afps-status

name	afps-status
description	Summarize AFPS product-workflow progress from existing artifacts and recommend the next concrete skill command
type	analysis
version	v0.9
required_conventions	["alignment-page"]
argument-hint	[optional project path, product path, or focus]

AFPS Status

Invoke as $afps-status.

Use this skill when the user asks where a product project is in the AFPS workflow, what research/planning/implementation artifact is missing next, whether task docs match product evidence, or which AFPS command should run next.

AFPS here means the product workflow from raw idea through concept scoping, customer discovery/research, lifecycle/growth planning, specs, roadmap/phase work, implementation, validation, and shipping. This is read-mostly reconciliation. It summarizes existing artifacts and recommends a route; it does not create a competing workflow state system.

Process

1. Resolve target project:
   • Default to the current working directory.
   • If $ARGUMENTS names a path, inspect that project.
   • If $ARGUMENTS names a product path, app, customer, audience, or focus, prioritize matching artifacts under research/, specs/, tasks/, and alignment/.
   • Confirm whether the target is a git worktree when possible. Continue with filesystem evidence if git is unavailable.
2. Read project orientation:
   • .agents/project.json
   • README.md, AGENTS.md, CLAUDE.md
   • package/workspace manifests and obvious app entrypoints when needed to understand whether implementation exists.
   • Use scripts/pack.sh list-packs when available to determine enabled packs; do not grep .agents/project.json directly when choosing installed-pack routes.
3. Inspect AFPS evidence from existing artifacts:
   • Product-path state: research/.progress.yaml, including legacy active_path normalized mentally to active_paths.
   • Research-loop state: selected-set run manifests research/_working/{orchestrator}-run.yaml (or research/{slug}/_working/{orchestrator}-run.yaml) for the self-advancing research orchestrators (customer-discovery, competitive-analysis, positioning, journey-map). When a manifest exists, read its selected_frameworks and compare against existing canonical intermediates research/{orchestrator}-{framework}.md (or research/{slug}/{orchestrator}-{framework}.md) to derive how many frameworks are complete. A manifest with frameworks still pending — or all intermediates present but no synthesized canonical (research/{orchestrator}.md) yet — means that loop is mid-run.
   • Concept artifacts: research/idea-brief*.md, app-scoped research/*/idea-brief*.md, and concept/interview notes.
   • Discovery artifacts: customer-discovery docs such as research/icp.md, competitive analysis, customer feedback, journey/lifecycle maps, value-prop canvas, positioning, lean canvas, market evidence, and assumption/risk trackers.
   • Lifecycle/growth artifacts: onboarding, activation, retention, conversion, monetization, GTM, growth model, metrics, PMF, and experiment docs.
   • Product/spec artifacts: specs/, spec.md, app/feature specs, UX/UI/prototype/UAT/consolidation notes, Production Ready Approval records under alignment/spec-interview-{topic}.html or alignment/production-ready-{topic}.html, and other alignment pages under alignment/.
   • Execution artifacts: tasks/roadmap.md, tasks/todo.md, tasks/manual-todo.md, tasks/record-todo.md, tasks/recurring-todo.md, tasks/history.md, tasks/phases/, and recent validation notes.
   • Rapid pipeline artifacts: research/vard-ship-log.md (VARD experiments), research/ord-ship-log.md (ORD packages), and alignment/vard-*.md or alignment/ord-*.md alignment docs.
   • Git evidence: git status --short, current branch/upstream, last relevant commits, unpushed commits, and changed files.
4. Reconcile evidence instead of trusting one file:
   • Distinguish missing artifacts, stale artifacts, contradictory artifacts, completed work, active implementation tasks, manual blockers, unvalidated implementation, and unshipped local changes.
   • Treat research/.progress.yaml as a manifest of product/app/customer focus, not as the source of truth over concrete artifacts. Its pipeline_stage is a pointer to which orchestrator stage last ran, not per-framework status. Treat Production Ready Approval as a confirmed alignment-page artifact, not a new lifecycle database or registry.
   • For a self-advancing research orchestrator, derive framework progress from the run manifest + canonical-intermediate existence and report it as "k of N frameworks complete," not from tasks/todo.md checkboxes (the migrated orchestrators no longer queue framework work there).
   • If product-path manifest entries are missing or stale, report the exact proposed update in prose. Do not write research/.progress.yaml unless the user explicitly asks for mutation.
   • If task docs contradict research/spec/code/git evidence, call out the contradiction and route to reconciliation rather than choosing whichever artifact is newest.
5. Detect rapid pipeline activity:
   • If research/vard-ship-log.md exists, report VARD pipeline status: number of experiments shipped and the most recent entry. Under each concept, read the latest traction entry's persisted Status: (iterating | graduating | archived) and Recommendation: line, and report that status and recommendation rather than re-deriving graduation readiness from raw signals. A graduating status is the graduation-ready signal; keep raw traction signals as supporting evidence only.
   • If research/ord-ship-log.md exists, report ORD pipeline status: number of packages published and the most recent entry. Under each package, read the latest traction entry's persisted Status: (iterating | graduating | archived) and Recommendation: line, and report that status and recommendation rather than re-deriving readiness from raw signals. A graduating status is the graduation-ready signal.
   • If vard or ord packs are enabled, note the active rapid pipeline alongside deliberate pipeline status.
6. Classify AFPS stage:
   • graduation-ready: a rapid pipeline's latest ship-log traction entry shows Status: graduating — the experiment/package is ready to enter the full AFPS pipeline.
   • unscoped: no concept brief or the concept is too unclear for customer discovery.
   • concept-ready: concept exists but discovery pack/skills are not enabled.
   • discovery-needed: concept exists and discovery skills are enabled, but customer discovery is absent or not specific enough.
   • research-incomplete: customer discovery exists but market, competitive, value, positioning, journey, or lifecycle evidence is missing.
   • lifecycle-gap: discovery exists but onboarding, conversion, activation, retention, monetization, GTM, or metrics questions block spec quality.
   • spec-needed: research is sufficient but durable product/spec artifacts are absent or stale.
   • roadmap-needed: research/spec artifacts exist but tasks/roadmap.md or tasks/todo.md is missing, stale, contradictory, or not actionable.
   • execution-ready: a clear unchecked implementation task exists with no blocking manual task.
   • ship-needed: implementation changes are present, completed, or unpushed but validation, task review, commit, push, or deploy packaging is pending.
   • reconcile-needed: artifacts conflict enough that the next step should be reconciliation before new research or implementation.
7. Choose the next route with these rules:
   • VARD latest traction Status: graduating: $idea-scope-brief to enter the full Business AFPS pipeline, linking the vard-scan/align/ship-log entries as evidence. Recommend it directly only when base skills are visible in the active session or project-local install state; otherwise recommend npx skillpacks init from the project shell before $idea-scope-brief.
   • ORD latest traction Status: graduating: $devtool-user-map to enter Devtool AFPS (prefix npx skillpacks install devtool from the project shell if the devtool pack is not enabled, per the step-8 availability gate), or $idea-scope-brief for the rare cross-domain Business case.
   • No concept brief or unclear concept: $idea-scope-brief
   • Concept exists but business discovery is missing: npx skillpacks install business-research from the project shell.
   • Concept exists and discovery is enabled, but no customer-discovery evidence: $customer-discovery
   • A self-advancing research loop is mid-run (a run manifest exists with frameworks still pending, or all intermediates exist but no synthesized canonical yet): re-invoke that same orchestrator to advance one phase — $customer-discovery, $competitive-analysis, or $positioning when business-research is installed, or $journey-map when customer-lifecycle is installed — and tell the user to start a fresh Codex session and re-run it. This continuation takes precedence over starting a new orchestrator; do not imply a single pass and do not route framework work to $exec.
   • Customer discovery exists but market/value evidence is missing: the most specific installed discovery command, usually $competitive-analysis, $value-prop-canvas, or $positioning; if business-research is not installed, recommend npx skillpacks install business-research first.
   • Journey/lifecycle/growth questions are missing after discovery: route to the $journey-map orchestrator first, not directly to a child lifecycle skill. journey-map is the parent orchestrator that owns inline routing to $onboarding-map, $conversion-map, $retention-map, $lifecycle-metrics, and $expansion-map via its Optional Research Trigger Map. Recommend $journey-map <product-path> whenever the canonical journey map (research/journey-map.md or research/{slug}/journey-map.md) is missing, stale, or incomplete, or when any child lifecycle detour (onboarding/conversion/activation/retention/monetization/metrics/expansion) is being considered — let journey-map choose the child skill. Recommend a child lifecycle skill directly only when the canonical journey map already exists and is current and the user has explicitly scoped that single stage. If customer-lifecycle is not installed, recommend npx skillpacks install customer-lifecycle from the project shell; for habit/growth-loop questions specifically, npx skillpacks install business-growth.
   • Research/specs exist but task queue is stale or absent: $roadmap
   • Clear executable task exists: $exec
   • Implementation is done but unvalidated, dirty, uncommitted, unpushed, or otherwise unshipped: $ship
   • Contradictory research/spec/task evidence: $reconcile-research when business-ops is enabled, $spec-drift when agent-work-admin is enabled, otherwise $codebase-status with a focused prompt naming the contradiction.
8. Validate command availability before recommending pack-local routes:
   • Use scripts/pack.sh list-packs when present to detect enabled packs.
   • If the best command lives in an uninstalled pack, recommend the package install command instead of the unavailable command: npx skillpacks install <pack> from the project shell.
   • If scripts/pack.sh is missing or pack lookup fails, do not assume base or pack skills are available. Fall back to npx skillpacks which <skill> (which pack provides a skill) and npx skillpacks status (installed/enabled state) to confirm provenance. Recommend only commands visible in the active session; otherwise recommend npx skillpacks init for missing base skills or npx skillpacks install <pack> for missing pack skills, and mention the degraded lookup only if it changes confidence.
   • Installed-but-not-yet-visible guard: a pack being enabled (and npx skillpacks which <skill> resolving to it) does not prove the skill is invokable in the current session. If the target skill is not visible in the active session's $ skill list or local skill roots even though its pack is installed, do not recommend invoking it directly. Recommend npx skillpacks refresh and starting a fresh Codex session (for Claude Code, /reload-skills then /clear, restarting if still invisible) before the skill invocation. This is the reload path, not a reinstall.

