Project New

1§ Purpose

Create a complete, ready-to-use project folder by orchestrating the harness's existing skills. Each document is produced by the skill that owns it. This skill handles only what no other skill covers: directory structure, desktop shortcut, and .gitignore.

Projects nest arbitrarily — each project's .claude/projects/ holds child projects of identical structure.

2§ Use when

• User wants to create a new Claude Code project.
• User wants to add a nested sub-project inside an existing project.
• User requests a standard project scaffold.

3§ Hard constraints

• Never create a project without confirming the name with the user first.
• Never create a desktop shortcut without explicit yes/no confirmation.
• Never overwrite an existing directory — stop and report if the target path exists.
• Always delegate document creation to the owning skill — never write README, CHANGELOG, LICENSE, CLAUDE.local.md, or settings files directly.

4§ Decision rules

• Parent directory not specified: use $HOME/.claude/projects/ as default.
• CWD is inside <project>/.claude/projects/: offer that path as parent; confirm.
• Desktop shortcut declined: skip silently, do not re-ask.
• Windows: use WScript.Shell COM object to create a .lnk file on the Desktop.
• macOS/Linux: create a symlink in ~/Desktop/ if that directory exists.

5§ Workflow

1. Confirm the project name. Derive a filesystem-safe slug (lowercase, spaces to hyphens, no special characters). Display name and slug may differ.
2. Determine parent directory: check CWD or default to $HOME/.claude/projects/. Confirm the full target path <parent>/<slug>/ before proceeding.
3. Verify the target path does not exist; stop and report if it does.
4. Ask: "Create a desktop shortcut? (yes/no)"
5. Create the directory tree via PowerShell (Windows) or Bash (macOS/Linux):

   <slug>/
   ├── .claude/
   │   ├── projects/
   │   ├── rules/
   │   │   └── rules.index.toon    ← direct (empty index, header row only)
   │   ├── skills/
   │   │   └── skills.index.toon   ← direct (empty index, header row only)
   │   ├── agents/
   │   │   └── agents.index.toon   ← direct (empty index, header row only)
   │   └── settings.local.json     ← settings skill
   ├── CLAUDE.local.md              ← file-claude skill
   ├── .gitignore                   ← direct (Claude git knowledge)
   ├── LICENSE                      ← file-license skill
   ├── README.md                    ← file-readme skill
   ├── README.de.md                 ← file-readme skill
   ├── CHANGELOG.md                 ← file-changelog skill
   └── PROJECT.md                   ← file-project skill

6. Write directly (no skill needed):
   • .gitignore — write from git knowledge; include standard Node/Python/OS ignores plus .claude/settings.local.json and CLAUDE.local.md.
   • Three empty TOON index files — write each with a # descriptor comment and a header row only; no data rows; no trailing newline (TOON spec):

     # Rules index. TOON format: header row of field names separated by " | ", one rule per subsequent row.
     name | description

     # Skills index. TOON format: header row of field names separated by " | ", one skill per subsequent row.
     name | description

     # Agents index. TOON format: header row of field names separated by " | ", one agent per subsequent row.
     name | description

7. Invoke skills in order — each produces its file into the new project root. Invoke file-claude after the index files exist so it detects the directories and adds discovery and maintenance instructions automatically:
   • settings: create .claude/settings.local.json with empty permissions.
   • file-claude: produce CLAUDE.local.md using the file-claude template; file name is CLAUDE.local.md, not CLAUDE.md.
   • file-license: produce LICENSE (ask copyright holder name).
   • file-readme: produce README.md and README.de.md.
   • file-changelog: produce CHANGELOG.md with a [0.1.0] initial entry.
   • file-project: produce PROJECT.md (create mode; minimal for a fresh scaffold).
8. If desktop shortcut confirmed, run the platform snippet from §5.1.
9. Report: print the full created tree and shortcut path (if created). Note which index files were created and that discovery instructions were added to CLAUDE.local.md.

5.1§ Desktop shortcut snippets

Windows (PowerShell):

$target  = "<ABSOLUTE_PROJECT_PATH>"
$lnkPath = "$env:USERPROFILE\Desktop\<SLUG>.lnk"
$shell   = New-Object -ComObject WScript.Shell
$lnk     = $shell.CreateShortcut($lnkPath)
$lnk.TargetPath       = $target
$lnk.WorkingDirectory = $target
$lnk.Description      = "<PROJECT_NAME> — Claude Code project"
$lnk.Save()

macOS/Linux (Bash):

ln -s "<ABSOLUTE_PROJECT_PATH>" "$HOME/Desktop/<SLUG>"

6§ Output contract

Must include:

• Complete directory tree from §5 step 5
• Three empty TOON index files with descriptor comment and header row only
• All documents produced by their owning skills
• .gitignore written from git knowledge
• User confirmation before any desktop shortcut
• Summary listing every created path

Must not include:

• Directly written README, CHANGELOG, LICENSE, PROJECT.md, or settings content (delegate to skills)
• Desktop shortcuts without explicit confirmation
• Data rows in the empty index files — header row only at scaffold time

7§ Associated documents

• [assets/new-project.example.md] — example of a completed scaffold