Idea

Idea — fast capture of a single idea

Part of the Personal Corp framework — running a one-person business through AI agents.

One pipeline: your voice → a provenance-tracked folder in your ideas repo → (optional) an issue mirror on a GitHub Project view. The folder is the source of truth; everything else is a pointer to it.

This skill is self-contained — it inlines the folder structure, status enum, and provenance formats below. You don't need any external canon file.

What this skill is NOT for

• Mining ideas out of a transcript / meeting / thread — that's bulk extraction from a source. Use a separate extraction skill for that. This skill captures ONE idea the user is voicing right now.
• A dated work task with a deadline — use an issue tracker / the manager skill. Ideas have no deadline; they're seeds.

Setup

Before first use, define this in your project's CLAUDE.md:

## Idea Config

### Ideas repo path
Where idea folders live (one folder per idea):
- ideas_repo: ~/Projects/ideas

### Default author
Name written into `first_voiced_by` when the user doesn't say otherwise:
- default_author: Me

### GitHub mirror (optional)
Mirror each idea as an issue (added to a Project view filtered by `label:idea`):
- mirror_enabled: false
- owner: your-github-handle               # only if mirror_enabled: true
- ideas_repo_name: ideas                  # GitHub repo name for the issue, only if mirror_enabled: true
- project_number: <your Project number>   # only if mirror_enabled: true

(if mirror_enabled is false, the skill only writes to the ideas repo — no issue, no Project)

No separate init skill needed — this section is the setup. If mirror_enabled is false, the GitHub Project step is skipped entirely; the idea still lives as a folder.

One question — max

Ask at most one short question, and only if the idea's essence can't be extracted from the wording (what is it / for whom). Do NOT ask about mechanics, pricing, risks, or tech stack — capture the raw material as-is and write the gaps into next-steps.md as open questions. The question "how should I record it — issue / file / both?" is forbidden: the form is fixed by this skill. Never block on form.

Status enum (in idea.md frontmatter)

• seedling — just voiced, not yet worked on
• exploring — first research gathered, market.md filled
• building — landing / pilot / prototype in progress
• live — a public artifact exists
• parked — set aside, reason in next-steps.md
• dropped — closed, reason in next-steps.md

A freshly captured idea is always seedling.

Provenance formats (rows in sources.md)

Every idea needs at least one source. Each sighting is one row. Genericize the source kind — no real internal paths:

Steps

1. date — resolve the real date. Between 00:00–04:00, "today" means the previous calendar day.

2. Dedup against the index. Read INDEX.md at the root of your ideas repo. Match is semantic, not string ("a board of advisors run on agents" ≈ advisory-agent-grounded-data). If unsure, open the candidate's idea.md to compare.

   • Match found → this is a repeat sighting, not a new idea:
     • append a row to the existing folder's sources.md,
     • in idea.md bump last_touch and increment sources_count (do NOT touch first_voiced),
     • if mirror is enabled, add a one-line comment to the issue mirror ("voiced again: {date}, {context}"),
     • regenerate INDEX.md, commit, report. STOP. Do not create a new folder.

3. New idea → create the folder ideas/YYYY-MM-DD-{slug}/ with the template files below.

   • Slug: kebab-case, 3–5 words, by meaning not by form (live-sales-coach-b2b, not b2b-product-1). The date prefix is the date of first capture — it never changes on later sightings.
   • In idea.md: title, status: seedling, first_voiced_by: {default_author from config unless user said otherwise}, an "Essence" of 1–2 sentences, and the raw verbatim wording preserved exactly as voiced. Interpretation, if any, goes in a separate section — never overwrite the raw wording.
   • In sources.md: one row for this sighting (see provenance formats).
   • market.md is optional (leave the stub; fill only when researched).
   • next-steps.md holds open questions and the "what next?" — this is where pricing/mechanics/stack gaps land.

4. Regenerate INDEX.md (format below). It's auto-generated — don't hand-edit individual rows; rewrite the whole file from the folders.

5. GitHub Project mirror — OPTIONAL (only if mirror_enabled: true in config). The folder is the source of truth; the issue is just a pointer for board view. See "Project mirror" below.

6. Commit + push to the ideas repo: feat: idea {slug} (invoking this skill is consent to record; the ideas repo is private).

7. Report — one line per item: folder path, issue #N (if mirrored), and the Project view link (if mirrored).