reporter

applies_to	all-agents
name	reporter
description	Single source of truth for how the just-ship pipeline talks to the CEO. Defines the voice (Result-First, tables for lists of 3+, status icons, short active sentences, no inner monologue) and the five Core Templates (develop-complete, ship-complete, ticket-created, epic-created, phase-progress). Every user-facing output string produced by an agent, a skill, or a pipeline phase runs through this skill — never freeform prose. Triggers at the end of /develop, at the end of /ship, in Sidekick replies for ticket/epic creation, in /just-ship-status, and during phase-progress updates. Load whenever you are about to render a terminal block the CEO will read.
triggers	["report","output","summary","session-summary","phase-update","develop-complete","ship-complete","sidekick-reply"]

Reporter

The Reporter is the pipeline's voice. Every string the CEO reads on their terminal passes through this skill — the voice rules define how we say it, the templates define which shape we say it in.

If the pipeline renders a one-off prose paragraph instead of using a template, it is off-voice. Off-voice output wastes the CEO's reading time and erodes trust: two different flows saying the same thing differently forces the CEO to re-learn the output on every run.

When to use

Load the Reporter and render the matching template at exactly these five trigger points. Never at others — this is not a general "output helper".

Trigger	Template	Rendered by
End of /develop — after QA, docs-check, PR creation, summary	templates/develop-complete.md	commands/develop.md step 11 via .claude/scripts/develop-summary.sh
End of /ship — after merge, branch delete, worktree cleanup	templates/ship-complete.md	commands/ship.md step 7 via .claude/scripts/ship-summary.sh
Sidekick create_ticket tool result (single ticket)	templates/ticket-created.md	Engine chat-stream surface (pipeline/lib/sidekick-reasoning-tools.ts → create_ticket)
Sidekick create_epic tool result (epic + children)	templates/epic-created.md	Engine chat-stream surface (pipeline/lib/sidekick-reasoning-tools.ts → create_epic)
Any phase transition during a long-running operation	templates/phase-progress.md	/develop, /ship, /just-ship-audit, any multi-phase flow

/just-ship-status also uses this skill: it composes a status view out of phase-progress.md (for any active operation), plus the relevant completion template (develop-complete.md / ship-complete.md) if a PR is pending.

Voice rules

The six rules below are non-negotiable. Every template respects them; every ad-hoc output is measured against them. The Yes column is the correct shape, the No column is the forbidden shape.

Rule	Yes	No
1. Result-first. Lead with the outcome, never the narration. The CEO knows you did work — they don't need you to announce it.	✓ Shipped: feat(T-351): add saved searches	I have now successfully merged the pull request for T-351, and the branch has been deleted.
2. Tables for lists of 3 or more. Three items in prose reads as noise. A table reads as a structure.	Agent Tokens ───────────── planner 12.3k backend 41.2k qa 8.7k	The planner used 12.3k tokens, the backend used 41.2k tokens, and QA used 8.7k tokens.
3. Status icons, not adjectives. A leading glyph is scannable; an adjective is not. Allowed: ✓ (done), ▸ (running), ✗ (failed), ⚠ (warning), ▶ (phase start), ↻ (retrying). Nothing else.	✓ qa — 12/12 passed	All 12 tests have passed successfully.
4. Short active sentences. One clause, one verb, no subordinate framing. Target ≤ 12 words per sentence in narrative blocks.	PR ready. Branch pushed. Waiting on review.	Once I had finished, I proceeded to push the branch and open the PR for review.
5. No inner monologue. The CEO reads outcomes, not deliberation. Words like "Let me…", "I'll now…", "I'm going to…", "Next, I need to…" are off-voice. If you must narrate a transition, use a phase line from phase-progress.md.	▸ qa · running Playwright smoke tests	Let me now run the Playwright smoke tests to verify the pages load correctly.
6. Numbers are specific, not vague. If you measured it, say the number. If you didn't measure it, don't hedge with an adjective.	8 files changed · +412 / −87	Several files were changed with substantial additions.

