "get started with cogni", "create a new project workspace", or any mention of workspace initialization. Also trigger when someone runs a fresh plugin install and needs the shared foundation that plugins depend on.

This skill should be used when the user asks to "update workspace", "refresh workspace", "sync workspace", "update plugins", "re-scan plugins", or mentions updating an existing cogni-works workplace. Handles plugin re-discovery, environment variable refresh, and configuration updates without losing user data.

Diagnose and report on the health of a cogni-works workspace. Use this skill whenever the user mentions workspace status, health, diagnostics, or troubleshooting — including check workspace, is my workspace ok, something broke, why isn't my plugin working, diagnose workspace, verify workspace, or any situation where understanding the workspace state would help resolve a problem. Even if the user doesn't explicitly say status, trigger this skill when they describe symptoms that suggest a misconfigured workspace (missing env vars, plugins not found, themes not loading). This is the first skill to reach for when debugging workspace issues.

Transform any narrative (insight summary, trend report, strategy document, sales pitch, project update) into an optimized scrollable web narrative brief that the web agent renders via Pencil MCP into a .pen file. Use this skill whenever the user mentions "web narrative", "landing page from narrative", "scrollable web page", "web story", "Webseite aus Bericht", "Landingpage erstellen", "Web-Narrative", "scrollbare Webseite", "create a web page from report", "single-page narrative", or wants to convert prose into a scroll-driven section architecture with design tokens and auto-layout. Also trigger when the user needs style guide selection, section type mapping, hero/CTA optimization, or image prompt generation for a web-format narrative. Covers Why Change projects, research reports, competitive intelligence, trend panoramas, and both English and German output. Produces a web-brief.md that the web agent renders. Important: this skill CREATES the brief from a narrative source — it does NOT render an existing brie

Transform any narrative (insight summary, trend report, strategy document, sales pitch) into a multi-poster print storyboard brief for executive walkthroughs. Use this skill whenever the user mentions "storyboard", "poster series", "print posters from narrative", "Poster erstellen", "Storyboard aus Bericht", "Posterpraesentation", "Druckposter", "Poster fuer Workshop", "poster walkthrough", "create poster storyboard", "physical walkthrough posters", or wants to paginate a narrative into 3-5 portrait DIN A posters with stacked web sections. Also trigger for room-tour materials, guided exhibition posters, and arc-station-per-poster layouts in both English and German. Produces a storyboard-brief.md that the storyboard agent renders via Pencil MCP. Important: this skill CREATES the brief from a narrative source — it does NOT render an existing brief (use storyboard agent for that), does NOT create slides (use story-to-slides), does NOT create a single-canvas journey map (use story-to-big-picture), does NOT create

Transform any narrative (insight summary, trend report, strategy document, sales pitch, project update) into an optimized multi-slide presentation brief that the PPTX skill renders into PowerPoint. Use this skill whenever the user mentions "presentation", "slide deck", "slides", "PowerPoint", "Foliensatz", "Praesentation erstellen", "Folien aus Bericht", "pitch deck", "create slides from report", or wants to convert prose into slide-level message architecture. Also trigger when the user needs pyramid communication, number plays, assertion headlines, or speaker notes for a presentation. Covers Why Change projects, research reports, competitive intelligence, trend panoramas, and both English and German output. Produces a presentation-brief.md (v4.0) that the PPTX agent renders. Important: this skill CREATES the brief from a narrative source — it does NOT render an existing brief (use PPTX skill for that), does NOT create a single-canvas poster (use story-to-big-picture), does NOT create a web page (use story-to

Transform any narrative (insight summary, trend report, strategy document) into a single-canvas visual journey map — a "big picture" — where each narrative section becomes an illustrated landscape object in a cohesive scene. Use this skill whenever the user mentions "big picture", "visual journey map", "landscape poster", "illustrated canvas", "visual story map", "spatial journey", "poster for workshop", "Poster für die Geschäftsführung", or "Big Picture erstellen". Also trigger when the user wants to convert a narrative into a single illustrated scene with stations (not slides, not a web page, not a storyboard — those are different skills). Covers requests for A0-A3 poster formats, dark/light themes, factory/cityscape/airport panorama metaphors, and both English and German output. Produces a big-picture-brief.md (v3.0) that the big-picture agent renders via Excalidraw MCP. Important: this skill CREATES the brief from a narrative source — it does NOT render an existing brief (use render-big-picture for that).