Output

Produce a concise structured report with:

• Overview: repo path, product/app focus, git status, enabled packs, active rapid pipelines (VARD/ORD), and whether AFPS evidence is single-path or multi-path.
• Rapid Pipeline Status (if applicable): VARD and/or ORD experiment counts, latest shipment, and the latest persisted traction Status: and Recommendation: per concept/package (graduating = graduation-ready), with raw traction signals as supporting evidence.
• Artifact Map: concept, customer discovery/research, lifecycle/growth, specs/prototypes/UAT, tasks, alignment pages, and shipping evidence with present/missing/stale status. For a research stage whose run manifest exists, report loop progress as "k of N frameworks complete" and whether it is mid-run.
• AFPS Stage: one stage label from the workflow above, with confidence and evidence.
• Contradictions And Gaps: conflicting artifacts, missing product-path manifest updates, stale task queues, manual blockers, validation/shipping gaps, and uncertainty.
• Recommended Route: the next concrete work item and why it is the narrowest route.

End with exactly:

**Next work:** <specific AFPS step or blocker>
**Recommended next command:** <one command or route>

Constraints

• Read-only by default. Do not modify workflow state, task docs, research docs, specs, or git state unless the user explicitly asks for mutation.
• Do not create a new AFPS state file or schema. Use existing artifacts, especially research/.progress.yaml, research/, specs/, tasks/, alignment/, and git. Production Ready Approval is an alignment-page artifact convention, not a competing lifecycle registry.
• Propose missing research/.progress.yaml updates in the report instead of writing them by default.
• Do not run expensive tests, installs, web research, deploys, or external-account actions during status synthesis.
• Do not treat tasks/record-todo.md or tasks/recurring-todo.md as execution queues unless an item has clearly been promoted into tasks/todo.md.
• Do not route agent-executable repo work to $guide; reserve guided/manual routes for human-only blockers.
• Do not create or modify GitHub Actions workflows.

Alignment Page

Follow the shared alignment-page convention via the packaged convention resolver; output path is alignment/afps-status-{topic}.html. By default, report results inline and write only this skill's normal durable artifacts; create an alignment page only when explicitly requested or when a concrete clarification/review need cannot be handled cleanly inline.

Default Shipping Contract

• Default next-step routing: when reporting completion, include the two-line pair **Next work:** <specific task or "none"> and **Recommended next command:** <one command or route> so the next caller has a concrete handoff.
• Normally read-only and should not create or modify tracked repository files.
• If the user explicitly asks this skill to create or modify tracked files, finish by committing and pushing all intended changes to the repository primary branch (main when present, otherwise master) before stopping.
• This contract does not override stricter safety rules about secrets, destructive history changes, release publication/tag confirmation, production deploy confirmation, paid actions, or public visibility changes.