Reading the rules as a checklist

Before rendering, scan your output for:

• A leading sentence that states what happened, not what you did.
• Any list of 3+ items — convert to a table.
• Any adjective that could be a number.
• Any sentence starting with I / Let me / I'll / I'm going to — delete or rewrite as a phase line.
• Any status word ("done", "complete", "failed") without a leading icon — add the icon or drop the word.

If a template already applies, these checks are redundant — the template was designed against the same rules.

Templates

The five files under templates/ are renderable forms. Each defines:

• Purpose — the single situation it covers.
• When it fires — the exact pipeline event.
• Variables — the placeholder names used in the body.
• Template body — the fenced block that gets filled and printed verbatim.
• Voice checks — what to verify before rendering (usually a subset of the six rules that matter most for this shape).

Each template is a contract: the rendering code (in pipeline/run.ts, .claude/scripts/session-summary.sh, skills/develop/SKILL.md, etc.) passes exactly the named variables, and the template produces exactly the named block. If a variable is missing at render time, the template says so (— n/a or the whole row is elided); it never silently drops structure.

Template	File
develop-complete	templates/develop-complete.md
ship-complete	templates/ship-complete.md
ticket-created	templates/ticket-created.md
epic-created	templates/epic-created.md
phase-progress	templates/phase-progress.md

Rendering contract

A template is rendered by substituting {variable} placeholders with string values. The substitution rules are narrow on purpose:

1. Exact match. {ticket_number} becomes the literal number, nothing else. {title} becomes the title, not "title" with quotes.
2. Pass the type the template declares. Each template's Variables table lists a type per placeholder. If the type is int or float, pass the raw number — the template owns units and pluralization ({tests_passed} is 12, not "12 tests"). If the type is string, the caller pre-formats according to the notes column (e.g. {total_tokens} = "243k", not 243819). Mixing the two is the error mode this rule prevents.
3. Null → elide the row. If the caller passes null or an empty string for {preview_url}, the whole Preview: line is dropped from the output. Templates mark such optional rows with (optional — elide if empty).
4. No conditional prose inside the template. If a branch is needed (e.g. QA passed vs. failed), the caller selects the correct template variant; the template itself is a single static shape.

Anti-patterns

Wrong	Right
Inline-rendering a completion block inside pipeline/run.ts so it "matches the look"	Call the template; any drift is a bug in the template, fixed in one place
Skipping the Reporter because "this one is just a quick status line"	That quick status line is exactly what phase-progress.md is for
Adding a new status icon (✅, ❌, 🎉)	Use the six allowed icons; if none fits, the output probably doesn't belong in a template
Rendering a table for two rows	Two rows is a list, three rows is a table. Below three, use bullets or a prose sentence
Letting an agent write a "summary paragraph" at the end of its turn	The agent emits structured data; the Reporter renders the user-facing block

Relationship to other skills

• commands/develop.md calls develop-complete at step 11 via .claude/scripts/develop-summary.sh. The script and the template evolve together; pipeline/run.ts writes .claude/.reporter-team-roster.json in its Pre-Develop step so the renderer can fill the Team block without inventing rows.
• commands/ship.md calls ship-complete at step 7 via .claude/scripts/ship-summary.sh (the "EINZIGE Ausgabe an den User" block). Pre-Merge (build / tests / conflict-check), Merge (commit / push / merge), and Post-Merge phases also render phase-progress lines.
• pipeline/lib/sidekick-reasoning-tools.ts is the canonical caller of ticket-created (after create_ticket) and epic-created (after create_epic); the terminal mechanics that surface those template renders live in .claude/rules/sidekick-terminal-routing.md.
• skills/just-ship-status/SKILL.md composes status screens out of phase-progress and the relevant completion template.

When any of the above are edited, also check that the variables they pass match the template's declared set.