orchestrate_skill

Overview

This skill manages a 12-phase development lifecycle and enforces quality gates to keep projects on track. It helps start new projects, advance phases only when criteria are met, and navigate directly to any phase while recording context and session logs. Use it to formalize handoffs, required artifacts, and responsible agents for each stage.

How this skill works

The skill stores project context and phase state in a central active context file and validates phase-specific quality gates before permitting transitions. Commands start a new project, move to the next phase with gate checks, jump to a named phase after validating intermediate gates, and show current status including gate outcomes and active tasks. On every successful transition it updates the context with timestamps, primary agent, and a session log entry.

When to use it

• Initialize a new application project and capture required identity fields
• Advance the lifecycle only when deliverables and gates are satisfied
• Jump directly to a later phase when all intermediate gates are already met
• Check the current phase, assigned agent, and gate status for audits or planning
• Enforce coding standards and compliance before testing and release

Best practices

• Answer all Project Identity questions when creating a project to avoid blocked gates
• Keep CLAUDE-activeContext.md current: phase, artifacts, and session logs enable accurate validations
• Attach clear evidence for each gate (docs, PRs, tests) so the skill can validate automatically
• Run standards and code compliance checks early in development to reduce rework
• When a gate fails, follow the suggested remediation steps before retrying advancement

Example use cases

• /orchestrate new-project to collect application name, owner, license, and contact before work begins
• /orchestrate next-phase after sprint completion to verify code, tests, and standards are met
• /orchestrate requirements to jump to the Requirements phase when user stories are already documented
• /orchestrate status before planning meetings to report phase, primary agent, and pending gate items
• Use the skill to enforce security and review gates (Security Audit, Code Review) before deployment