stage-manager-skills

Stage Manager — Artful Making Skill Library

How you move through your work is what you build.

A free, open collection of 16 skills for vibe coders who want to stay the author while building with AI tools.

These skills help you validate before building, expand options before converging, maintain coherence across a build, and keep the soul of the work intact while Claude Code, Cursor, Replit, or any agentic coding tool runs at speed.

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Install

git clone https://github.com/Mnfst-AI/Stage_Manager_Skills.git
cd Stage_Manager_Skills
bash install.sh

All 16 skills appear as /slash-commands in Claude Code. Start a session with /sm:stage-manage.

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The 16 Skills

Validate (prove the premise before building)

Skill	Slash Command	What It Does
YAGNI	/sm:yagni	Gate: challenges the premise before a single line of code. "What did you find out, and who told you?"
Invalidation Prep	/sm:invalidate-prep	Excavates and ranks assumptions, identifies personas, generates problem statements.
Invalidation Interview	/sm:invalidate-interview	Generates a live interview script using negative framing to kill assumptions.
Invalidation Score	/sm:invalidate-score	Scores each assumption as validated, invalidated, or still open. Surfaces pull signals.

Shape (analyze before building)

Skill	Slash Command	What It Does
Find the Holes	/sm:shape:find-holes	Maps every place a coding tool will invent behavior you didn't ask for.
Collapsed Options	/sm:shape:collapsed-options	Finds decisions you already made without knowing it.
Risk Sequence	/sm:shape:risk-sequence	Surfaces load-bearing assumptions and sequences by cost-if-wrong.
Soul Check	/sm:shape:soul-check	Deep read on whether the original animating idea is still alive.
Shape Brief	/sm:shape:brief	Synthesizes all shape skill output into ranked problems, inline change suggestions, and handoff documents.

Shape → Stage Transition

Skill	Slash Command	What It Does
Shape-to-Stage Gate	/sm:shape:gate	Five readiness questions before staging begins.

Stage (before, during, and after the build)

Skill	Slash Command	What It Does
Chunking	/sm:stage:chunking	Breaks work into flow-cycle-sized pieces sequenced by cost of delay.
Prompt Craft	/sm:stage:prompt-craft	Turns a shaped chunk into a scoped, guardrailed prompt.
Live Mirror	/sm:stage:live-mirror	Compares plan vs. code output after a session. Surfaces invisible decisions.
Decision Capture	/sm:stage:decision-capture	Full decisions-made manifest after a build.

Any Node

Skill	Slash Command	What It Does
Coherence Check	/sm:coherence-check	Lightweight 2-min gate at any transition point mid-build.
Stage Manage	/sm:stage-manage	Session opener and orchestrator. Watches for signals and suggests skills.

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The Flows

Validation Flow

/sm:yagni → /sm:invalidate-prep → /sm:invalidate-interview → /sm:invalidate-score → build

Shape Brief Flow

Shape skills (any combo) → /sm:shape:brief → Stage_Manager_Brief.md

Session Flow

/sm:stage-manage → watches for signals → suggests the right skill at the right moment

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How to Read the Suite

Start with /sm:stage-manage to open a session. It reads your project context and watches for signals — surfacing the right skill when it sees one.

The validation flow runs when you have a new idea. YAGNI asks the hard question. If you can't answer it, Invalidation Prep → Interview → Score walks you through finding out.

The Shape Brief flow runs any combination of shape skills, then synthesizes findings into ranked problems with inline change suggestions and handoff documents.

Coherence Check is the lightweight pulse check — any time something feels off mid-build.

Live Mirror catches invisible decisions per-session. Decision Capture catches everything across the full build.

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Repository Structure

install.sh                                     ← installer

plugins/stage-manager/skills/
  yagni/SKILL.md
  invalidate-prep/SKILL.md
  invalidate-interview/SKILL.md
  invalidate-score/SKILL.md
  shape-find-holes/SKILL.md
  shape-collapsed-options/SKILL.md
  shape-risk-sequence/SKILL.md
  shape-soul-check/SKILL.md
  shape-brief/SKILL.md
  shape-to-stage-gate/SKILL.md
  stage-chunking/SKILL.md
  stage-prompt-craft/SKILL.md
  stage-live-mirror/SKILL.md
  stage-decision-capture/SKILL.md
  coherence-check/SKILL.md
  stage-manage/SKILL.md

plugins/shared/references/
  invention-zones.md
  tool-selection-zones.md
  breakthrough-dimensions.md

stage-manager-soul.md     ← the animating philosophy

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Using These Skills