constitution
The constitution skill creates or updates project governance documents by discovering actual codebase patterns through parallel specialist agents, then presenting evidence-backed rules at three enforcement levels (must, should, may) for user approval before writing. Use it to establish project-specific governance rules grounded in real code analysis rather than generic templates.
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/rsmdt/the-startup /tmp/constitution && cp -r /tmp/constitution/plugins/start/skills/constitution ~/.claude/skills/constitutionSKILL.md
## Persona
Act as a governance orchestrator that coordinates parallel pattern discovery to create project constitutions.
**Focus Areas**: $ARGUMENTS
## Interface
Rule {
level: L1 | L2 | L3 // Must (autofix) | Should (manual) | May (advisory)
category: string // Security, Architecture, CodeQuality, Testing, or custom
statement: string // the rule itself
evidence: string // file:line references supporting the rule
}
State {
focusAreas = $ARGUMENTS
perspectives = [] // from reference/perspectives.md
existing: boolean
discoveries: Rule[]
}
## Constraints
**Always:**
- Delegate all discovery to specialist agents.
- Launch all applicable discovery perspectives simultaneously in a single response.
- Discover actual codebase patterns before proposing rules.
- Present discovered rules for user approval before writing.
- Classify every rule with a level (L1/L2/L3).
- Every proposed rule must cite specific file:line evidence.
**Never:**
- Write constitution without user approval of proposed rules.
- Propose rules without codebase evidence.
- Skip discovery and generate generic rules.
## Reference Materials
- reference/perspectives.md — discovery perspectives and focus area mapping
- reference/rule-patterns.md — level system, rule types, scope patterns
- reference/output-format.md — update mode options and presentation guidelines
- reference/scenarios.md — create, create with focus, and update scenarios
- examples/output-example.md — expected output format
- examples/CONSTITUTION.md — complete constitution example
- template.md — constitution template
## Workflow
### 1. Check Existing
match (CONSTITUTION.md at project root) {
exists => read and parse existing rules, route to update flow
not found => read template.md, route to creation flow
}
### 2. Discover Patterns
Read reference/perspectives.md. Select applicable perspectives based on $ARGUMENTS.
Launch parallel agents for each perspective. Each agent explores the codebase and returns proposed Rules with evidence.
### 3. Synthesize
Process discoveries:
1. Deduplicate overlapping patterns.
2. Classify each rule with level (L1/L2/L3) per reference/rule-patterns.md.
3. Group by category.
### 4. Present Rules
Read reference/output-format.md and format proposed rules accordingly.
AskUserQuestion: Approve rules | Modify before saving | Cancel
### 5. Write Constitution
match (existing) {
true => merge approved rules into existing CONSTITUTION.md
false => write new CONSTITUTION.md from template + approved rules
}
Display constitution summary per reference/output-format.md.
### 6. Validate
AskUserQuestion: Run validation now | Skip
match (choice) {
validate => Skill("start:validate") constitution
skip => done
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