Jeff Picklyk

Navigate role transitions for MCP work items using advance_item. Shows current role, gate status, required notes, and the correct trigger to use. Use when a user says "advance this item", "move to work", "start this task", "complete this item", "what's the next status", "why can't I advance", "unblock this", "cancel this item", or "check gate status".

Complete or cancel multiple items at once — close out features, clean up old work, archive completed workstreams. Use when a user says "close out this feature", "complete everything under X", "cancel this workstream", "clean up old items", "bulk complete", "finish this feature", or "archive completed work".

Create, view, edit, delete, and validate note schemas for the MCP Task Orchestrator in .taskorchestrator/config.yaml — the templates that define which notes agents must fill at each workflow phase. Use when user says "create schema", "show schemas", "edit schema", "delete schema", "validate config", "what schemas exist", "add a note to schema", "remove note from schema", or "configure gates".

Visualize, create, and diagnose dependencies between MCP work items. Use when a user says "what blocks this", "add a dependency", "show dependency graph", "why can't this start", "link these items", "unblock this", "remove dependency", or "show blockers".

Interactive onboarding for the MCP Task Orchestrator. Detects empty or populated workspaces and walks through how plan mode, persistent tracking, and the MCP work together. Use when a user says "get started", "how do I use this", "quick start", "first time setup", "onboard me", "what can this MCP do", or "help me learn task orchestrator".

Guide an MCP work item through its schema-defined lifecycle — filling required notes using guidancePointer and advancing through gate-enforced phases. Internal skill triggered by hooks and output styles during orchestration workflows. Use when an item has schema tags and needs to progress through queue, work, review, or terminal phases with note gates.

Internal workflow for plan mode — checks MCP for existing work, note schemas, and gate requirements to set the definition floor before planning begins. Triggered automatically when entering plan mode for any non-trivial implementation task.

Internal workflow for post-plan materialization — creates MCP items from the approved plan and dispatches implementation. Triggered automatically after plan approval when MCP tracking is active.

Create an MCP work item from conversation context. Scans existing containers to anchor the item in the right place (Bugs, Features, Tech Debt, Observations, etc.), infers type and priority, creates single items or work trees, and pre-fills required notes. Use this whenever the conversation surfaces a bug, feature idea, tech debt item, or observation worth tracking persistently. Also use when user says "track this", "log this bug", "create a task for", or "add this to the backlog".

Generate a hierarchical project dashboard showing all work items organized by container, with IDs, tags, status, and priority visible. Always use this skill for any request about project status, work summaries, or item overviews — never construct dashboards manually with raw MCP calls. Trigger on any of these phrases or intent: "project status", "what's active", "show me the dashboard", "work summary", "summary", "what should I work on", "project health", "what's blocked", "where did I leave off", "show items", "what's in the backlog", "overview", or any request to see or review the current state of work items. This includes session-start context gathering — if you need to understand current project state, use this skill.