Render a big-picture-brief.md (v3.0) into a richly illustrated Excalidraw scene — 1100-1500 elements across 5-6 stations, each a detailed landscape object built from Excalidraw primitives. Use this skill whenever: the user asks to "render big picture", "render the big picture", "draw the big picture", "illustrate the brief", "create excalidraw from brief", "render the journey map", "Big Picture rendern", "Excalidraw erstellen", "Journey Map zeichnen", "visualize the brief", "turn this brief into a visual", "make the big picture scene", "render my big-picture-brief", or when any upstream agent or skill produces a big-picture-brief.md and needs it rendered into an illustrated Excalidraw canvas. Do NOT confuse with story-to-big-picture (which creates the brief from a narrative) — this skill takes an existing brief and renders it into a visual scene. If the user has a brief file ready, this is the right skill. If they have a narrative and want a brief first, use story-to-big-picture instead. Pipeline: N station-s

Manage claim verification lifecycle — submit, verify, review dashboard, inspect, and resolve claims. Use this skill whenever the user mentions claims, fact-checking, source verification, checking whether statements match their cited sources, reviewing deviations, or anything related to tracking the accuracy of sourced statements. Also use it when another plugin submits claims for verification (e.g., after a research or portfolio workflow produces sourced assertions). Even if the user doesn't say "claims" explicitly — if they're asking about verifying facts against sources, checking citations, finding outdated or mismatched data in cited references, or reviewing what's been flagged, this skill handles it.

Cross-plugin data model for claim verification — defines ClaimRecord, DeviationRecord, and ResolutionRecord schemas, status transitions, deviation types, severity levels, and workspace layout. Use this skill whenever you need to understand claim data structures, create or validate claim records, check what fields a ClaimRecord has, understand deviation types or severity levels, or work with the cogni-claims directory layout. Any plugin that submits or consumes claims should consult this skill for the contract.

This skill should be used when any plugin or agent needs to understand the ClaimEntity schema, "claim data model", "claim schema", "ClaimRecord fields", "DeviationRecord structure", "claim contract", "deviation types", "deviation severity levels", "resolution actions", "claim status transitions", "claim lifecycle states", or "workspace claims directory layout". Internal contract definition — provides the cross-plugin data model and record type specifications for claim lifecycle management in the cogni-claims verification system.

This skill should be used when the user asks to "verify claims", "check claims against sources", "claims dashboard", "show claims", "resolve claim", "submit claim", "claim verification", "fact-check claims", "re-verify claims", "review deviations", "inspect claim", "what claims are pending", or when any plugin needs to submit claims for source verification. Orchestrates the full claim verification lifecycle: ingestion, source-based verification, deviation detection, dashboard presentation, and user-guided resolution.

Transform structured content into compelling executive narratives using story arc frameworks. Use this skill whenever the user asks to create a narrative, write a narrative, transform content into a story arc, apply a specific arc framework (corporate visions, technology futures, competitive intelligence, strategic foresight, industry transformation, trend panorama), generate an insight summary, or summarize research findings as a narrative. Also trigger when other plugins need arc-driven narrative generation, when the user mentions TIPS trend narratives, or when they have research output they want turned into an executive-readable story. Even if the user just says 'make this readable for executives' or 'turn these findings into something presentable,' this skill is the right choice.

Transform existing narratives into derivative formats: executive briefs, talking points, and one-pagers. This skill should be used when the user asks to 'adapt a narrative', 'create executive brief', 'generate talking points', 'make a one-pager', 'shorten narrative', 'condense narrative', 'summarize the narrative', 'narrative to bullets', 'convert narrative to brief', 'prepare briefing notes', or when other plugins need derivative formats from a full narrative. Also trigger when the user wants to 'email this narrative', 'prepare for a meeting', 'print-friendly version', 'quick version', or any request to make an existing narrative shorter or more digestible for a specific audience -- even if they don't use the word 'adapt'.

Score and review existing narrative files against story arc quality gates. This skill should be used when the user asks to 'review a narrative', 'score a narrative', 'check narrative quality', 'validate narrative', 'audit narrative', 'grade a narrative', 'evaluate narrative quality', 'narrative scorecard', 'rate my narrative', 'run quality gates on a narrative', or when the narrative-reviewer agent evaluates a generated narrative.

Generate a narrative TIPS trend report with inline citations and verifiable claims from trend-scout output. Reads agreed trend candidates, enriches each with web-sourced quantitative evidence via parallel agents, assembles a full report with executive summary and portfolio analysis, generates a trend-panorama insight summary via cogni-narrative, and invokes cogni-claims:claim-work for automated verification. Use when: (1) trend-scout has completed and candidates are agreed, (2) user wants a written trend report, (3) user mentions "trend report", "TIPS report", "write up trends", "summarize trends", "trend analysis document", (4) preparing a deliverable from scouted trends, (5) user asks to "generate report from trends" or "create trend deliverable". Always use this skill when trend-scout output exists and the user wants any kind of written trend analysis — even if they don't use the exact phrase "trend report".

Interactive trend scouting workflow with industry selection, bilingual support (DE/EN), and deeper-research integration. Scouts trends across 4 dimensions (each trend gets full TIPS expansion). Creates research projects with industry-contextualized trend candidates that can be passed to deeper-research-0. Use when: (1) Starting smarter-service research with industry context, (2) User wants to scout trends for a specific industry and subsector, (3) User mentions "trend scouting", "industry trends", "trend selection", (4) Preparing input configuration for deeper-research-0.

