feature-new

/feature-new -- scaffold a feature narrative

Creates a feature document in an existing layer. The document follows the ULTRAPACK-style narrative template (Design / Plan / Verify / Conclusion) extended with explicit cross-references to layer invariants and global principles.

When to use

• Beginning design work on a new feature, before writing code
• Migrating an in-flight feature from "scattered context" into the formal narrative
• Creating a feature placeholder when planning future work that another session will pick up

When NOT to use

• One-line bug fixes that do not need a design phase (just commit)
• Documentation-only changes (those go in handoffs or PR descriptions)
• Refactors with no behavioral change (commit message is sufficient)

Arguments

/feature-new <layer> <slug> [--title "..."] [--branch <name>] [--id F-NNN]

• <layer> -- existing layer name. Must be a directory under docs/layers/. If missing, suggest /layer-new <layer> first.
• <slug> -- kebab-case feature identifier without the F-NNN- prefix. Examples: api-key-rotation, audit-log, dual-encryption.
• --title -- human-readable feature title. If omitted, derive from slug by title-casing.
• --branch -- git branch name. If omitted, default to feature/<slug>.
• --id -- override the auto-allocated F-NNN. Use only when migrating a pre-existing feature with a known ID. Refuse if the ID already exists in this layer.

Direction (what to do, in order)

Step 1 -- Verify environment

1. Determine repo root via git rev-parse --show-toplevel.
2. Confirm docs/layers/<layer>/ exists. If not, refuse with a suggestion to run /layer-new <layer> first.
3. Confirm docs/layers/<layer>/features/_FEATURE-TEMPLATE.md exists. If not, copy from <claude-code-skills-checkout>/templates/kb-skeleton/docs/layers/_LAYER-TEMPLATE/features/_FEATURE-TEMPLATE.md.

Step 2 -- Allocate F-NNN

If --id was provided:

• Validate format (F-\d{3,}).
• Check that docs/layers/<layer>/features/feat-<NNN>-*.md does not already exist. Refuse if it does.

If --id was NOT provided:

• Scan all existing feature files across all layers (not just this one) for the highest F-NNN already used.
• Allocate the next number, zero-padded to 3 digits (F-001, F-042, F-099, F-100, ...).
• Cross-check that the ID is not in use anywhere -- F-NNN is a project-wide namespace, not per-layer.

Step 3 -- Validate slug

• Lowercase kebab-case ([a-z][a-z0-9-]*).
• Length <= 50 characters.
• Does not start with f- or feat- (avoid double-prefix).
• The resulting file feat-<NNN>-<slug>.md does not already exist.

Step 4 -- Copy and fill the template

Source: docs/layers/<layer>/features/_FEATURE-TEMPLATE.md

Destination: docs/layers/<layer>/features/feat-<NNN>-<slug>.md

In the new file, replace placeholders:

Placeholder	Replacement
F-NNN: <feature title>	F-<NNN>: <title>
**Layer:** [<layer-name>](../README.md)	**Layer:** [<layer>](../README.md)
**Status:** design	leave as design
**Branch:** feature/<slug>	use --branch value or default
**Started:** YYYY-MM-DD	today's date
**Owner:** <name>	infer from git config user.name, or leave placeholder

Leave Design / Plan / Verify / Conclusion section bodies as template placeholders -- the user fills these.

Step 5 -- Update layer README

In docs/layers/<layer>/README.md, find the ## Features in this layer table. Insert a new row at the bottom (sorted by F-NNN ascending):

| F-<NNN> | <title> | design | YYYY-MM-DD | [feat-<NNN>-<slug>.md](features/feat-<NNN>-<slug>.md) |

If the table has only the placeholder rows from the template, replace them entirely with the real entry.

Step 6 -- Update feature_list.json (if present)

If <repo>/feature_list.json exists at repo root, parse it and append a new feature entry:

{
  "id": "F-<NNN>",
  "name": "<title>",
  "layer": "<layer>",
  "doc": "docs/layers/<layer>/features/feat-<NNN>-<slug>.md",
  "branch": "feature/<slug>",
  "status": "not-started",
  "dependencies": [],
  "evidence": []
}

Important encoding rule (per ~/.claude/rules/api-utf8-posting.md): write the JSON file with json.dump(data, f, ensure_ascii=False, indent=2) to preserve any Cyrillic in titles.

Do NOT change existing entries.

If feature_list.json does not exist, do not auto-create it -- emit a hint instead.

Step 7 -- Confirm and suggest next step

Print a summary:

Created: docs/layers/<layer>/features/feat-<NNN>-<slug>.md
Updated: docs/layers/<layer>/README.md (added F-<NNN> to features table)
Updated: feature_list.json (added F-<NNN>, status: not-started)

Suggested next steps:
1. Fill the Design section in feat-<NNN>-<slug>.md
   - Approach (one paragraph)
   - Invariants (IV-1, IV-2, ...)
   - Rejected alternatives
2. When Design is reviewed, change Status: design -> planning and fill Plan
3. Create the git branch: git checkout -b feature/<slug>

Blueprints (files this skill writes from)

• templates/kb-skeleton/docs/layers/_LAYER-TEMPLATE/features/_FEATURE-TEMPLATE.md -- the source template

Status lifecycle

Two parallel state systems exist; you maintain both manually after this skill creates them. They serve different purposes:

Doc Status (narrative phase, in feature.md frontmatter)

Tracks where in the ULTRAPACK Design / Plan / Verify / Conclusion journey the feature is.

design --> planning --> executing --> reviewing --> done
                                  \
                                   --> blocked --> executing

Six states: design, planning, executing, reviewing, done, blocked. Transitions are manual edits. Once done, the feature doc is read-only history; further changes go into a superseding feature.

feature_list.json status (machine state, for tooling)

Tracks the machine-readable state used by build_kb_graph.py and validate_kb_links.py.

not-started --> in-progress --> done
              \
               --> blocked --> in-progress

Four states: not-started, in-progress, blocked, done. done is one-way (no rollback; regression becomes a new feature) per principle 27.

Mapping between the two

Doc Status	feature_list.json status	Notes
design	not-started	newly created, no plan yet
planning	in-progress	plan being written
executing	in-progress	code being written
reviewing	in-progress	review/verify phase
blocked	blocked	identical
done	done	identical

This skill creates the doc with Status: design AND the json entry with status: "not-started". Subsequent transitions are manual -- update both files in lockstep, or use future /feature-done, /feature-block skills (not yet implemented).

Gotchas

• F-NNN is project-wide. Even though features live under layers, the F-NNN namespace is shared. Two features in different layers cannot share an ID. The skill enforces this by scanning all layer directories before allocating.
• Migration of in-flight features. When migrating an existing feature into the new format, pass --id F-NNN explicitly so the feature retains its prior ID in any links from PROBLEMS.md or handoffs. The skill will not auto-detect existing IDs.
• Cyrillic titles + Windows. Per global rule api-utf8-posting.md, when writing the markdown file or feature_list.json, always specify encoding="utf-8" explicitly to avoid mojibake on Windows.
• Layer README table edit. The skill performs a text-level edit to insert a row into the features table. If the user has heavily customized the table (added columns, changed format), the edit may fail. Detect by checking for the canonical 5-column header; if absent, emit a warning and skip table edit.

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Cause	Fix
"Layer does not exist"	docs/layers/<layer>/ missing	Run /layer-new <layer> first
F-NNN conflict	Allocator hit a manually-set ID	Pass --id F-MMM explicitly with the next free number
feature_list.json parse error	Invalid JSON in file	Stop, surface the parse error. User fixes manually before retry
Template missing on this machine	Different host / fresh clone	Pull from public repo: gh api repos/AnastasiyaW/claude-code-config/contents/templates/kb-skeleton/docs/layers/_LAYER-TEMPLATE/features/_FEATURE-TEMPLATE.md
Cyrillic in title shows as ?????	File written without explicit utf-8	Re-write the file with encoding="utf-8"; see ~/.claude/rules/api-utf8-posting.md

Implementation note

This is a scaffolding skill: file copy + placeholder replacement + small JSON merge. Keep it deterministic. The Design / Plan / Verify sections of the produced document are meant for the user (or the session that invoked the skill) to fill -- this skill does not attempt to generate Design content from the title.

Auto-allocating F-NNN requires reading the full tree of docs/layers/*/features/feat-*.md files; do this lazily and cache for the duration of the skill invocation.