Interactive TIPS (Trend-Implications-Possibilities-Solutions) candidate generation workflow for smarter-service research projects. Generates 60 trend candidates across 4 dimensions and 3 horizons using web research and training knowledge, presents them for user review, and auto-selects all 60 for downstream dimension-planner integration. This skill is a mandatory prerequisite for dimension-planner when research_type is smarter-service. Use when: (1) starting smarter-service research that needs TIPS candidates, (2) user mentions "TIPS selection", "trend candidates", or wants to generate research candidates, (3) dimension-planner halts due to missing agreed-trend-candidates.json, (4) user wants to customize or regenerate trend candidates before research planning.

Create properly formatted markdown notes with YAML frontmatter in an Obsidian vault. Use this skill whenever the user asks to create a note, write a markdown file with metadata, add frontmatter to a document, or save content to their vault. Also trigger when any cogni-x plugin needs to produce output files that should be discoverable in Obsidian — the frontmatter standard ensures consistent metadata across all plugin outputs.

Scaffold a complete Obsidian vault with Claude Code terminal integration for a workplace directory. Use this skill whenever the user wants to set up Obsidian, create or configure an Obsidian vault, connect Obsidian to Claude Code, scaffold a workplace environment, or mentions wanting to use Obsidian as their writing/research/project workspace. Also trigger when the user asks about integrating a terminal into Obsidian or launching Claude Code from within Obsidian, even if they don't explicitly say "setup".

Incrementally update an existing Obsidian vault's terminal configuration without overwriting user customizations. Use this skill when the user wants to update Obsidian settings, fix terminal profiles, refresh their Obsidian setup, sync new profiles from template, or troubleshoot WSL terminal issues. Also trigger when the user ran setup-obsidian before and now needs to bring their configuration up to date, or when they mention broken terminal profiles or path issues in Obsidian.

Polish, rewrite, or create business documents (memos, briefs, reports, proposals, one-pagers, executive summaries, emails, blog posts, business letters) using professional messaging frameworks (BLUF, McKinsey Pyramid, SCQA, STAR, PSB, FAB) and persuasion techniques (number plays, power words, rhetorical devices). Use this skill when the user asks to polish a document, improve writing, make something more readable, restructure a brief, apply BLUF or Pyramid Principle, rewrite for executives, strengthen messaging, create a proposal, write a one-pager, clean up a report, or apply any named messaging framework. Also handles German documents (Wolf Schneider style), arc-aware narrative polishing (cogni-narrative arcs with arc_id), and IS/DOES/MEANS sales messaging. Even simple requests like "make this better" about a markdown file should trigger this skill.

This skill should be used when the user wants to review a document from different stakeholder perspectives, simulate how different audiences would read a document, or get multi-perspective feedback before distribution. Common triggers include "review document as stakeholder", "stakeholder review", "reader review", "read as executive", "review from technical perspective", "does this document work for [audience]", "get feedback on this document", "what would [role] think of this", "check if this is ready for stakeholders", or "simulate different readers".

Interactive course delivery for learning Claude Cowork and cogni-works plugins. Use this skill whenever the user asks to learn, train, study, or take a course — including "teach me", "start a course", "continue my course", "what courses are available", "how do I use cogni-works", "explain the plugins", "learn about copywriting/narrative/claims/tips/portfolio/visual", "show me how to use Cowork", "train me", "I'm new to cogni-works", or any mention of cogni-teacher, curriculum, or training. Also trigger when someone asks "what can I do with these plugins" or "where do I start" in a cogni-works workspace — they likely need guided learning.

Generate professional PPTX slide decks for cogni-teacher courses. Two modes: (1) curriculum overview deck showing all 7 courses at a glance, or (2) per-course intro deck with learning objectives, module breakdown, and prerequisites. Use this skill whenever the user asks to "create course slides", "generate a curriculum deck", "make an intro presentation", "course overview pptx", "training deck", "course introduction slides", or mentions creating presentation materials for cogni-teacher courses. Also trigger when someone says "prepare materials for a training session" or "I need slides for onboarding new learners".

This skill should be used when the user asks to "translate this", "translate to a random language", "surprise me with a translation", "say this in another language", "translate and tell me about the country", "random translation", or mentions wanting a translation with cultural context. It also applies when the user provides text and asks for a fun or surprising language experience.

Translation rules and templates for porting Claude Code plugins to Microsoft Copilot Studio. This skill should be used when the user mentions "port to copilot studio", "convert plugin to copilot", "migrate to copilot studio", "copilot studio mapping", "translate plugin to microsoft", "export plugin for copilot", "copilot studio YAML", "copilot studio topic", or any request involving converting Claude Code plugin components (agents, skills, commands, hooks, MCP servers) into their Microsoft Copilot Studio equivalents (agents, topics, flows, triggers, connectors).